562 MISCELLANEOUS 



ing well that season ; but by limiting the time of catching to the 15th 

 of July, a great mischief arises to those who endeavour to obtain it. 

 and stay on the banks till that time, as the caplin bait always come 

 into the harbors the first week in July, and the Cod will not take the 

 salted bait of the former year after the fresh comes in. By my 

 banker's waiting in hopes of the Bounty last year he lost at least 

 .200. and one of them only caught Fish enough to obtain it before 

 the loth of July. The obligation imposed on the traders to find a 

 passage home for their Fishermen, and the appropriation of forty 

 shillings of their wages for that purpose, though intended, as he 

 before observed, to secure the Fishermen's return to England, has 

 been the occasion of many being left there ; for it is to be considered, 

 that the expence of earring out Fishermen, as well as that of bring- 

 ing them home, is so much addition to their wages, and therefore a 

 Fisherman taken out and brought home stands his employer in four 

 pounds more than he would have done if he had hired him at New- 

 foundland, and left him there. Besides, although the trader is 

 obliged to find the Fisherman he carries out a passage home, the 

 Fisherman is not obliged to take his passage in the ship he provides, 

 but may ship himself in any other, and send the master to his em- 

 ployer for the forty shillings, so that the trader might be obliged to 

 pay forty shillings a head for sending home his Fishermen at the 

 same time his own ship went home in ballast, if he provided one. 

 Are then the traders to be blamed for not providing ships to carry 

 home their Fishermen, or for leaving as many of them in the country 

 as are willing to stay? Or is it strange that many are willing to 

 stay and cut wood all the winter for those who will supply them with 

 provisions, without wages, under the promise of being employed the 

 following season as Fishermen? 



These mistaken regulations, together with the exaction of fees, and 

 the detention of vessels for clearances at the Custom-house, and 

 still more, the discovery that the Governor's commission did not 

 authorize him to determine civil causes, though all discouragements 

 to the Fishery, would not have occasioned its decline, if they had not 

 been aided by more important causes, which have arisen or obtained a 

 powerful operation to its disadvantage since the fatal treaty of 1783. 

 By that treaty the North American colonies, now become independent 

 states, are permitted to fish not only upon the banks of Newfound- 

 land, but in all the bays, creeks, and rivers of that island, as of Nova 

 Scotia and Cape Breton, as well as upon their own banks of St. 

 George ; and as they can build and fit out ships cheaper, pay less for 

 their provisions, and less wages to their seamen and Fishermen than 

 the British trader can or does, they can sell their Fish for a less price 

 than he can afford to take, and they have accordingly almost beat 

 out the British traders from all the markets on the coast of the Atlan- 

 tic; and although the Barbary States are at war with them, they 

 find means to procure Mediterranean passes through their friends in 

 Nova Scotia, to protect them in carrying their Fish within the 

 Streights, where it is preferred to the Newfoundland bank Fish. 

 Another rival has also risen up to the British Fishery in the Danes or 

 Norwegians, who have established a Fishery at Iceland, and cure 

 their Fish taken in the winter by freezing instead of salting and 

 drying it, and it is found to answer for present use, and comes much 

 cheaper than the British Fish. These facts can be proved by letters 



