DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 237 



esty's Ministers, to withhold any concessions either on the ground of 

 favour or of right until the points in question shall have received a 

 full judicial investigation and decision. 



In seeking the preservation of every right in favour of the colony 

 and its trade and fisheries in a matter of so deep interest as that under 

 consideration which the treaty of 1818, will legally sustain, the prov- 

 ince is well warranted by the policy pursued by the American Govern- 

 ment in protecting their own fisheries by the imposition of prohibi- 

 tory duties which exclude the produce of the British fisheries from 

 the extensive markets of the United States and give to the fisherman 

 of that country an advantage more than commensurate with the ben- 

 efits which the Nova Scotia fishermen derive from all the advantages 

 they enjoy. 



The mischiefs attendant on the interference of the Americans with 

 the fisheries in the Bay of Fundy are so great and the fisheries are of 

 so large importance and value to the inhabitants of that part of the 

 province as to demand for the subject the fullest investigation, and 

 lead to the hope that Her Majesty's Government will not yield to the 

 claims of the American Minister until the case in all its bearings 

 shall be fully exhibited and substantiated on the part of the people 

 of these provinces, so deeply interested in its results. The schools 

 of fish enter the Bay of Fundy for the purpose of passing into the 

 basin and river of Annapolis the basin of Mines and Colchester Bay 

 and Chignecto Bay and other inlets at the head of the Bay of Fundy 

 and the various rivers that fall into these basins and inlets. There 

 the inhabitants follow the shore fishery and take herring alewives 

 mackerel salmon and shad sometimes in quantities sufficient for con- 

 siderable exportation but always, when the fisheries are not injured 

 by foreign intrusion, to an extent most beneficial and necessary for 

 their own consumption; and under regulations calculated to prevent 

 the fish from being driven from their natural resort to the rivers. 



The American fishermen on the contrary intercept and destroy or 

 disperse the schools on their approach to the shores by means of 

 seines of great size sometimes hardly less than a mile in length 

 managed between two vessels, or by means of gigging, as it is called, 

 which is conducted by trailing lines with a multitude of hooks at- 

 tached thro' the schools of fish by which many are captured but more 

 are mangled and mutilated. 



The consequence has been that the fish having been driven from 

 their resort to the shores and inlets the fisheries have at times been 

 nearly destroyed, and the foreign fisherman forced for want of suc- 

 cess to discontinue his visits to the Bay. The effect has been seen 

 in the revival of the fishery until again checked by the return of the 

 former causes: and the diminished quantities now caught compared 

 with what it is known the people were many years ago in the habit 

 of taking, may be traced to the abiding effects of these causes. 



Besides this consideration it is worthy of continual remembrance in 

 treating of this subject that the licensed introduction of the American 

 fishermen into the Bay of Fundy is equivalent to his unlicensed but 

 active and extensive intrusion on the coasts and in the basins and 

 mouths of the rivers to take bait and fish ; The one is the inevitable 

 and the very injurious concomitant of the other. When the American 

 fishermen shall be at liberty to enter the Bay of Fundy to fish, there 

 will exist no means within the reach of the Provincial Government 



