AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



lu the house of assembly, 20th March, 1838. 



S. G. W. ARCHIBALD, 



Speaker of the Atitembly, 



No. 5. 



Proceedings of the general assembly of Nora Scotia upon the conrfntion 

 concluded between His Majesty and the United Mate* nf America, pub- 

 lished by order of both houses in general session, at Hall fax, in (nrit 

 1819. 



HALIFAX, ss : 



Robert Molleson Cutler, of Guysborough, in the county of Guyshorongh, 

 esquire, a member of Her Majesty's legislative council for the Province 

 of Nova Scotia, maketh oath and sayeth : That he had been engaged 

 upward of thirty years in commerce and the fisheries of Canso, Fox 

 Island, and Crow Harbor, in Chedabncto Bay, where, until within the 

 last four or five years, immense quantities of mackerel were annually 

 caught and taken in seines and nets by persons resorting thither from 

 various parts of this and the neighboring provinces ; that since the citi- 

 zens of the United States have prosecuted the mackerel fisheries to any 

 extent in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, those of Chedabucto Bay, aforesaid, 

 have every year gradually decreased, and are now so seriously injured 

 that they are no longer considered by merchant or fisherman an object of 

 profitable pursuit; that being apprehensive the almost entire failure of 

 the fisheries in the said bay would compel many of the fishermen, resident 

 on its shores, to abandon in utter despair an occupation no longer 

 likely to yield them adequate support, and cause them to remove with 

 their families to a foreign land ; and being desirous of ascertaining the 

 practicability of prosecuting from the bay the mackerel fisheries upon the 

 system on which they are now carried on by American subjects in British 

 waters, this deponent, by way of experiment and to stimulate others to 

 follow his example, sailed from Guysborough, aforesaid, in the month of 

 August last, in a vessel equipped and manned by him for the purpose, on 

 a mackerel voyage to the Gulf of St. Lawrence aforesaid, where he re- 

 mained about five weeks fishing, sometimes on the shores of Cai>e Bre- 

 ton and Prince Edward Island, within the distance of three miles, and at 

 other times within a half a mile of the shore ; that he frequently observed 

 American vessels in numbers of from fifty to seventy along the shores of 

 Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island, many of which were fishing 

 within the distance of three miles therefrom ; that it is the almost in- 

 variable practice of the American fishermen to make a harbor every 

 Saturday night and remain at anchor until the Monday morning follow- 

 ing ; that during his said voyage this deponent frequently an :hored in the 

 harbors of Prince Edward Island and under Marguerite Island, distant 

 about four miles from the shore, and at Port Hood, in the Island of Cape 

 Breton, in company with from forty to sixty American fishing vessel*, 

 vhich seemed to enter the said harbors as freely and with' as little re- 

 straint as the vessels of British subjects; that this deponent is now per 

 fectly satisfied from actual observation that the manner ami system 

 which the citizens of the United States prosecutf the mackerel I 

 the shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in numbers almost iner* 

 must be in the highest degree injurious to the net and seine ti 

 ried on by British fishermen on the eastern shores of Nova Scotia ; 



