63 



the great naval station of the British government. At the peace of 

 1783, Nova Scotia became the home of many thousands of American 

 loyalists, who, under the policy adopted by the winners in the strife, 

 were compelled to abandon their native land. Many of them were 

 persons ol elevated moral qualities, of high positions in society, and of 

 great spirit and enterprise ; several were natives of Massachusetts, and 

 graduates of Harvard University. Others had held prominent rank in 

 New York and New Jersey. From this period, we may date a change 

 in the morals of the colony, and note a partial attention to the fisheries. 



Omitting the few fragmentary accounts that are to be found, scattered 

 through the records which I have examined, we come at once to con- 

 sider this branch of industry as it exists in our own time. And, singu- 

 lar to remark, attention to the fisheries is still partial. No American 

 visits Nova Scotia without being amazed at the apathy which prevails 

 among the people, and without "calculating" the advantages which 

 they enjoy, but will not improve. Almost every sheet of water swarms 

 with cod, pollock, salmon, mackerel, herring, and ale wives ; while the 

 shores abound in rocks and other places suitable for drying, and in the 

 materials required for "flakes and stages." The coasts are eVeiy- 

 where indented with harbors, rivers, coves, and bays, which have a 

 ready communication with the waters of the interior; scarcely any part 

 of which — such is the curious freak of nature — is more than thirty 

 miles distant from navigation'. The proximity of the fishing grounds 

 to the land, and to the homes of the fishermen, — the use that can be 

 made of seines and nets in the mackerel fishery, — the saving of capital 

 in building, equipping, and manning vessels, — the ease and safety which 

 attend every operation, combine to render Nova Scotia the most valuar 

 ble part of British America, and probably of the world, for catchmg, 

 curing, and shipping the productions of the sea. 



Yet the colonists look on and complain of us. They wiU neither fish 

 themselves nor allow us to do so. In the words of & late official report 

 on the "Fisheries of Nova Scotia," "From seven to eight hundred 

 [American] vessels are said annually to pass through the Gut of Canso, 

 which usually return home with large cargoes taken at our very doors. 

 There is always a great deal said about their encroachments, and we are apt 

 to blame them that our fisheries are not more productive than they are, a7)d, 

 instead of engaging all our energies to compete with them, we are employing a 

 host of revenue cutters, Sfc, to drive them from our shores. Everybody must 

 see that the Americans are placed under many disadvantages for prose- 

 cuting the fisheries in British waters, and that if proper enterprise were 

 employed, our advantageous position would enable us not only to compete with 

 them successfully, but also to drive them from our shores by underselling them, 

 in their own markets. But we find that they almost entirely monopo- 

 lize our deep-sea fishery, whUe we look idly on and grumble at their suc- 

 cess." This covers the whole ground ; aad coming, as it does, from the 

 pen of a colonial official, is conclusive. < _ 



Judge Halibuiton, in his eflForts to rouse his fellow-colonists from their 

 lethargy, adopting as his motto, that 



" The cheerful sage, when solemn dictates fail, 

 Conceals the moral counsel in a tale," 



