176 FISHERIES OF THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC 



do thoroughly what the servants of the H. B. C. from their 

 paucity and inexperience do ineffectually would swarm up 

 our rivers, and with nets, spears, torches, and every other 

 engine of piscine destruction, would kill, burn and mutilate 

 every fish that ventured into the rivers. Already has this 

 been attempted. For the last two or three years schooners 

 from the United States have regularly arrived in the salmon 

 season at the Bay of Seven Islands, their crews well armed, 

 and have set their nets in the river Moisie, in spite of the 

 officers of the H. B. C. Similar circumstances have occurred 

 at other fishing stations in the tributaries of the St. Lawrence ; 

 no means, that I am aware of, having been resorted to for 

 punishing the aggressors or preventing a repetition of their 

 outrages. The River Bersimis has, this year, (1856) been al- 

 together in the hands of a speculating and rapacious Ameri- 

 can, who employed the spear of the Indian to furnish him 

 with mutilated salmon, several boxes of which he brought to 

 this city, in the month of September, when they were out of 

 season, unfit for food and flavorless, having previously glut- 

 ted the markets of Portland, Boston and New York with more 

 palatable fish." 



In March, 1861, the Hon. P. M. Vankoughnet, then Com- 

 missioner of Crown Lands, made the following reference in 

 his annual report to the beneficial 

 effects of the leasing system upon 

 both the salmon and deep sea 

 fisheries : 



"It is alike satisfactory and re- 

 markable, as one of the practical 

 results anticipated from the appli- 

 cation of this system to the salmon 

 fisheries, that it has caused a 

 greater amount of attention to be 

 paid to the deep-sea fisheries. 

 The withdrawal of numbers of 

 ready and experienced hands from Hon Pf Mm vankoughnet. 



