205 



engaged in it alh their livesy they cannot point out a solitary owner who hat 

 become wealthy from the profits of the' fishings business alone, nor a single 

 fisherman,, with a family depending wpon him for support, who has been aile 

 to lay up, from the earnings of the bitsiness, a surplus for his old, age." 



In 1848 many crews of fishing vessels owned in Newburyport, on 

 settling with their owners, for six and seven months' hard toil at sea, 

 received only about ten dollars per, month ; a,nd on this miserable pit- 

 tance they were to eke out the year. They had obtained good fares 

 offish, but were sufferers from the depressed state of the market. 



With facts like these before us, can we wonder that, the more ambi- 

 tious young men abandon the : employment at every opportunity ? 

 Should we not wonder, rather, that any who seek to marry and to have 

 homes, and who are anxious to "lay up a surplus for old age," remain 

 in it? As a class, their condition has been without change. Sixty 

 years ago Fisher Ames said, in the first Congfessj. that "the fishermen 

 aj-e too poor to remain, too poor to remove."* 



* The report of a select committee of Parliament in 1833, on the Britisb channel fiBhei;ieR, 

 contains many interesting facts touching the same point. This committee was appointed in 

 consequence of the petitions of British fishermen, who complained of their distressful condi' 

 tion. The committee, after inquiries, which embraced the whole coast between Yarmouth and 

 Xiand's End, reported that the-channel fisheries, and the interests which were conneeted with 

 them, were in a declining state ; that " they appear to have been gradually sinking since the 

 peace of 1815, and more rapidly during-the ten-years immediately preceding the investigation ; 

 that the capital employed in them did not yield a profitable return ; that the number of vessels 

 and boats, as well as of men and boys, was much, diminished; and that the fishei-men's. fami- 

 lies, who formerly paid rates and taxeSj were then, in a greater or less degree, dependent upon 

 the poor rates." ' 



The causes assigned by the committee for this deplorable state of things were three: first, 

 the interference of French fisheimen ; second, the quantity of foreign-caught fish sold in Lon* 

 doa; third, the decrease and scarcity of fish in the channel. With regard to the first, they 

 had evidence that, for a long period, large fleets of ■French fishermen had frequented the coasts 

 of Kent and Sussex, and that they had greatly increased in number since IBl 5, inasmuch aa 

 there were no less than three hundred sailing out of Boulogne alone. The French vessels 

 Were declared, indeed, to be more numerous than the English vessels, to be of larger size, find 

 to carry, frequently, double the number of men, as well as to use bettei: nets and other fishing 

 gear. The committee remarked, further, that so disastrous to British fishermen had been 

 French interference, that while many were unable to earn a UvcHhoodj some had been quite 

 nuned, or had withdrawn from the business. 



Such statements, it might seem, were sufficiently humiliating ; but the committee aveijred 

 that the French had been in the habit of meeting at sea boats from the Thames and elsewhere, 

 which took the foreign-caught fish to the London market, where, it is to be inferred,.they were 

 sold as of the produce of the British fisheries. This practice they condemned in strong terms. 

 Of the third cause of distress, the committee expressed the opinioq, that the scarcity of i fish 

 In the channel was occasioned by the great destruction of spawn, contrary to. existing Itiws on 

 the snbject. 



To remedy these several evils, they suggested that foreigners should not be allowed to come 

 within a certain distppCe to be prescribed} that such fishermen be required to conform to de- 

 fined and rigid rules ; and that officers of the revenue, and vessels cruising upon the coast, 

 Should be instructed to enforce whatever regulations might be adopted. They suggested, also, 

 the revision of the statutes relative to the destruction of spawn and young fish, and to the use 

 of particular kinds of nets, and the repeal of other laws not specially relating to coasts which 

 they mentioned. 



The story of " aggressions,'' whether made by British subjects on this side of the Atlantic, 

 or on the other, is always to be examined before it is received as truth. In the case befojce us, 

 as in the many tales related by the committees of the colonial assemblies, there is something 

 to be allowed! for it appears that the English were "aggressors," also, on the fishing-gronnda 

 of France at the very moment that this report was under the consideration of Parliament. lu 

 1834, says a British writer of authority, "A rencontre took plaee between some Jersey fishing- 

 boats which had m tlie night trespatsed within the restricted lirmU of eight miles off the French 

 toast, emd a French arm^ cutter. One boat was taken, and the master of another shot," the 



