118 



NOTES ON TIN. 



[1853 



colonial laws against poaching are consequently administered in 

 the most lenient manner. 



The rights of the United States fishermen in these waters are 

 regulated by the Convention of 1818. They received by that 

 instrument the liberty to fish " on that part of the southern coast 

 of Newfoundland which extends from Cape Ray to the Rameau 

 Islands, on the Western and Northern Coast of Newfoundland ; 

 from the said Cape Ray to the Quirpon Islands, on the shores of 

 the Magdalen Islands, and also on the coasts, bays, harbours and 

 creeks from Mount Joly on the southern coast of Labrador, to 

 and through the Straits of Belle Isle, and thence northwardly 

 indefinitely along the coast ;" and the liberty to dry "and cure in 

 the unsettled bays of the same Newfoundland and Labrador 

 coasts ; and they renounced the liberty " to take, dry or cure fish 

 on or within three marine miles of any of the coasts, bays, creeks 

 or harbours of His Britannic Majesty's dominions in America not 

 included within the above-mentioned limits ;" provided their fish- 

 ermen should be " admitted to enter such bays or harbours, for 

 the purpose of shelter, and of repairing damages therein, of pur- 

 chasing wood and of obtaining water, and for no other purpose 

 whatever." The disputes grow out of this last clause, which John 

 Bull says excludes his dear cousin from all the Nova Scotia bays, 

 according to established principles of public law ; while the young 

 gentleman, in return, claims the right to fish in all bays over six 

 miles from headland to headland at the mouth, and to enter the 

 other for the specific purposes named. But, as we said before, 

 we do not purpose to take this question out of the hands of the 

 negotiators and deprive them of the glory of settling it. 



The inhabitants of New England have been fishermen from 

 the outset. Gossnold went fishing off the Massachusetts coast in 

 1602, and in honour of his success, gave the name of Cape Cod 

 to the sandy arm which reaches round into the sea, aud takes up 

 a part of Massachusetts Bay. The steeple-crowned saints who 

 followed in his footsteps some eighteen years after, had an eye to 

 the same good things in coming to this " stern and rock-bound 

 coast." A ten-years' residence amongst the herring-catchers in 

 Holland had taught them the value of such matters, and they 

 showed a commendable determination in taking hold of them 

 and and turning them to a good purpose, which their descend- 

 ants have since been constantly striving to imitate. 



In 1625, they had established a settlement at Gloucester, on 

 the opposite promontory of the bay ; and at the close of the 

 seventeenth century, the products of the colony of Massachusetts 

 Bay amounted to £80,000. They were undoubtedly injured by 

 the witch mania, which ran through that part of New England, 

 to the terror of old women, honest men, and people whose mea- 

 sure of sanctity and reverence for the ecclesiastical rulers was in 

 doubt; but the exports had advanced by the middle of the 

 eighteenth century to £150,000, notwithstanding the ware for 

 the possession of Canada and the fishing grounds. So Iaro-e had 

 the interest become, that New England was able to furnish seven 

 thousand sailors for the expedition against Louisburg. Since the 

 peace of 1815, it has not advanced in proportion to the increase 

 in the wealth and power of the country. American statesmen 

 attribute the want of vitality to the superior advantages which the 

 colonial fishermen enjoy in the exclusive use of their shore fish- 

 eries, to the stringent enforcement of the provincial laws, and to 

 the want of sufficient protection to those interests in the United 

 States. But we are inclined to think that the real cause of the 

 decline is to be found in the impulse given to other and more 

 lucrative branches of navigation and commerce in the United 

 States, which draws away capital and men from the fisheries ; 

 and to the improved condition of the labouring classes, which al- 

 lows them better food than cured fish. 



It is impossible to conceive anything less inciting than the 



Massachusetts shore all the way round from Plymouth to Capo 

 Cod. In some places, there is scarcely a blade of glass to relieve 

 the desolate appearance of the sand, and where the soil is firm 

 enough to give it life, it is not deep enough to give it much 

 strength. We have been told that the gardens, such as they are, 

 in the extreme towns, are supplied with earth from Boston, 

 brought down as ballast in the little craft which ply across the 

 bay, and in the fishing smacks which land their caigo there, and 

 then come home to winter. The island of Nantucket has even 

 less claim to ■ be called land. Without rocks, or rivers, or trees, 

 or hills, and scarcely with grass, it just lifts its sandy surface above 

 the level of the ocean, protected by a belt of breakers from the 

 swell of the Atlantic, but by nothing from the storms that lash it 

 into fury. As on the Western Irish, and the Eastern coast, so on 

 Nantucket and Cape Cod everybody lives by the sea; and of 

 course sometimes an unexpected hurricane brings mourning and 

 desolation into every house. They have not much of this world's 

 wealth, (or rather the Cape Cod people have not, for the island- 

 ers are rich from the whale fisheries,) but on the other hand they 

 are not poor. In the winter the young men and damsels go to 

 the public schools, and the fathers look after their matters about 

 home, get the vessel, lines and nets in trim for the next year's 

 work, read the local newspapers, (and possibly a weekly journal 

 from Boston,) to " post themselves up " as to what is going on in 

 the outer world, of which this is the only time they get a glimpse. 

 Some one, the staidest and most respectable, is selected for the 

 " General Court," in Boston : that is, for the Legislature of the 

 State. Care is taken, however, to pick out a person who has not 

 too recently enjoyed the lucrative salary of two dollars a day be- 

 longing to the office. He goes to Boston, finds lodgings in some 

 cheap part of the town, votes knowingly on all questions con- 

 nected with the inspection of fish, and leaves the rest of the legis- 

 lation to take care of itself. Meanwhile, his neighbours have 

 been getting ready for taking the spring fares, and in May, or 

 early in June they set sail for the Grand Bank or for Labrador, 

 or the Bay of Fundy, or Nova Scotia. Their mode of fishing 

 resembles substantially that of the French, which we have under- 

 taken to describe; and if they are successful, they return home 

 in the autumn, having suffered much and passed through many 

 dangers, and with a reward quite inadequate to the difficulties 

 and perils. 



Notes on Tin. 



Mr. Layard, in his work on Nineveh and Babylon, in re- 

 ference to the article of bronze from Assyria, now in the 

 British Museum, states that the tin used in the composition 

 was probably obtained from Phoenicia; and, consequently, that 

 that used in the Assyrian bronze may actually have been export- 

 ed nearly three thousand years ago from the British Isles. The 

 Assyrians appear to have made an extensive use of this metal; 

 and the degree of perfection which the making of bronze had 

 then reached, clearly shows that they must have been long expe- 

 rienced in the use of it. They appear to have received what they 

 used from the Phoenicians. It is said that the Phoenicians were 

 indebted to the Tyrian Hercules for their trade in tin ; and that 

 this island owed to them its name of Baratanac, or Britain, the 

 land of tin. 



The Great Polgooth Tin Mine, in Cornwall, has been worked 

 for tin from a period far too remote for the earliest record, and 

 the histories of Cornwall have severally given it that notice to 

 which it was entitled from its magnitude and importance. At 

 least, from the time of the requirement of tin by the Phoenicians 

 to the present, it has been wrought more ov less, with short in- 

 termissions, and has yielded a greater quantity of ore than any 

 other tin mine in the country of the same depth. In a geologi- 



