AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1679 



any particular purpose, but having kept their books and accounts and 

 dealt with the mackerel in their own business, whose words I would 

 like to recall to the atteution of the court for a few moments. 



Captain Haddocks, of Gloucester, on page 135 of the American Evi- 

 dence, testifies as follows : 



From my experience my judgment leads me to think that onr vessels would get full 

 as many, if not more, by staying outside of the three-mule range altogether. By going 

 inshore they may sometimes get a spurt of mackerel, but they are then liable to go farther 

 into the harbors and lose a good deal of time ; whereas if they would fish farther off 

 they would save a good deal of time. I think that for ten or twenty years back they 

 might have caught, well, somewhere from a ti-nth to a fifteenth part of the mackerel 

 within the three-mile range. I don't know but they have. I don't think anything 

 more than a tenth part certainly. 



" Joseph O. Proctor, of Gloucester, on page 196, says : 



From the best of my judgment, the knowledge I have where my vessels have been, 

 and conversation with the masters of the vessels, I believe that not one-eighth of the 

 mackerel have been caught within ; I should say less, and I should not say more. It 

 is nearer a tenth than au eighth. 



Q. Do you know where the bulk is Caught? A. At the Magdalenes, or between the 

 Magdalenes and Cheticamp. 



Capt. Ezra Turner, of Gloucester, page 226, testifies : 



Q. Have you ever fished off Prince Edward Island ? A. Yes ; I have fished all ronnd 

 the east side, wherever anybody fished. 



Q. Did you fish within three miles of the shore there? A. No ; it is a rare thing 

 that ever you get mackerel within the three miles. When they come within three 

 miles they rise in schools, and we never calculate to do much out of them ; but from 

 four to six and seven miles off is the common fishing-ground there. 



The Commissioners will recollect the testimony of Mr. Myrick, au 

 American merchant, who had established himself on Prince Edward 

 Island. The inshore fishery, he said, is not suited to American vessels. 

 Our vessels are large; they are built at a distance; they are manned 

 by sixteen or seventeen men ; they cost a great deal; they require large 

 catches, and dealing with fish in large quantities; they deal at whole- 

 sale altogether, and not at retail. Itetailing would ruin them. Any- 

 thing short of large catches, large amounts, would be their end, and 

 compel all the merchants to give up the business, or to take to boat-fish- 

 ing, which, of course, Gloucester, or Massachusetts, or New England, 

 or any part of the United States could not undertake to carry on here. 

 It has been stated to the tribunal, by experienced men, as you cannot 

 but remember, that our fishermen object to going very near shore in the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence. There are perils of weather connected with the 

 coast which cannot be set aside by ridicule. Gloucester is a town full 

 of widows and orphans, whose husbands and parents have laid their 

 bones upon this coast, and upon its rocks and reefs, trusting too much 

 to the appearance of fine weather, as we all did last ni^ht, waking up 

 this morning in a tempest. Gloucester has tried to provide for these 

 bereft people, by- every fisherman voluntarily paying a small percentage 

 of his earnings to constitute a widows' and orphans' fund. Even the 

 tempestuous Magdalen Islands are safer for vessels than are the inshore 

 coasts of those islands, where we are now permitted to fish ; their har- 

 bors are poor, their entrances are shallowed by sand-bars, which are 

 shifting, which shift with every very high wind, and sometimes with 

 the season. They are well enough after you get inside of them, but 

 they are dangerous to enter to persons inexperienced, dangerous to any 

 by night; and if a vessel is caught near the shore by a wind blowing 

 inshore, against which she cannot beat with sails, for none of tbem carry 

 steam, then she is in immediate peril. They therefore give a wide berth 

 to the inshore fisheries in the main. They resort to them only occasion- 

 ally. They are not useful for fishing with our seines. We find that the 



