1462 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



hesitates not to declare it as his deliberate opinion that if prompt and 

 effectual measures be not soon adopted to prevent encroachments upon 

 our coasts, and the open violation of existing treaties by the fishermen of 

 the United States, the hitherto important and valuable net and seine 

 fishery of Chedabucto Bay, and of ^ova Scotia generally, already so 

 much diminished, will ere long be entirely destroyed. 



R. M. CUTLER. 



Sworn to at Halifax this 23d March, 1838. 



JOHN LIDDELL, J. P. 



GOVERNMENT HOUSE, 

 Fredericton, January 27, 1838. 



SIR: "With reference to the subject of your excellency's communica- 

 tion of the 10th instant, and the document by which it was accompanied, 

 1 have the honor herewith to transmit a copy of information upon oath 

 from two most respectable individuals of this province, detailing in very 

 clear and forcible terms the unwarrantable proceedings of American 

 fishing-vessels within our waters on the northeast coast of this province. 

 These informations, resting on uo equivocal authority, I should feel 

 obliged by your excellency taking an opportunity of communicating to 

 his excellency the vice admiral commanding in chief Her Majesty's 

 naval forces on the North American station. 

 I have, &c., 



J. HARVEY. 

 His Excellency Maj. Gen. Sir COLIN CAMPBELL, K. C. B., 



etc., etc. 



[Inclosure in Xo. 6.] 



NEW BRUNSWICK : 



Duncan Hay, of Carraqnette, in the county of Gloucester, in the Province of New 

 Brunswick, British North America, yeoiuau, and Charles Coughlau, of the same place, 

 yeoman, make oath and state as follows: 



First, the said Duncan Hay deposed and saith that he has lived in Carraqnette, in 

 the Bay of Chaleur, in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, for three years last past, and that 

 during that period and for three years before was personally employed in carrying on 

 the fishery at Point Miscou, being the outermost point of the island of Miscou, a fish- 

 ing station very much resorted to by the inhabitants on both sides the Bay des Cha- 

 leurs as well as other British settlements both in this Province of New Brunswick as 

 well as Nova Scotia, embracing a line of coast of nearly 100 miles; that for the whole 

 of the period of time above mentioned the said fishing-grounds have been during the 

 fishing-season frequented by great numbers of American fishermen, who are in the 

 constant habit of coming within the line marked out by the treaty subsisting between 

 the British and American Governments, and in so doing interfering with the British 

 fishermen, to their very great detriment and the prevention of their taking fish, the 

 destruction in a great measure of the beneficial use of the said fishery by British sub- 

 jects, and dispersing the shoals of fish. That this deponent has witnessed every year, 

 Irom the commencement and during the continuance of the fishing season, in the 

 mouths of June and July, American fishing-vessels, varying in numbers from 30, 40, 

 50, and sometimes 100 at a time, actively employed in taking fish, and, not content with 

 so doing in the deep waters, they approach within the small bays and close in with, 

 the shore, as well for catching fish as for the purpose of taking bait, without which 

 latter the fishing cannot be carried on, and in so doing frequently directly interfere 

 with the inhabitants and British fishermen, and, in some instances, being the most 

 numerous, and, therefore, not to be restrained or prevented, take such bait out of 

 the nets and seines used by the said inhabitants for taking such bait, and also by the 

 number of vessels extended in continuous lines in positions that break up and turn 

 the shoals of fish from entering the different bays and places of resort to which the 



