II. RUSSIA: THE PAST AND PRESENT OF ITS COMMERCE. BY DEXTER F. PARKER, IV. AQUEDUCTS AND CITY SEWERAGE. BY CHARLES F. DURANT, Esq., of New Jersey. 182 V. COFFEE: ITS PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION. By J. GARDNER, Esq., Merchant EMBRACING A FINANCIAL AND COMMERCIAL REVIEW OF THE UNITED STATES, ETC., ILLUSTRA- TED WITH TABLES, ETC., AS FOLLOWS: Opening of the Fall Trade at Boston, New York, and Philadelphia-Trade in Domestic Cottons with Mexico-Do. with China-Total Foreign Shipments of Plain Cottons from Boston and New York-Position and Prospects of Monetary Affairs-Effect of European troubles upon the Prosperity of this Country-The Small Note Currency, with the means of curtailing it--Condi- tion of the Banks of New Orleans and New York-Statement of the Banks in Tennessee- Product of Gold in California-With Deposits and Coinage at Philadelphia and New Orleans Mints-Imports of Foreign Goods at New York for June-Imports from January 1st, and for the Fiscal Year ending June 30th-Imports of Dry Goods for Various Periods, showing a large Increase-Cash Revenue for the Fiscal Year-Exports from New York for the Month, and for the Fiscal Year-Shipments of Leading Articles of Domestic Produce-Prospects of the Trade JOURNAL OF BANKING, CURRENCY, AND FINANCE. Debt and Credit of the country................ Condition of the banks of New Orleans, June, 1853.. Resources and liabilities of the banks of Connecticut in each year from 1837 to 1853.. PAGE. 213 .. 215 217 218 218 219 220 221 Banking system of New Hampshire. Gold coined in England, France, and United States.. Life Insurance in England... Banks and banking in Brazil, and her debt.. Proposed decimal coinage in England... British bankrupt statistics.-The commercial credit society... Defaulting banks of Florida, and the free banking law of Florida. Bullion in Bank of England.-Conversion of South Sea Stock.. COMMERCIAL STATISTICS. Vessels in foreign trade of the United Kingdom, entered and cleared in 1852-53 Lights on the north coast of Sicily.-Electric telegraph from Orfordness to Holland. RAILROAD, CANAL, AND STEAMBOAT STATISTICS. 232 232 Statistics of life and death on the railroad.-Progress of railroads in the U. S. and Europe........... 245 246 Dividends on railroad stocks in Boston.-Ericsson's Caloric Engine. 247 248 JOURNAL OF MINING AND MANUFACTURES. The stationary business in New York, and the manufacture in the United States. The metals of the Sierra Nevada. Wages of the shirt sewers in New York Coal trade in England. The character of American jewelry.-Dividends on Manufacturing stocks in Boston Mining law in Australia.... Manufacture of Locomotives, etc., in Alexandria.. Plumbic-zinc, lead and zinc combined... Manufacture of cotton in Spain..... American wool.-British woolen manufactures.... STATISTICS OF POPULATION. Immigration into the port of New York in 1852. Population of the several departments of Peru, by census of 1850.... STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE, ETC. Productions of the States of New York and Pennsylvania compared... Statistics of Agriculture in Ohio Production of maple sugar in United States.. Agricultural statistics of New Hampshire.—Culture of the Madder of Commerce... MERCANTILE MISCELLANIES. Trade and Commerce of Buffalo.... Counsel to merchants' clerks.-Liberality of a Russian merchant Character for integrity.-Arab honesty.-Traffic in Circassian slaves... Honesty in business.-French marriage brokers.-Small trade of Norfolk.. THE BOOK TRADE. Notices of 37 new works or new editions........... 248 250 951 253 254 255 255 256 256 256 256 257 258 258 959 260 260 262 262 263 264 265 266 267-272 HUNT'S MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE AND COMMERCIAL REVIEW. AUGUST, 1853. Art. 1.-FISHERIES OF THE AMERICAN SEAS.* AMONG the documents accompanying the last annual report of the Secretary of the Treasury, is an elaborate history of the fisheries pursued in the American seas, by all the nations that have hitherto visited them, prepared in conformity to a request of the late Secretary, by Hon. Lorenzo Sabine, of Farmingham, Mass. Mr. Sabine has been for some years known as one of the ablest and best informed writers in the country upon the subject of the fisheries, and chiefly upon this ground was elected a member of the late Congress, from the then IVth district of Massachusetts, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Hon. Benjamin Thompson, although of that district the fisheries could scarcely be called an important interest. Mr. Sabine has been for upwards of twenty years engaged in collecting the material for his history, which, although extending to above three hundred pages, he avers, comprehends but a "part" of his plan. Of course a great amount of interesting matter is brought together, and the work is well worth the pertisal of those who would understand the concerns of a business which has occupied a leading place among the interests of all the great commercial nations. It is not our purpose to follow the chronological detail of Mr. Sabine's facts, as a series of historical and statistical essays upon the fisheries, from the pen of the present writer, have lately been published in the Merchants Magazine. Attention will be paid to Mr. Sabine's treatment of certain points, and some of his facts will be noticed, but the main design is to give a supplementary chapter to the former articles, composed of matter which we have had for some time on hand for that purpose, and mainly derived from sources which it would appear Mr. Sabine has either not consulted or has made but a limited use of. Let us not be understood as qualifying the opinion just expressed. If our historian has not made use of all available Report on the Principal Fisheries of the American Seas: By Lorenzo Sabine. + See Merchants' Magazine, vol. xxvi., pp. 19, 159, 287, 416. resources, the fact is quite consistent with a range and depth of research upon which few writers, on whatever subject, have the temerity to venture; and which we the more appreciate as that this subject is one, in its nature so inherently dry, and affording so slight promise of pecuniary remuneration, that the prolonged labor of Mr. Sabine bears much the aspect of an act of self-devotion. And there is less reason for complaint, as that within the somewhat extended limits of the work, there is very little matter which is not well worth its room. But a few suggestions as to what we deem deficiencies will not be considered captious, and may be of service to the author in completing the other portion of his design, or in revising the present for republication, should he intend to put it in a better form. In the opening of his subject we meet with some disappointment. The part which relates to the earliest visitation of the American seas, in connection with the fishery, so lightly touched upon, is, we think, well worth a chapter to itself, involving as it does the very interesting question of the first European discovery of the American continent. It strikes us that judicious historians, usually so considered, whom Mr. Sabine seems too much inclined to follow, have been rather too free doubters in regard to everything of a traditionary character connected with the latter great event. In their style our author simply mentions in one place the tradition of the Biscayan fishermen having visited Newfoundland before the time of Columbus, which is instantly "dismissed," as entirely improbable, it not being even thought worth while to give the date of the pretended voyage. It is stated to have taken place about the year 1400, a period which has at least not one common objection of traditionary matters, of extending its pretensions to an absurdly remote antiquity. Yet, at another place, he mentions respectfully the map of Andre Bianco, constructed in 1436, which, he says, "authorizes the conjecture that Newfoundland was known to fishermen before the voyage of Cabot in 1497." However that may be, we think that when the hardy and adventurous character of the Biscayan fishermen, their situation, the long previous use of the mariner's compass, together with the great and continual indebtedness of the world to the accidents of navigation for the progress of discovery are considered, there is no vast improbabilty in the story of those fishermen having been at Newfoundland. And the occasion for incredulity is still further decreased when we are told, as an undoubted fact, that the English, who were very far from being a maritime people at this period, were fishing upon the shores of Iceland, before 1415, being then within a few hundred miles of the coast of Greenland. Of the Icelandic discovery of Newfoundland or Labrador Mr. Sabine makes no mention whatever,-yet to us the record of the event appears quite as well substantiated, and its occurrence quite as much a probability as that of any other matter recorded in other annals of the years 1000 and 1001. But we leave this topic for another occasion, and come to undisputed history. In 1497, John and Sebastian Cabot made the discovery of both Newfoundland and Labrador-the former was long supposed to have been their Prima Vistu, but it is now considered their "first seen" land was the Labrador coast. On their return, in the account published by Sebastian, he mentioned among the resources of the new region, that "it yieldeth plenty of fish, and those very great, as seales, and those which we call salmons: there are soles, also, above a yard in length; but especially there is great abundance of that kinde of fish which savages call baccalaos," (the codfish.) Of the next voyage made by Sebastian, in 1498, no account was published. It is denied that he landed on the coasts, and yet we find it stated by English writers that he carried back a valuable cargo. If he did not land at all, of what could this cargo consist but fish? king of Portugal, was at He too carried back a Cortoreal was a "fisher of In 1500, Gaspar Cortoreal, in the service of the Labrador, a fact which Sabine does not mention. valuable cargo, but not taken from the seas. men," and his fare consisted of fifty Indians. He undertook soon after to repeat the enterprise, but failed, becoming, probably, himself the "prey of fishes." At the time of the discovery of America, the regulations of the Catholic church regarding food were rigorously observed in every Christian country of Europe, and fish was a prime article in every market. The quantity consumed was immense, and the increasing demand, together with the peculiar fluctuations to which the fishing business is ever subject, and which were exemplified several times in the total disappearance of herring from the coast of Sweden, where a very extensive fishery was at other times carried on, it became doubtful if the supply would long hold out. The excitement which followed the voyage of Cabot and other adventurers, was not alone that passion for products like those of the East, of which historians speak as the sole idea existing in regard to the new world. There was a fishing excitement following Cabot's account of the great abundance and variety of fish there found. It was hoped, now, to obtain plenty for all demands, and to provide also an agreeable diversity, in place of the unbroken monotony of the pickled herring of the Dutch. The hope of fortunes prompted merchants to undertake the enterprise of an American fishery. France led in the business, making regular voyages there, at least as early as 1504. Of England, Spain, and Portugal, the first accounts are in 1517, when there were fifty vessels of all sorts at Newfoundland. While England adventured so far for the sake of fish, the rich fishery on her own coast was entirely in the hands of the Dutch, who were, for that reason, contented to offer them no competition at Newfoundland. Out of the success of this early fishery arose the attempts of the French to settle Canada, in 1534, and of the English to colonize Newfoundland, in 1536, both efforts being unsuccessful. We come now to the commencement of a series of acts adopted by the English government for the encouragement of their fisheries in America, which we design particularly to notice. This is one point on which we wish Mr. Sabine had bestowed more attention. Nothing would have better illustrated the main branch of his subject, the progress of the fisheries of the United States, than a full exposition of the English measures regarding the fisheries, and of the results thereby produced. Had he seen and well examined the voluminous commercial compilations* of Anderson and McPherson, he could hardly have restrained himself the pleasure of a new feature in his work, immensely augmenting its value. The first of these measures of encouragement was an act of parliament in 1548, imposing a heavy penalty on all who should eat flesh on fish-days. Another act of the same year forbid the admiralty officers to make exactions for the privilege of carrying on this fishery. In 1563, parliament declared it unlawful to eat flesh on Wednesdays and Saturdays, affixing a • Annals of Commerce from the Earliest Times to the Year 1800, in 4 vols. |