^2 



resolution was still adppted to discontinue all further attempts to check 

 the resident fishermen. The task had become, indeed, hopeless. The 

 tonnage of the merchants' ships had fallen to less than eighteen thou- 

 sand, and their catch to one hundred and thirty-six thousand quintals. 

 The produce of the boat fishery, on the other hand, had risen to three 

 hundred and ten thousand quintals. The boat-fishers, or inhabitants, 

 had, therefore, overcome every obstacle, and were in the ascendency. 



I reserve a fiiU answer to the many complaints against our country- 

 men who fish in the seas of British America, for another part of this 

 report ; that, however, which is made by the people of Newfoundland, 

 may be disposed of here. 



The charge is, that the British flag is no longer seen upon "the 

 banks," and that the privileges enjoyed by the French and Americans, 

 by treaty and otherwise, have caused the withdrawal of the English and 

 colonial merchants fi-om that branch of the fishery. This charge is to 

 be found, in substance, in an offensive form, in newspapers, in official 

 documents, and remonstrances to the home government. I submit, in 

 all kindness, that it is not so. The truth is, that the resident fishermen — 

 as Sir Josiah Child, a hundred and eighty years ago, anticipated they 

 would do — have supplanted the merchants of England, with whom they 

 so long contended ; that the boat fishery has taken the place of the vessel 

 fishery, in the common course of things. To catch fish by long, expen- 

 sive, and perilous voyages, when they can be taken at the fishermen's 

 own doors, where catchers and curers can sleep in their own beds, taste 

 the! sweets of a shore life, and enjoy the comforts of home, is to dispense 

 with the steam-spindle and go back to the distaff". There is no truth 

 in the complaint. The annual catch at Newfoundland, in whole num- 

 bers, is one million of quintals, and, on a mean 'of years, equal to that of 

 any former period. This fact is conclusive. That the Americans dis- 

 turb the industry of the colonists, is not possible. The restoration of 

 the by-gone vessel fishery can be accomphshed, not by driving these 

 "foreigners" from "the banks," but by a new edict to burn and destroy the 

 dwellings of British subjects,* 



* Lord Dandonald expressed his riews with regard to the British fishery at Newfoundland 

 in a communication published in the London Times, August, 1852, m the following terms. It 

 will be seen thrft he attributes the suspension of the vessel fishery to the bounty system of 

 ■prance and the United States ; and that he considers the employment of a naval force to pre- 

 Tent ■' aggressions," a migtakeji policy. 



To the Editor of the Times. 



Sm : The leading article of the Times of the 3d inst., on the subject of the British North 

 American fisheries, involves a maritime question of such vital importance to the pei-manence 

 of our naval power, that I hope you will devote the comer of a column of your paper (perused 

 and pond6red over by civilians and statesmen) to convey, in as few wbrds as possible, the real 

 cause of the progressive decay, and now total abandonnient, of that once important nursery 

 for seamen, with which the duties of my late naval command required that I should make 

 myself intimately acquainted. 



Tha result of authentic information derived from oiBcial' documents, most of which were 

 obligingly furaished by the zealous and indefatigable governor then presiding in Newfoundland, 

 (Sir G. LeMerchant,) proved that the British "bank" or deep-sea fishery formerly employed 

 400 sail of square-rigged vessels and 12,000 seamen, and that now not one of these folloyr 

 their vocation in consequence of the ruinous eflcct of bounties awarded by the French and 

 North American governments. The foi-mer pay their fisheiy lOf for every quintal of fish 

 debarked in the port of France, and 5f. additional on their exportation in French vessels to 

 toreign States, once exclusively supplied by England — a transfer which cannot be viewed 

 simply as a mercantile transaction, seeing that the substitution of a greater number of foreign 



