H. 



OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE FROM THE YEARS 1K"7 TO 

 1872, INCLUSIVE, SHOWING THE ENCROACHMENTS OF 

 UNITED STATES FISHERMEN IN BRITISH NOKTH AM Kill- 

 CAN WATERS SINCE THE CONCLUSION OF TBE CON- 

 VENTION OF 1818. 



No. 1. 



[Extract of dispatch from the Right Hon. Earl of Dalbousie to the Ri^lit lion. Karl 

 Bathurst, dated Quebec, June d, 147. ] 



" The nomination of the superintendent of the fisheries in Gaspe, obliges 

 me to ask of your lordship some more accurate information on that sub- 

 ject than I have been able to obtain here, even from the officers of the 

 oavy whom I have had any opportunity of conversing with upon it, and 

 who have been employed in cruising in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, for 

 the protection of our fisheries. 



"Your lordship knows that repeated complaints have been made by 

 those occupied in the fisheries along the shores of Gaspo and Bay 

 Chaleurs, that they have been for the last ten years wholly overpow- 

 ered by the American fishing- vessels which resort there annually; an 

 average of 1,500 sail pass at Canso into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, 

 spreading early in the season along the Labrador shore, high up in the 

 salmon fisheries, near the rivers of the Mingan and Seven Islands, then 

 to the Magdalen Islands and Cape Breton shore, and latterly coming 

 down upon the Gaspe" shore, Orphan Bank, and north shore of Priuce 

 Edward Island, completely driving the British fishermen out of their 

 way." 



No. 2. 



HER MAJESTY'S SHIP ALLIGATOR, 



Halifax, Sovembtr I), ISL'7. 



SIR : In compliance with your orders, I have the honor to inform you 

 that the night after I left this place I anchored oft' Canso light house, 

 and the next day visited the light-house and the Fox Islands. The Fox 

 Islands I found had been perfectly quiet for some time, and the broils 

 which had taken place seem to have been very much exaggerated, and 

 only to have been such as must always occur in a place where .'i,(KM men 

 (for that, I understand, is the number congregated there in the fishing 

 season) of different nations, English, Irish, and French, meet togett 

 without any legal authority to control them. The priest who has lately 

 been sent there seems to have great influence, and will, I have no douli 

 be the means of preserving tranquillity. I met the Chebucto iw I 

 coming away, and Captain Potter informed me that they had been p?i 

 fectly quiet "since he had been there. The light-house, which I 

 the same day, appears to be kept in perfect order, and very clean, by 

 92 F * 



