AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 2707 



Q. As a matter you are sure of ? A. Yes ; as far as I can be sure of 

 anything by conversing with fishermen. 



Q. Without any knowledge of your own ? A. That is ajl the knowl- 

 edge I have, and that ought to be enough. 



Q. I want to call your attention to a statement in the Cape Ann 

 Advertiser of January 20, 1877. Before I do so I wish to ask you if it 

 is well understood there is a herring fleet that comes down there every 

 season ? A. Yes ; there are a number of schooners that come down for 

 herring. 



Q. Is it called the herring fleet? A. I don't know whether it is or 

 not. I know they come there to buy herring. 



Q. This paper also says : 



The number of fishing arrivals reported at this port the past week has been four- 

 teen ten from the Banks and La Have, and four from Grand Mauan. The New Brans- 

 wick herring-fleet bring good cargoes, and the supply, being greater than will be 

 needed to bait the fishing fleets, will be marketed in part in other markets. 



That shows they go down to get bait ? A. Yes ; because it is frozen 

 herring they get for bait. They bait the vessels for going on the Grand 

 Banks. 



Q. Is this true ? I am reading now from " The Fisheries of Glouces- 

 ter from 1623 to 1876," published by Procter Bros., of Gloucester, in 

 1876: 



The Newfoundland and New Brunswick herring fisheries, of comparatively recent 

 origin, while not unattended with hardship and danger, became at once an important 

 auxiliary of the Georges and Banks fisheries, and have been pursued unremittingly 

 from the start. 



A. I don't know anything about the Newfoundland herring fishery. 



Q. Then about New Brunswick ? A. I know they come there every 

 winter. 



Q. Do you deny that ! A. It connects Newfoundland and New Bruns- 

 wick. There may be hardships and dangers attending the Newfound- 

 laud fishery. I don't know about that. 



Q. There is no hardship, in your estimation, about the Newfoundland 

 fishery! A. No. 



Q. You think the writer would connect New Brunswick with New- 

 foundland, and say there are hardships when he only meant it was in 

 Newfoundland that hardships were incurred f A. 1 don't know what 

 he meant. 



Q. He says that in that enterprise there were dangers and hard- 

 ships ? A. It' may be very well for a man sitting in his room to write 

 such an article. 



Q. Probably such a man could write this of the fisheries as a man 

 living at Eastport could speak of the fishing at Grand Manan, when he 

 had never been there ? A. No ; only he had not been engaged in the 

 fishing business for 20 years, as I have been. 



Q. You never did any fishing round Grand Manan and never saw 

 it ? A. But I have bought the tish and had conversations with fisher- 

 men. 



Q. In the same article as I have read, it says further : 



During the present season herring have been shipped hence to Sweden, at a good 

 profit, and it is not impossible that this may prove the initial step toward the resump- 

 tion of exportation of fish to foreign ports, an important industry of tne port in the 

 early days of its fishing enterprise. 



Do you agree with that ? A. That is correct ; the herring are put up 

 at Eastport. 

 Q. They are put up at Eastport and sent to Gloucester? A. Yes 



