316 APPENDIX TO BRITISH COUNTER CASE. 



banks, ledges, and shoals that are to be found; and it is there, as I 

 shall have the honor to point out to the court more particularly here- 

 after, that they have always been caught in the largest quantities, 

 and the best of them, by American fishermen. 



There are one or two experienced witnesses from Gloucester who 

 have dealt with the subject carefully for their own interests, not 

 testifying for any particular purpose, but having kept their books 

 and accounts and dealt with the mackerel in their own business, 

 whose words I would like to recall to the attention of the court for 

 a few moments. 



Captain Maddocks, of Gloucester, on page 135 of the American 

 Evidence, testifies as follows: 



From my experience my judgment leads me to think that our vessels would 

 get full as many, if not more, by staying outside of the three-mile range 

 190 altogether. By going inshore they may sometimes get a spurt of 

 mackerel, but they are then liable to go farther into the harbors and lose a 

 good deal of time; whereas if they would fish farther off they would save a 

 good deal of time. I think that for ten or twenty years back they might 

 have caught, well, somewhere from a tenth to a fifteenth part of the mackerel 

 within the three-mile range. I don't know but they have. I don't think any- 

 thing more than a tenth part certainly. 



Joseph O. Proctor, of Gloucester, on page 196, says : 



From the best of my judgment, the knowledge I have where my vessels have 

 been, and conversation with the masters of the vessels, I believe that not one- 

 eighth of the mackerel have been caught within ; I should say less, and I should 

 not say more. It is nearer a tenth than an eighth. 



Q. Do you know where the bulk is caught? A. At the Magdalenes, or be- 

 tween the Magdalenes and Cheticamp. 



Capt. Ezra Turner, of Gloucester, page 226, testifies : 



Q. Have you ever fished off Prince Edward Island? A. Yes; I have fished 

 all around the east side, wherever anybody fished. 



Q. Did you fish within three miles of the shore there? A. No; it is a rare 

 thing that ever you get mackerel within the three miles. When they come 

 within three miles they rise in schools, and we never calculate to do much out 

 of them ; but from four to six and seven miles off is the common fishing-ground 

 there. 



The Commissioners will recollect the testimony of Mr. Myrick, an 

 American merchant, who had established himself on Prince Edward 

 Island. The inshore fishery, he said, is not suited to American ves- 

 sels. Our vessels are large; they are built at a distance; they are 

 manned by sixteen or seventeen men; they cost a great deal; they 

 require large catches, and dealing with fish in large quantities; they 

 deal at wholesale altogether, and not at retail. Retailing would ruin 

 them. Anything short of large catches, large amounts would be 

 their end, and compel all the merchants to give up the business, or to 

 take to boat-fishing, which, of course, Gloucester, or Massachusetts, 

 or New England, or any part of the United States could not under- 

 take to carry on here. It has been stated to the tribunal, by expe- 

 rienced men, as you cannot but remember, that our fishermen object 

 to going very near shore in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. There are 

 perils of weather connected with the coast which cannot be set aside 

 by ridicule. Gloucester is a town full of widows and orphans, whose 

 husbands and parents have laid their bones upon this coast, and 

 upon its rocks and reefs trusting too much to the appearance of fine 

 weather, as we all did last night, waking up this morning in a tern- 



