1066 MISCELLANEOUS. 



Americans; however, the necessities of the large population which 

 grew up during the period of a prosperous fishery, worked for itself 

 auxiliary means of employment. The cultivation of the soil, combin- 

 ing fishery and farming has enabled them to exist in the country, 

 and thereby to preserve the inshore fishery, the only portion that now 

 remains to them. They have extended that fishery, and the aggregate 

 quantity of fish caught is equal to that of the amount of the most 

 prosperous years. 



Your Committee, in making this admission, contend that it only 

 proves that a trade capable of holding up against difficulties that 

 would have overwhelmed any other in Her Majesty's wide extended 

 dominions, is worthy of more attention and consideration from the 

 Parent Government than has hitherto been extended towards it. 



BRITISH BANK FISHERY. 



The Great Bank Fishery suddenly declined after the Treaties of 

 1814 and 1818. In the year 1775 it gave employment to about four 

 hundred sail of registered vessels, averaging from eighty to one hun- 

 dred and forty tons burthen, employing from eight to ten thousand 

 fishermen and shoremen. As many as one hundred and forty sail 

 was fitted out from the District of St. John's, and the remainder 

 from the various harbours of the Island. This important branch of 

 the British Fishery was extensively prosecuted during the whole of 

 the French war. No sooner did the French regain the privilege of 

 prosecuting the fishery, than their extensive Bounties undermined 

 the British Bank Fishery. Various attempts have been made to 

 participate in it, but every attempt only brought ruin and disappoint- 

 ment on the British Merchant or fishermen; the consequence is, at 

 this time, that the great Newfoundland Bank Fishery, so valuable 

 in a commercial, but more particularly in a national point of view, 

 is surrendered, without a struggle, to the rivals of England, the 

 French and Americans; these powers employing at least one thou- 

 sand vessels of considerable burthen, manned with not less than thirty 

 thousand seamen ; the British not having more than five vessels and 

 fifty men employed in the great deep-sea fishery on the Banks of 

 Newfoundland. 



Your Committee have to draw your attention to the mode of fish- 

 ing lately adopted by the French ; they have adopted what is called 

 the Bultow system, by which means they extend lines and hooks 

 miles round the ship. For a particular and accurate description of 

 this mode of fishing your Committee have to refer to the statements 

 of Messrs. Mudge and Co., appended to this Eeport. 



Your Committee, in reference to this subject, have reason to believe 

 that the Bultow system of fishing is most destructive; it is a novel 

 mode of fishing, not sanctioned by any previous practice or custom. 

 A question may arise whether it is not a violation of the spirit of the 

 treaty with France. It is a subject that should, without delay, be 

 brought under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government. 



Your Committee have not sufficient data to give a particular and 

 authentic account of the French and American Fisheries prosecuted 

 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and on the Banks and Shores of 

 Newfoundland. 



