2014 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



Q. Then, I understand you made your last voyage, with the ex- 

 ception of your own immediate locality, in 1851 ? A. I have never been 

 in the waters east of Cape Sable since that. I lost my vessel then, and 

 we went home and built a new vessel, in which I took part and went 

 halibut fishing in the spring, and for mackerel in the first summer. 

 Next season we went for halibut we were all the spring and all the sum- 

 mer on the Nantucket Shoals and George's, and oue time we came down 

 and fished off Seal Island ground, just westward of Seal Island, and 

 got two trips, that we carried to New York. On that occasion we saw 

 the tower of the light-house of Seal Island, but, if I remember right, I 

 could not see the light when it was lit. Then I went on our own coast 

 ever since. 



Q. All I want to know is this, whether you had any practical expe- 

 rience or knowledge in reference to the fisheries, except in your imme- 

 diate neighborhood, since 1851 ; that is a simple question. In other 

 words, have you carried on fishing yourself personally since 1851, except 

 in the immediate neighborhood of your own residence ? A. Well, never, 

 except in those two trips to Seal Island. The rest I have been on the 

 coast of Massachusetts. For ten years, from 1856 to 1866, 1 had a little 

 smack with a well in her, and my boys made a crew, and we fished 

 around Cape Cod and my own home. I have fished and bought fish. 



Q. Then all the evidence you have been giving relative to the cod- 

 fishery and the mackerel since 1851 has been simply what you have 

 heard from others ? A. "What I have heard and known from others. 



Q. What you have heard from others ; that is the case, is it not ! 

 A. Well, when I relate anything 



Q. I certainly wish you to answer yes or no. A. Well, we say we 

 don't know anything unless we see it. Is that so ! 



Q. I should say. A. You say so. If you mean to take it in that light 

 you understand that I don't know that the royal mail-steamers go to 

 England. I have never been there; but I have a desire to go, and I 

 hope I may, for I want to see the Eastern World. But I consider I know 

 just about as much of what I have stated about the Grand Bank fishery 

 here as I know about the royal mail. 



Q. I have no doubt you believe what you have stated ? A. I do ; and 

 I have been trying in my own humble way to do something in the inter- 

 est of the fisheries in the lectures I have given from time to time. I 

 have collected statistics, and got a good deal together that I consider 

 perfectly reliable. 



Q. You have perfect confidence in what has been told you? A. When 

 I see a vessel fit out with 200 hogsheads of salt and everything necessary 

 to prosecute a cod-fishing voyage, and she comes home with fish instead 

 of salt, I believe she has been on the Grand Banks, and 1 state that 

 such a vessel went to the Grand Banks. 



Q. Well, in your day, when you went to the Banks, there was nothing 

 but salt clam bait used ! A. That is all. 



Q. Well, is salt clam bait used now, or is it frozen bait ! A. Salt bait 

 is still used. 



Q. Do you know no bait except that used by your fishermen ? A. 

 They use squid when they go into Newfoundland'. 



Q. Have you been informed of any other bait they use! A. They 

 use all the birds they can get, and Bank clams taken from the stomach 

 of fish. 



Q. Clams, birds, and squid. Is there any other bait! A. Well, I 

 feel confident our fishermen don't use any other. When I went to the 

 Bank the Marblehead fishermen (that was the great fishing port then), 



