Ill 



tion, withdrawn for one summer, without the substitution 

 of some other as effective, this noble fish would be utterly 

 exterminated from our country. Fishermen from Gasp6) 

 Eimouski, New Brunswick, Labrador, Newfounland, the 

 Magdalene Islands and the United States — whose numbers 

 and skill would enable them to do thoroughly what the 

 servants of the H. B. C. from their paucity and inexperience 

 do ineffectually — would swarm up our rivers, and with nets, 

 spears, torches, and every other engine of piscine destruc- 

 tion, would kill, ■burn and mutilate every fish that ventured 

 into the rivers. Already has this been attempted. For 

 the last two or three years schooners from the United States, 

 have regularly arrived, in the salmon season, at the Bay of 

 Seven Islands, their crews well armed, and have 

 set their nets in the river Moisio, in despite of 

 the officers of the H. B. C. Similar circumstances have 

 occurred at other fishing stations in the tributaries of the St. 

 Lawrence ; no means, that I am aware of, having been 

 resorted to for punishing the aggressors or preventing a 

 repetition of their outrages. The River Bersinies has this 

 year (1856) been altogether in the hands of a speculating 

 and rapacious American, who employed the spear of the 

 Indian to furnish him with mutilated salmon, several boxes 

 of which he brought to this city, in the month of September, 

 when they were out of season, unfit for food and flavorless 

 having previously glutted the markets of Portland, Boston 

 and New York with more palatable fish. 



There can be but little doubt that many of the salmon 

 streams in Lower Canada would be as productive, under 

 proper management, as rivers in Europe for which large 

 annual rents are paid; but it must be admitted that the great 



