PERIOD FROM 1871 TO 1905. 695 



it was Sunday. We all consider it to be the greatest loss to us for the 

 Americans to bring those large seines to catch herring. The seines 

 will hold 2.000 or 3,000 barrels of herring, and, if the soft weather 

 continues, they are obliged to keep them in the seines for sometimes 

 two or three weeks, until the frost comes, and by this means they 

 deprive the poor fishermen of the bay of their chance of catching any 

 with their small nets, and then, when they have secured a sufficient 

 quantity of their own, they refuse to buy of the natives. 



If the Americans had been allowed to secure all the herrings in the 

 bay for themselves, which they could have done that day, they would 

 have filled all their vessels, and the neighboring fishermen would have 

 lost all chance the following week-days. The people believed that 

 they (the Americans) were acting illegally in thus robbing them of 

 their fish. If the natives had not defended themselves by enforcing 

 the law, there was no one else to do it. I was sworn in as a special 

 constable by Mr. Herbert, the magistrate of Harbour Briton, last 

 October. 



On the arrival of the Americans I showed my authority, signed by 

 Mr. Herbert, and they laughed at it, and said it had no stamp, and 

 they didn't, therefore, recognize it. 



I told them the lawful size of a tub sixteen gallons and they said 

 they required a brand on it. I have no means of branding tubs: 

 there is no means to brand on the coast, and it is not the custom. I 

 don't know if it is the custom at St. John's to brand them. I have 

 cautioned the Americans about throwing ballast out inside Hoodey's 

 Island, where it is very shallow; but they have continually done so 

 notwithstanding up to this. -There are now several shallow places 

 there and in the cove, where the Americans have been in the habit of 

 throwing out their ballast, and small vessels now, of twenty-eight to 

 thirty tons, repeatedly ground on this ballast there thrown out by the 

 Americans. I believe there was less thrown out last winter after I 

 spoke to them about it; but I have no power, moral or otherwise, to 

 enforce any rules, and they don't seem to care much about me. 



(Signed) JAMES THARNELL, his x mark. 



Sworn before me at Tickle Beach, Long Harbour, this 14th day of 

 June, A. D. 18T8. 



(Signed) GEO. L. SULIVAN, 



Captain and Senior Officer on the Coast of Newfoundland. 



(8.) 

 Deposition of George Sncllgrove. 



The examination of George Snellgrove, of St. Jacques, Fortune 

 Bay, taken upon oath, and who saith : 



I am sub-collector of customs for the district of Fortune Bay. I 

 went to Long Harbour on the 8th January, two days after the dispute 

 between the Americans and Newfoundland fishermen had taken place. 



Captains Jacobs and Dago informed me that an American seine 

 had been taken up by the Newfoundland fishermen on the Sunday 

 previous and destroyed; that the seine belonged to Dago and 

 McCauley, and that they had other seines out, but they had taken 



