648 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 



dispatch of the 2d instant, No. 66, on the subject, from the commer- 

 cial agent of the United States at St. Pierre, Miquelon. 

 I am, &c., 



WM. M. EVARTS. 



[Jnclosure.] 



Mr. McLauglilin to Mr. Seward. 



No. 66.] COMMERCIAL AGENCY, U. S. A., 



St. Pierre, Miquelon, April 8, 1878. 



SIR : I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your dispatch (No. 

 49) under date 21st February, from which I learn that a report has 

 been made to the Department of State to the effect that a number 

 of American vessels had been obliged to leave Fortune Bay on account 

 of the antagonism of the fishermen in that bay, who " cut their cables 

 and set their vessels adrift ; " and further, that " some fourteen or 

 more vessels (American) had been compelled by the natives to retire 

 from the bay " without their cargoes, and that " Captain Jacobs, of 

 schooner Moses Adams, had been compelled to defend himself and 

 vessel from the assaults which were made upon him." 



I beg, very respectfully, to observe that Long Harbor in Fortune 

 Bay, the locality in which the difficulties occurred, is distant from St. 

 Pierre about 90 miles, and that during the winter months there is 

 almost a complete cessation of communication between that harbor 

 and St. Pierre, and that no intimation of the matters alluded to in 

 your dispatch came to my knowledge until through the Newfound- 

 land and Nova Scotian journals, long after the difficulties occurred, 

 which will account for my not having made it my duty to report to 

 the Department on the subject. 



Since the reception of your dispatch, which came to hand on 21st 

 March, I have been enabled to obtain information from several par- 

 ties, and among others, from an eye-witness to the matter in which. 

 Captain Jacobs was an actor, and the following (or as nearly as I 

 can obtain it) is, I believe, reliable information: 



On Sunday, January 13, three crews of American schooners, assisted 

 by some Newfoundlanders, put out their seines to haul herring; they 

 all succeeded in getting large quantities in their seines, when the 

 fishermen of the bay (Newfoundlanders) gathered together and went 

 to each of the captains and demanded that they should let the her- 

 ring go out of their seines, under the pretext that as they (the 

 natives) did not seine on the Sabbath, and as it was contrary to law, 

 they would not allow it to be done by foreigners. The first captain 

 they addressed (Capt. James McDonald, of schooner F. A. Smith) 

 acceded to their demands and took up his seine; the second, Captain 

 Jacobs, of schooner Moses Adams, had in the meantime run his her- 

 ring into another seine belonging to a seine-master (Mr. Farroll, of 

 Fortune Bay, who was working with him, and which was moored 

 inside of his own) ; he took up his own seine into his boat, but refused 

 to let the herring out of the other one. On some threatening lan- 

 guage beinpr used by the fishermen, he drew a revolver and declared 

 he would shoot the first man who would seek to injure him or his 

 seine; he finally rowed aboard his schooner, which was moored at a 



