2950 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



and a half millions a year, made np of stoves, iron, and wooden-wares, and all sorts of 

 Yankee inventions; and this amount, under free intercourse, will greatly increase. 



The foreign imports into this district have increased in the last fifteen years from 

 fourteen to forty-six millions of dollars, and our market now offers, or should offer, if 

 we are true to ourselves, every inducement for the inhabitants of the provinces to sup- 

 ply themselves here with foreign dry-goods, teas, groceries, or whatever else they may 

 need. 



In connection with this, your directors cannot refrain from mentioning, incidentally, 

 the great increase which is seen in the amount of goods sent in transit by way of Bos- 

 ton to the Canadas within the past few years from twenty-five thousand dollars in 

 1849, to over five millions in 1654 ; nor from referring to the great facilities afforded by 

 our harbor, by the improvements at East Boston, and the line of railway by which all 

 our roads from Boston may be united as eminently calculated to augment our com- 

 mercial relations, for export as well as import, with the British North American prov- 

 inces, and with our whole Western countries, and as of almost incalculable advantage 

 to our railroads, if they only show themselves capable of doing the business. 



But, in connection with the Reciprocity Treaty, it is to the importance of the fish- 

 eries that your directors wish at this time particularly to call your attention ; seventy 

 per cent, of the tonnage employed in the whale, cod, and mackerel fisheries in the 

 United States belongs to Massachusetts, and Boston is the business center. 



By colonial construction of the Convention between the United States and Great 

 Britain, of 1818, we were excluded from not less thau four thousand miles of fishing- 

 ground. The valuable mackerel fishery is situated between the shore and a line drawn 

 from the St. Croix River, southeast to Seal Island, and extending along the Atlantic 

 coast of Nova Scotia, about three miles from the coast, around Cape Breton, outside 

 Prince Edward Island, across the entrance to the Bay of Chaleur; thence outside the 

 Island of Anticosti to Mt. Joly, on the Labrador coast, where the right of shore-fishing 

 commences. The coasts within these limits, following their several indentations, are 

 not less than four thousand miles in extent, all excellent fishing-grounds. Before the 

 mackerel fishery began to be closely watched and protected, our vessels actually 

 swarmed on the fishing-ground within the spaces inclosed by the line mentioned. 



Each of these vessels made two or three full fares in the season, and some thousands 

 of valuable cargoes were landed every year in the United States, adding largely to 

 our wealth and prosperity. 



A sad contrast has since existed. From Gloucester only one hundred and fifty-six 

 vessels were sent to the Bay of Saint Lawrence in 1853. Of these, not more than one 

 in ten made the second trip, and even they did not get full fares the first trip, but went 

 a second time in the hope of doing better. The principal persons engaged in the busi- 

 ness in Gloucester, estimated that the loss in 1853 amounted to an average of one thou- 

 sand dollars on each vessel, without counting that incurred from detention, delays, 

 and damages from being driven out of the harbor and from waste of time by crews. 

 It was agreed by all parties that if their vessels could have had free access to the fish- 

 ing-grounds, as formerly, the djfierence to that district alone would have been at least 

 four hundred thousand dollars. 



In 1853. there were forty-six vessels belonging to Beverly; thirteen of them went to. 

 the bay in 1852, but owing to the restrictions tneir voyages were wholly unsuccessful, 

 and none of them went in 1853. 



At Salem, only two mackerel licenses were granted in 1853, and at Marblehead only 

 six. 



At Newburyport there are ninety fishing- vessels ; seventy of these went to the bay 

 for mackerel in 1853, but almost all of them, it is said, made ruinous voyages. At 

 Boston, only a dozen licenses were granted for this fishery in 1H53, and very few of the 

 one hundred vessels belonging to the towns of Dennis and Harwich, on Cape Cod, 

 two-thirds of which are engaged in the mackerel fishery, went to the bay for mackerel 

 last year, because of the ill success attending the operations of the year previous. One 

 of their vessels of one hundred tons burthen, manned by sixteen men, was six weeks 

 in the bay in 1853, and returned with only one barrel of mackerel. 



Unless some change bad taken place beneficial to the interests of our hardy fisher- 

 men, the Northern fisheries would have been wholly ruined, and in all probability have 

 entirely ceased, except on a very limited scale on our own shores. The one hundred 

 and fifty thousand tons of shipping employed in those fisheries would have been obliged 

 to Seek employment elsewhere, and the product of the fisheries themselves, amounting 

 to three or four million dollars annually, would have been lost to us. The present j 

 treaty opens to us again all these valuable fisheries, and our thanks are due to the di>- 

 tinguished statesmen who have labored in bringing it to a successful termination ; and 

 your directors are most happy to make mention of the services of Israel D. Andrews, 

 eeq., a gentleman whom we hope to have the pleasure of meeting to-day, who has 

 worked most assiduously for the last four years in collecting and furnishing in liis 

 valuable reports almost all the information possessed on the subject, and without wh<>' 

 exertions, it is hardly too much to say, the treaty would never have been made. 



