204 



system," a few years ago, estimated that the common fishermen shared 

 three hundred and thirty dollars each, in addition to the bounty, for 

 three and a half months' labor. He was mistaken. A gentleman of 

 Gloucester, who had been engaged in the fisheries for a considerable 

 period, made an accurate calculation, by which it appeared that the 

 average earnings was only one hundred and fifty-seven dollars for a man, 

 and seventy-nine dollars for a hoy, for five and a half months'' service in the 

 cod-fishery, and three and a half months'' in the mackerel fishery, or for the 

 whole wording year of nine months. By adding the bounty to the earn- 

 ings, the share, per man, was increased to one hundred and seventy- 

 five dollars. In the proceedings of a public meeting of citizens of the 

 same town, subsequently, it is stated that the average earnings for the 

 ten previous years had hardly been one hundred and forty dollars in, 

 a season, for each man. 



In the "Memorial of citizens of Marblehead against the repeal of the 

 fishing bounty," &c., presented to the Senate of the United States, 

 March, 1846, the misrepresentations made on the subject of the amount 

 earned by fishermen are thus answered: "And though it has been 

 stated before your honorable body, in support of an effort to repeal the 

 aid and protection which the present la^vs afford, that the poor fisher- 

 man earns his five hundred dollars for what is called " his three and a half 

 months' labor," yet your memoriahsts well know that there is no truth 

 in the assertion. The fishermen of this town, engaged in the bank cod- 

 fishery, are usually employed from March to November and December, 

 from the time they begin the labor of fitting the vessel for sea, until 

 they return to their winter quarters, being a period of eight months on 

 an average; and your memorialists Kver,from their own personal know- 

 ledge, that it is no uncommon occurrence for fishermen to he thus constantly toil- 

 hig through the working portioii of the year, and not earn a single dollar 

 (bounty and all included) over and above their outfit, expenses, and the ad- 

 vances during their absence.* And it is thus that, in seasons of scarcity, 

 it often happens that crews cannot be obtained by vessels engaged in 

 the business, except the owner will first guaranty that they shall make 

 something (a sum to be first agreed on) in return for their labor, over 

 and above their shares of fish, after deducting the outfits of the voy- 

 age." "It is true," continue these memorialists, "that in seasons w^hen 

 fish happen to be plenty, and a good market is obtained for them, that 

 in such cases both owners and fishermen realize a remunerating profit 

 for their capital and their labor. But this state of things is rare rather 

 than otherwise ; and such is the uncertainty, and, as it were, lottery 

 nature of the business, that, in lookinsr around amons: those who have been 



* Fishenuen eometimes pui-sue their avocation when of very advanced age. A remarkable 

 instance occurred in 1842, when the schooner Elizabeth Rebecca arrived at Beverly with a 

 full fare of fish ; her master, Isaac Preston, being seventy-two, and one of the crew upwards 

 of eighty years old. The late Captain Andrew Harrington, of Eastport, Maine, an excellent 

 man, used the hook and line without intermission for half a centuiy. 



There was a jubilee at Ghent in 1841, in honor of a fisherman who had followed his avocation 

 for fifty years ; his companions repaired to his house, accompanied with twenty violin and 

 trumpet players, and after greetiug the old man partook of a plentiful feast. 



In Wade's Histoiy of England there is an account of one Henry Jenkins, a poor fisherman 

 of Yorkshire, who, born in the year 1500, lived in the reigns of eight kings and queens, and 

 died in 1670, at the age of one hundred and seventy years. Wade speaks also of John 

 Chambers, an English fisherman, who died in 1752, aged ninety-nine years. 



