This table shows that, during the year 1851, 341,372 tons of shipping entered inward from the lower colonies in nine Atlantic ports only, and that 588,658 tons of shipping cleared outward from those ports for the same colonies; making, in the whole, an aggregate of 930,030 tons of shipping engaged in the colonial trade with nine ports of the Union alone in that year.

In order to show the relative total amount of tonnage inward and outward to and from the principal seaports of the United States and the North American colonies, the following comparative statement has been compiled, showing the whole tonnage inward and outward at the ports named, in 1851:

The foregoing comparative statement will, no doubt, excite some surprise as to the relative amount of shipping and navigation to the principal seaports of North America. It proves, beyond a doubt, and without reference to any other statement comprised in this report, that the British North American colonies have industriously improved the extensive facilities and abundant resources they possess, and have already achieved the high position of being the fourth, if not the third, commercial power, in point of tonnage and navigation, in the world.

The character of colonial vessels has improved within a few years very rapidly, and they are selling very readily in England at remunerating prices, and are found to be as good vessels as are built in the world. The St. John and Quebec ships take the lead in colonial shipping.

PART XII.

REVIEW OF THE PRESENT STATE OF THE DEEP-SEA FISHERIES OF NEW ENGLAND.

PREPARED BY WILLIAM A. WELLMAN, ESQ., ASSISTANT COLLECTOR OF THE PORT OF BOSTON, UNDER THE DIRECTION OF P. GREELY, JR., ESQ., COLLECTOR OF THAT PORT.

The fisheries of Massachusetts, and of the other New England States, were prosecuted successfully, and to a great extent, long prior to the revolutionary war; and it will be seen by the treaty of 1783, that they occupied a prominent point in the negotiations for peace. By the third article of that treaty it was stipulated, "that the people of the United States shall continue to enjoy unmolested the right to take fish of every kind on the Grand Bank, and on all other banks of Newfoundland; also in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and at all other places in the sea, where the inhabitants of both countries used any time to fish; that the inhabitants of the United States shall have liberty to take fish of any kind on such part of the coast of Newfoundland as the British shall use, (but not to cure or dry them on the island;) and also on the coasts, bays, and creeks of all other of his Britannic Majesty's dominions in America; and that the American fishermen shall have liberty to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, harbors, and creeks in Nova Scotia, Magdalen islands, and Labrador, so long as the same shall remain unsettled; but so soon as the same, or either of them, shall be settled, it shall not be lawful for the said fishermen to dry or cure fish at such settlement, without a previous agreement for that purpose with the inhabitants, proprietors, or possessors of the ground."

This article secured to us the right of the coast fishery, which, as colonies, we had used and possessed in common with the mother country; and under its provisions the cod fishery recommenced at the close of the war, and continued to increase with the encouragement granted by the government.

At first a bounty was allowed on the exportation of salted fish, as a drawback of the duty on imported salt; and subsequently, the present system of allowances in money was established to vessels employed for a certain specified time in the Bank and other cod fisheries. The State of Massachusetts alone employed in the cod fishery, from 1786 to 1790, five hundred and forty vessels annually, measuring about twenty thousand tons, manned by three thousand three hundred seamen, and the value of their products in fish exported to Europe and the West Indies exceeded two hundred and forty thousand dollars.

From this period the fisheries increased, and added largely to the trade and commerce of the North, until the beginning of the commer

cial restrictions which led to the embargo of 1808, and the war with England in 1812. The magnitude of our fisheries from 1790 to 1807, the greatest periods of prosperity, can be realized by those only who have studied this branch of American industry. Beyond what relates to the value of the wealth annually added to the country, and the extensive employment it gives to our native seamen, it has claims on the protection of the government as a nursery for the hardy and daring mariners who have heretofore manned our fleets and fought the battles of our navy. Some idea may be formed of the extent of the fisheries just prior to the mercantile disturbances of 1808, from the fact that, during the year 1806, the value of dried and pickled fish exported exceeded $2,400,000. From this time to the years 1813 and 1814 it dwindled down to less than $100,000. Then it was that the war between the United States and England almost annihilated the fisheries; but the navy was recruited, from the vessels laid up, with that strength and daring which enabled it to cope so successfully with its adversaries. When peace was concluded, the rights secured, under the treaty of 1783, to carry on the cod fishery on the colonial shores, was refused by the British government. The treaty of Ghent, and the commercial convention subsequently, are both silent on this important subject; and it was not until by the convention of 20th of October, 1818, that we obtained the privilege to take fish "where the inhabitants of both countries," under all former treaties, claimed the right. And by this same convention it will be seen that "the United States renounced any liberty before enjoyed or claimed by them, or their inhabitants, to take, dry, or cure fish, on or within three marine miles of any of the coasts, bays, creeks, or harbors of any of the British dominions of America not included within that part of the southern coast of Newfoundland extending from Cape Ray to the Rameau islands; on the western and northern coast of Newfoundland, from Cape Ray to the Quiepen islands; on the shores of the Magdalen islands; and also on the coasts, bays, harbors, and creeks, from Mount Jolly, on the south of Labrador, to and through the straits of Bellisle, and thence northerly along the coast."

We have, by this agreement, the liberty to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, &c.; and when settled, with the grant of the proprietors of the ground. Some of our vessels have attempted to carry on the fishery as they had been in the habit of doing; but the prescribed limits of three miles from the shore the imperial government decided should be measured from the headlands, and not from the interior of the bays, and excluded our vessels from the passage or strait of Canso, and denied our right to land on the Magdalen islands; thus driving off the American fishermen from the usual fishing grounds, and in many instances seizing and confiscating their vessels.

These proceedings have naturally excited much ill feeling, especially with those who have for so long a time resorted to those shores; and these onerous restrictions are still in full force.

The advantages thus secured to the colonial fishermen must be apparent; for while our fishermen are compelled to go out to the banks in large vessels, fitted at great expense, and with crews averaging nine men to every schooner of ninety tons burden, and extending their

voyages for many weeks, the colonists carry on their fishing entirely in small boats, with perhaps not more than two men in each, who return to their shores at the close of each day's work, and land and cure their fish, which at the close of the summer are laden on board their ships for a foreign market. Our vessels return to our ports, when laden with fish, to wash out, dry and cure their "fares," and they are necessarily much behind their more favored competitors in seeking a market for the produce of their toilsome labors of the fishing season. In consequence of these unequal privileges, and the change of policy of our government with regard to a reduction of duties, from specific rates to a uniform ad valorem rate of twenty per centum on the foreign cost of imported fish, our colonial competitors now supply our own markets, as they did formerly the principal markets of Catholic Europe and the West Indies. And not only our own markets are flooded with foreign-caught fish for consumption and for transportation to other American markets, but the Atlantic ports, since the year 1846, have become depots of vast quantities of dry and pickled fish for exportation to foreign countries.

Prior to the enactments of the tariff law of December, 1846, and the warehousing act of August of that year, no drawback was allowed on foreign dried and pickled fish, and other salted provisions, or fishoil; and so far as relates to the drawback of the duties paid on said articles, the prohibition of the 4th section of the act of April 27, 1816, is presumed to be in force. But its provisions are entirely nullified by the operations of the warehousing act, which allows foreign fish to be imported, and entered in bond, and exported thence without the payment of any duties.

By the statement marked No. 1, appended hereto, of the imports of fish into this port, from 1821 to 1851, it will appear that during the first-named ye r only six quintals of dry fish and eighty-seven barrels of pickled fish were imported; and that, during the first fiscal year after the passage of the tariff of 1846, nearly fourteen thousand quintals of dry fish and forty-two thousand barrels of pickled fish were imported; the foreign cost of which was a fraction short of $200,000. Statement No. 2 exhibits the exports from 1843 to 1851, by which it appears that in 1843, 1844, 1845, and 1846, not any foreign-caught fish was exported; and that the value of the exports of American fisheries averaged half a million of dollars annually. The same statement shows, that from 1847 to 1851, there were exported from this port 63,816 quintals of dry fish, and 92,524 barrels of pickled fish, all of which were entered under the provisions of the warehouse act, and consequently exported without paying any duties.

These facts most strikingly illustrate the hard lot of our fishermen, who are denied equal competition on the fishing grounds, and are likewise deprived of the discrimination in their favor, extended to them for more than half a century, by the general government; consequently, the results of their adventures are diminished from year to year, as the home markets, as well as the foreign markets, are being supplied by foreigners with foreign-caught fish.

Statement No. 3 exhibits the quantity and value of dry fish imported