1056 MISCELLANEOUS. 



of all her fisheries, and had she been spared the injurious conse- 

 quences which flow from the competition, within her own bosom, of 

 a foreign nation. 



The population of Newfoundland at present amounts to nearly 

 100,000 souls, altogether of British birth or extraction. They con- 

 sume annually the produce of other countries to an amount exceeding 

 300,000 sterling. They annually export produce equal in value to 

 one million sterling, and there are employed in its fisheries alone not 

 less than 20,000 active, enterprising and able bodied seamen. 



The most valuable description of our fish, and such alone as is 

 suitable for the Spanish and Portuguese markets, is taken on the 

 Western Coast and on the Banks of Newfoundland. 



The bait essential to these Fisheries is caplin and herring. These 

 fish periodically visit certain parts of the bays and shores of this 

 Island, attracting after them shoals of codfish ; they annually return 

 in increased quantities to these localities, where they are not molested, 

 and there occasion a corresponding increase of the fish which make 

 them their prey. 



An illicit traffic has of late years been opened between some of your 

 Majesty's subjects in this Island and the French settlers at St. Pierre 

 and Miquelon, which we have no power to check, and by means of 

 which the vessels of the latter are abundantly supplied with bait to 

 the prejudice of the fishermen on our shores, who for want of it are 

 often times unable to prosecute their fisheries, or even to procure a 

 sufficiency of food for their daily consumption. Payment for this 

 bait is made partly in cash, but chiefly in spirits and other articles 

 of French manufacture, which the large bounties given by the French 

 Government to encourage their fisheries enabled the settlers to give 

 liberally in return for so essential an accommodation. These articles 

 are smuggled into our ports to the serious damage of our revenues, 

 and to the demoralization of your Majesty's subjects. A few years 

 ago the French fisheries at St. Pierre was seriously diminished by the 

 exhaustion of the bait within their boundaries, and the French au- 

 thorities were constrained to forbid the taking of any caplin or 

 herrings around their islands, except for the use of their small open 

 boats. Their necessity stimulated the illicit traffic with the British, 

 whereby their wants have become supplied at our expense, and in 

 consequence of the preservation of their bait, -codfish now swarm in 

 their waters, whilst they desert the opposite shores of Newfoundland. 

 We beg to remark that the French fishery is limited only by the 

 supply of bait, and since the supply from our shores has been obtained 

 it has greatly increased: already nearly 300 square rigged vessels, 

 varying from a 100 to 400 tons burthen, besides a multitude of open 

 boats, carrying on the cod fishery from St. Pierre and Miquelon. 

 These obtained last year from the shores of Newfoundland upwards 

 of 70,000 barrels of fresh caplin and about 28.000 barrels of fresh 

 herring; and so intent are the French upon this fishery, and so anxious 

 are they to extend it, that owing to the facilities above referred to, 

 fifty additional square rigged vessels were last summer sent to St. 

 Pierre from France. The consequence is that whilst the British fish- 

 eries in the Bays of Placontia and Fortune, and on the Banks, are 

 annually diminishing, those of the French are progressively increas- 

 ing ; in proof whereof we humbly crave permission to state, that last 

 year the French caught nearly one million four hundred thousand 



