160 GEOGRAPHICAL EEVIEW OF THE FISHERIES. 



Gloucester vessels proceeded direct to Cape Breton and Newfoundland, where they purchased 

 squid and sold their trips at Saint Pierre. All these vessels were desirous of seining instead of 

 purchasing their squid in the Provinces, but the bitter opposition of the previous year deterred 

 them from this method of getting cargoes. 



The season of squidding in Vineyard Sound is during the month of May and early in June, 

 when the squid enter the traps and pounds with other fish, and arc thus secured. The vessels 

 purchase them of the trap fishermen and salt them, either in bulk or in barrels, in the vessel's hold. 

 In this condition they will keep good for a number of weeks, and, although not equal to the fresh 

 squid of Newfoundland, they are considered a good bait by the French fishermen. Occasionally 

 Gloucester vessels have taken cargoes of squid from Cape Breton direct to the Banks and peddled 

 them out to the Frenchmen, but the more general custom has been to sell them at Saint Pierre. 



Great quantities of fresh squid are purchased at Newfoundland by American Grand Bank cod 

 fishermen, and numerous outrages have been committed by the natives of that island upon our 

 fishermen who have attempted to catch rather than purchase this bait. In the summer of 1880 

 the schooners Moro Castle and Victor of Gloucester were thus interfered with, and serious trouble 

 avoided by the yielding of the American captains, who feared to stand for their rights in the face 

 of so much opposition. Captain Naus, of the schooner Moro Castle, stated to the agent of the 

 United States Fish Commission at Gloucester that his vessel had been on the Grand Bank cod 

 fishing, and having exhausted the bait went to Newfoundland to procure a supply of squid. He 

 anchored in Conception Bay, in Job or Devil Cove, on the afternoon of Wednesday, August 4, 

 about a mile from the shore. That afternoon Captain Naus purchased of the natives 18,000 squid, 

 at 60 cents per hundred, paying them $108. The next morning Captain Naus left the vessel in a 

 dory to go in search of more bait, having learned that some could be procured at a neighboring 

 cove. While absent he saw the mainsail of the schooner start, and knowing that something must 

 be wrong, hurried back, and found his vessel surrounded by boats, and that some two or three hun- 

 dred Newfoundlanders had boarded and taken possession of her. He ordered the intruders to leave 

 the vessel, but they took no notice of him, and, being all alone, his crew, mostly Nova Scotians, 

 having been frightened and taken refuge in the cabin and forecastle, he was without means of 

 enforcing his orders. The natives were very threatening, and the captain feared for his life if he 

 attempted unaided to regain control of the schooner. These men had come on board because some 

 of the crew had been seen jigging for squid, although they had taken only ten or a dozen. The 

 squid were plenty, and it would have been easy to have secured a sufficient supply for bait if the 

 crew had been allowed their rights to free fishing without intimidation. The invaders had broken 

 the anchor from bottom and put the schconer under mainsail and jib, and she was fast drifting 

 towards the rocks. Seeing that there was danger of the vessel being wrecked, the invaders became 

 frightened and hurriedly took their departure, and she was rescued from shipwreck with consider- 

 able difficulty. 



Mr. Augustus Dower, one of the crew of the schooner Victor, reports that his vessel left Por- 

 tugal Cove, Newfoundland, at seven o'clock on the morning of August 4, in search of bait. Having 

 secured ice in Northern Bay, the vessel got under way and came to anchor at five o'clock in the 

 afternoon about three-quarters of a mile from the shore in Job's Cove, Conception Bay. Squid 

 were schooling around the vessel in large numbers, and the crew commenced fishing, all hands 

 being busily employed in hauling them in as fast as possible. The natives, perceiving the situa- 

 tion, got out their boats and soon surrounded the vessel, ordering them to take in their lines and 

 desist from fishing. Captain Bowie remonstrated, claiming the right to fish without molestation, 

 but it availed nothing, and the rioters threatened to cut the cable and allow the vessel to go 



