PERIOD FROM 1871 TO 1905. 673 



Mr. Evarts to Mr. Babson. ^ 



DEPARTMENT or STATE, 



Washington, August 5, 1879. 



SIR : Arrangements have been made by which the naval steamship 

 Kearsarge, under the command of Commander Henry F. Picking, 

 will spend some weeks in cruising over the fishing grounds resorted 

 to by our fishing fleet in the waters of Newfoundland and the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence. You are desired to join that vessel at Shediack, 

 New Brunswick, in company with Alfred D. Foster, esq., of Boston, 

 with as little delay as possible. The vessel will be there ready to 

 receive you, and Commander Picking will have been advised of the 

 duty assigned you and Mr. Foster, as set forth in the instructions 

 given you. 



The general purpose of this cruise of the Kearsarge is to examine 

 the condition and conduct of our fishing interest in those waters ; to 

 observe the methods and equipage of our fishermen as used in the 

 fisheries within three miles of the shore, and the treatment shown 

 them in the pursuit of their industry by the local authorities and 

 the population of the coasts to which they resort. You have been 

 selected to accompany the Kearsarge in this cruise from your thor- 

 ough and prolonged experience in the fishing interests of our people 

 from your personal acquaintance of the character and habits of the 

 men engaged in this pursuit, and from your especial conversance with 

 the general scope of the relations between these interests and those of 

 the coast population of the provinces as developed by the rivalry and 

 conflict between them, which have seemed inseparable from the com- 

 mon enjoyments of the fisheries. 



Alfred D. Foster, esq., will accompany you as your legal adviser 

 and to be in charge of the taking and reducing to form of such depo- 

 sitions or statements as you or he may think of importance for the 

 information of the government in this important inquiry. 



The consuls of the United States at the different points at which 

 you may touch are expected to give you every aid in their power 

 towards the objects in view, and to furnish you with any information 

 in their possession that may be properly incorporated in your report 

 of the situation of affairs on the coasts. 



It is quite possible that some of our fishermen may wish to be ad- 

 vised as to the course which the government thinks them justified in 

 taking should the local authorities assume to interfere with them in 

 the peaceable pursuit within the three-miles line of their fishing meth- 

 ods and the use of their seines and fishing-tackle. This interference, 

 if attempted, will doubtless be based upon the local legislation of the 

 provinces regulating the fisheries on their coast within the three-miles 

 line. In the view of this government, these local regulations are in- 

 competent to curtail or control the participation of our fishermen, as 

 accorded by the Treaty of Washington, in their inshore fisheries. So 

 long as our fishermen use methods and apparatus in their judgment 

 adapted to catching the fish in the most efficient and most profitable 

 manner to the industry they are pursuing, to wit, fishing from vessels 

 manned and fitted from our ports, and seeking profit therefrom, and 

 so long as they do not molest the provincial fishermen, pursuing their 



92909 8. Doc 870, 61-8, vol 3 4 



