476 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



foundland, to the home government,* it appears that in 1871 the whole number of vessels employed 

 in sealing was one hundred and forty-six sailing-vessels and fifteen steamers, manned by eighty- 

 eight hundred and fifty men. The exports of seal products for that year from Newfoundland were 

 0,943 tuns of oil, valued at $972,020, and 486,262 skins, valued at $486,262, the catch for the year 

 being about 500,000 seals, which were sold for the aggregate sum of $1,458,282. The single steam- 

 ship Commodore, of Harbour Grace, brought in 32,000 seals, valued at 24,000 sterling. While 

 the number of vessels employed in the Newfoundland seal slaughter had at this time declined 

 more than one half, and the number of men engaged was one-third less, it appears that the annual 

 catch was equal to that of average seasons twenty years earlier. 



" Prior to about 1866 the sealing fleet consisted wholly of sailing-vessels, but since that date 

 a small but steadily increasing number of steamships have been added. In 1873, of the one hun- 

 dred and seven sealing vessels fitted out from the ports of Newfoundland, nearly one-fifth were 

 steamers. Notwithstanding, however, this comparative small number of vessels, the 'catch' for 

 that year is said to have been 526,000. 



"The number of vessels sailing from other provincial ports is usually small in comparison with 

 the number from Newfoundland, and they are generally of smaller size^' 



2. AMERICAN SEALING VESSELS. 



In this extensive fishery, producing annually hundreds of thousands of seal-skins and thou- 

 sands of barrels of seal oil, few vessels from the United States have ever participated. Occasionally 

 vessels have been fitted from ports in New England to cruise for a time on 'the sealing-grounds, 

 and then to go in pursuit of whales, but only two or three vesse Is have made the seal their sole 

 pursuit. 



One vessel from the United States that participated in this business was the ship McLennan, 

 of New London, which from 1846 to 1S53 took about 6,000 hair seal skins, 600 barrels of seal-oil and 

 a quantity of whale oil and bone. On her several voyages she was specially fitted for sealing as 

 well as whaling, yet pursued the seal-fishery for only a limited period each year, preferring the 

 larger game. Several other vessels have been similarly engaged, among them the Georgians, 

 George Henry, and the Amaret, afterwards the Rescue of Kane's expedition. 



From 1860 to 1880 the Hudson Bay and Cumberland Inlet whaling fleet from the United 

 States took about 10,000 hair-seal skins, valued at about 75 cents each, and about 1,000 barrels of 

 seal-oil, valued at 40 cents per gallon. 



The following account, by Capt. N. E. Atwood, of Provincetown, of a sealing trip to New- 

 foundland is worthy of record as a matter of history : 



" In 1819 or 1820 the schooner Pilgrim, of Provincetown, 62 tons, o. in., fitted out for a sealing 

 voyage, sailing about the middle of March for the ice-floes to the east of Newftnindlaud, where she 

 joined the Newfoundland fleet of sealers. No one on board was acquainted with sealing. Before 

 they went into the ice they fell in with a sealer from St. John's, with whom they talked. They 

 entered the ice near each other, and the Pilgrim soon outsailed the Newfoundland vessel, so that 

 by night he was nearly out of sight. At night they tied the vessel up to a small iceberg. The 

 weather grew rough and the ice began to pound. They used the cedar poles they had brought for 

 fenders, but they did no good. The stem of the vessel started, the bolts came out, and it turned 

 around. After the ice closed, by piling ice on the after part of the vessel they got the stem 

 out of the water and repaired damages. They then got out of the ice again and ran to the north, 



" " Papers relating to Her Majesty's Colonial Possessions, part ii, 1873, pp. 143, 14. r >." 



