66 



three harbors can be entered in sailing a distance of twelve miles. The 

 owners of American vessels often lose the use of their property, and the 

 expenses of outfits besides. The proprietors of estates in the colonies 

 where mackerel seines are used, receive, on the other hand, hundreds of 

 barrels of the fish caught in the waters appurtenant thereto for the rent 

 of these waters, and the privilege of dressing, salting, and packing on 

 the shores. To secure two, four, six, and even eight hundred barrels 

 at a time, it is onl}'- necessary to set a seine, to tend it, and, at the pro- 

 per moment, to draw it to the shore. Competition without protection, 

 when such rewards as these await the colonial fishermen and land 

 owners, who expend nothing whatever for vessels, and whose whole 

 outlay involves little beyond the cost and wear of seines and the loss 

 of time for short periods in a season, is, I think, impossible. The lot 

 of those of our countrymen who live by the use of the hook and line 

 is hard enough at best. The battles which they have fought, and 

 which, in the course of events, they may be required to fight, ought to 

 prevent their utter ruin. The topic will be resumed elsewhere. 



Macgregor, in his "Progress of America," published in 1S47, thus 

 spealis of occurrences at Crow Harbor and Fox Island, two of the 

 favorite resorts of mackerel in Nova Scotia. " These places," he re- 

 marks, "while the fishing season lasts, are generally the scenes of the 

 most lawless disorder and licentiousness, occasioned by the violence of 

 the fishermen contending for the best places to haul the seines ashore ; 

 the pillaging of the fish; the selling and drinking of rum ; the smuggling 

 of goods by the Americans ; and often from the mere spirit of spoliation 

 and mischief. A ship-of-war has been occasionally sent round from 

 Halifax to preserve some sort of order among the multitudes of men, 

 boats, and schooners that resort to these harbors," &c., &c. 



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