BRITISH, COLONIAL AND OTHER CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 535 



on its western, northern, and eastern coasts, resorting especially to 

 the bays and harbors of the southern shore to transship cargoes and 

 procure supplies; thence into Miramichi Bay, the Bay of Chaleur, 

 and Gaspe Bay; thence around the Magdalen Islands and Anticosti 

 Island; thence up the south shore of the River Saint Lawrence to 

 Father Point, and down the north shore of the river and gulf of 

 Saint Lawrence from Point des Monts to Blanc Sablon Bay. These 

 localities abound with codfish, mackerel, herrings, halibut, haddock, 

 pollack, hake, and a variety of other and smaller fishes used ex- 

 pressly for bait, such as spring-herring, capelin, smelts, sandlaunce, 

 gaspereaux, also such bait as squid and clams. These are the princi- 

 pal descriptions of fish captured by United States citizens in British 

 waters. They generally frequent the inshores, and are there caught 

 in the largest quantities and of the finest quality, and with greater 

 certainty and facility than elsewhere. A considerable portion of the 

 cod-fish taken by American fishermen is doubtless caught on the banks 

 and ledges outside, such as Green, Miscou, Bradelle, and Orphan 

 Banks, and within treaty limits around the Magdalen Islands, and 

 on the southern coast of Labrador. Latterly it has been the practice 

 to use cod-seines close inshore, and to fish with trawls and lines near 

 the coast of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Anticosti. 

 There is also a small portion of the other fishes named taken at 

 various distances from the shore. 



A majority of the fishing-fleet frequenting British waters being 

 fitted almost exclusively for the mackerel fishery, that pursuit will 

 be first considered as to the quantity taken by each vessel. In an 

 ordinary voyage or " trip " from an American port to the Gulf 

 fishing-grounds and back, without the liberty of resorting freely to 

 the bays, creeks, and harbors and the inshores generally, to fish, refit, 

 transship, &c., but with only illicit opportunities to use these privi- 

 leges, the profits of each vessel would be comparatively insignificant ; 

 but being privileged to fish, and to land and refit, and to transfer 

 each fare to steamers or railways in Canada, and afterward to re- 

 plenish stores and resume operations, the vessels would return im- 

 mediately, while the fishing was good, to catch a second fare, which 

 is similarly disposed of, and would often make a third trip before 

 the season closes. Captain P. A. Scott, R. N., of Halifax, Nova Sco- 

 tia, states that these facilities, combined with freedom of inshore 

 fishing, enable each mackerelman to average about 800 barrels per 

 season, worth $12,100. Captain D. M. Brown, R. N., of Halifax, 

 makes the same statement. Captain J. A. Tory, of Guysboro, Nova 

 Scotia, states that it is common, with such advantages, for each vessel 

 to catch from 1,000 to 1,500 barrels of mackerel in three trips. Mr. 

 E. H. Derby estimates the catch of vessels " in the mackerel business 

 from 500 to TOO barrels." Mr. William Smith, late controller of 

 customs at St. John, New Brunswick, now deputy minister of marine 

 and fisheries, computes the catch of mackerel by American vessels 

 at 10 barrels per ton. The late Mr. M. H. Perley, Her Majesty's 

 Commissioner under the treaty of 1854, reports in 1849 having ac- 

 costed five United States vessels actively fishing about three miles 

 from Paspebiac, in Chaleur Bay, and several in Miramichi Bay, 

 having upward of 900 barrels of mackerel each. It appears from a 

 return made by the collector of customs at Port Mulgrave, in the 



