SPEECH
OF
MR. HAMLIN, OF MAINE,
IN DEFENCE OF THE RIGHTS OF AMERICAN FISHERMEN.
DELIVERED
IN TIlE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, AUGUST 3 AND 5 1852.
WASHINGTON:
PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE.
1852.








NORTH AMERICAN FISHERIES.
The Message of the President of the United   the revolutionary war, which separated this GovStates transmitting information in regard to the  ernment from  Great Britain. In the treaty of
Fisheries on the Coasts of the British Possessions  peace which secured the nationality and independin North America-                               ence of the United States, the rights of our GovMr. HAMIAN said:                              ernment were acknowledged and defined. It was
Mr. PnESiD)NT: The magnitude and importance   no grant or concession, but the acknowledgment
of this question are such that I need make no apol-  of a right as much as that of our sovereignty and
ogy for inviting the attention of the Senate and  independence.
the country to its careful consideration. The in-  The third article of the treaty of 1783 is in
terests of Maine and Massachusetts are more     these words:
directly involved than those of any other State.  "It is agreed that the people of the United States shall
But it is a question which rises above mere local-  continue to enjoy, unmolested, the right to take fish of
every kind on the Grand Bank. and on all the other banks
ities, and becomes one of national importance   of Newfoundland; also, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and
It affects deeply our national honor; and the ex-  at all other places in the sea where the inhabitants of both
pression of this Senate to the country, is a certain  countries used at any time heretofore to fish; and also, that
indication that our just rights are to be maintained.  the inhabitants of the United States shall have liberty to
The great interests of commerce and navigtio  take fish of every kind on such part of the coast of NewThe great interests of commerce and navigation) foundland as British fishermen shall use, (but not to dry or
as well as those of our Navy, are intimately con-  cure the same on that island;) and also, on the coasts, bays,
nected with the subject of the American fisheries,  and creeks of all other of His Britannic Majesty's dominwhich are well regarded as the great fountains of ions in America; and that the American fishermen shall
wcommercial prosperity and naval                have liberty to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays,
commercial prosperity and naval power.          harbors, and creeks of Nova Scotia, Magdalen Islands,
To learn what are the rights of Americans, and  and Labrador, so long as the same shall remain unsettled 
what are our duties and obligations as statesmen  but so soon as the same, or either of them, shall be settled,
to protect and preserve those rights, a careful ex-  it shall not be lawful for said fishermen to dry or cure fish
to protect and preserve those rights, a careful ex-  at such settlements, without a previous agreement for that
anmlation of their origin, and what has been the  purpose with the inhabitants, proprietors, or possessors of
action of our Government in relation thereto, be — he ground."
comes not only appropriate, but actually neces-   This article admits and secures to American
sary. When these are well understood, it is be- citizens " unmolested the right to take fish," &c.
lieved we shall have no trouble in determining our  It acknowledged and secured the rights which had
duty in the future.                             been acquired as much and as fully as other porThe right to take fish upon the coast of the  tions of the treaty secured our right to independBritish Provinces has always been claimed and   ence, and to exercise sovereign power over that
exercised by the people of this country from its territory which had belonged to the Crown. These
first settlement. Let it be constantly borne in  rights, too, unmolested, were used and enjoyed
mind that this has always been claimed as a right.  by the American fishermen up to the war of 1812,
It has never been taken as a grant or concession  when they were interrupted-never lost-by that
from any power on earth, but has been claimed   war. The British cruisers would not, of course,
and exercised as a right from their first use up to  allow our fishermen to occupy the fishing grounds
this time.  These fisheries grew  up with the   during the war. Had they done so, they would
growth of this country while colonies subject to  have been captured as upon any part of our coast
the British Crown; and the rights of the citizens of  which might have been blockaded by a sufficient
all the Colonies to take fish along the coast of New  force for that purpose.
Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, were    At the time when the treaty of peace was negoas certain and well known as any right they pos-  tiated with Great Britain in 1814, the subject of
sessed. Possession and cultivation of the soil could  these fisheries was under consideration, though
hardly secure a more certain right than was secured  nothing was said in the treaty in relation to them.
by the possession and use of these fisheries. They  They were entirely omitted. It becomes imporare contiguous and adjacent in part to the State of tant to learn why this was so; why they were
Maine. They were freely used as God's high-     omitted; what were the instructions of our Govway, outside of maritime jurisdiction, should be  ernment to our ministers negotiating the treaty,
used by all. Such was the origin of our rights; and also what were the views and opinions of the
and so they remained until the commencement of  ministers themselves; what was said and done by




4
all the high contracting parties.  An investigation  finally agreed upon, and was silent upon the subinto these points, and we shall have no doubt why  ject.  So stood the matter when negotiations
an article was not incorporated into the treaty of  closed and a treaty had been concluded. So far as
Ghent relating to the fisheries.                   the fisheries were concerned, they remained yin the
The instructions of our Government were as       language of the negotiators, "status ante bellusm.'
follows in relation to the fisheries:                This was the view taken of the question by our
" Information has been received from a quarter deserving  commissioners. In their communication to the
of attention that the late events in'France have produced  Secretary of State, dated Ghent, December 25,
such an effect on the British Government as to make it  1814, they state their views with great clearness
probable that a demand will be made at Guttemburg to sur-r h                    
render our right to the fisheries, to abandon all trade be-  an  power.  It never has been answered.  It
yond the Cape of Good HIope, and to cede Louisiana to  admits of no answer. They say:
Spain. We cannot believe that such a demand will be  "Our instructions had forbidden us to suffer our right to,
made. Should it be, you will of course treat it as it de-  the fisheries to be brought in discussion, and had not auserves. These rights must not be brought into discussion.  thorized us to make any distinction in the several provisIf insisted on, your negotiations will cease."    ions of the third article of the treaty of 1783, or between that
It will be seen that our Government claimed the  article and anay other of the same treaty.
It will be seen that ourG oencimt "We had no equivalent to offer for a new recognition of
use of these fisheries as a right, and our Ministers  our right to any part of the fisheries, and we had no power
were expressly instructed that " these rights must  to grant any equivalent which might be asked for it by the
not be brought into discussion, and if insisted on,  British Government. We contended that the whole treaty,negotiations will cease."~  This, too, was at a of 1783 must be considered as one entire permanent comnegotiations will cease."   This, too, was at a    pact, not liable, like ordinary treaties, to be abrogated by a
time when our whole country was desirous of an     subsequent war between the parties to it; as an instrument
honorable peace, having been suffering all the evils  recognizing the rights and liberties enjoyed by the people of
incident to a war. But anxious as were the Gov-    the United States as an independent nation, and containing
eie  a  t p l.efr a  the terms and conditions on which the two parties of one
ernment and the people for a peace, still, with the  empire had mutually agreed henceforth to constitute two
known importance of these fisheries in a cor-      distiact and separate nations. In consenting, by that treaty,
mercial and naval point of view, negotiations were  that a part of the North American continent should remain
to be broken off, and the war renewed, rather than lsubject to the British jurisdiction, the people of the United
to            be broken off, and the war reiewedrather than IStates had reserved to themselves the liberty, which they
concede away this valuable right.                  had ever before enjoyed, of fishing upon that part of the
Such was the high and patriotic stand taken by   coast, and of drying and curing fish upon the shores; and
Mr. Madison. Let it be ours to imitate his ex-     this reservation had been agreed to by the other contracting
ample. The country will be, and should be satis-party.
with nothing less. The subject was brough We saw not why this liberty, then no new grant, but a
fled with nothing less. The subject was brougnt      ere recognition of a prior right always enjoyed, should be
forward by the British plenipotentiaries; but our  forfeited by a war more than any other of the rights of our
commissioners, true to right, and true to their in-  national independence; or why we should need a new stipstructions would not allow of its discussion  ation for its enjoyment more than we needed a new artistructions, would not allow of its discussion.     cle to declare that the King of Great Britain treated with us
The demand of the British Government was         as free, sovereign, and independent States. We stated this
first advanced in this artful and ensnaring form:  principle in general terms to the British plenipotentiaries in
The American commissioners were duly noti-       the note which we sent to them with our projet of the
fled by the British plenipotentiaries, r  that the  treaty, and we alleged it as the ground upon which no new
fled by the British  plenipotentiaries, "that the  stipulation was deemed by our Government necessary to,' British Government did not intend to grant to   secure to the people of the United States all the rights and'the United States, gratuitously, the privileges   liberties stipulated in their favor by the treaty of 1783. No'formerly granted by treaty to them, of fishing    reply to that part of our note was given by the Brirish plen-'within the limits of the British sovereignty, and                       "JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
of using the shores of the British territories for                       " J. A. BAYARD,
purposes connected with the fisheries."                                  " H. CLLAY,
Grant privileges formerly granted by treaty!                           "JO   EA. RUSSELL,
"ALBERT GALLATIN.,'
This involves the whole question, whether we had
a right, or whether we held the fisheries by a grant?  Vattel, in speaking of the jurisdiction of any
An assent to the principle that we held the fish-  one nation over fisheries, says:
eries by a grant, was yielding all, and equivalent   "If it has once acknowledged the common right of other
to an admission that the war had abrogated the     nationis to come and fish there, it can no longer exclude
them from it. It has left that fishery in its primitive freetreaty of 1783.                                    dom, at least in respect to those who have been in possesThe American Ministers replied as follows:      sion of it."
"I I answer to the declaration made by the British plen-  And he cites the herring fishery on the coast of
ipotentiaries respecting the fisheries, the undersigned, re-  England as being common to them  with other
ferring to what passed in conference on the 9th of August, 
can only state that they are not authorized to bring into dis-nations, becaue they had not appropriated it to
cussion any of the rights or liberties which the United Statesthemselves from the beginniig. So far was this
have heretofore enjoyed in relation thereto. From their  principle carried, that its said the Dutch were in
nature, and from the peculiar character of the treaty of  the osses         th
1783, by which they were recognized, no further stipula-         an   use o these fisheries at a time
tion has been deemed necessary by the Governmenlt of the  when they were at war with Great Britain.  But it
United States to entitle them to a full enjoyment of all of  is maintained that the great highway of nations
them."                                             outside of three miles from the shore, the distance
Thus, promptly, was this matter met by our      of national jurisdiction, is open to all who may
Government, and placed on the ground of right, desire to use it. That is the doctrine which must
admitted and secured in the treaty of 1783. On    be sustained by us.  We can admitnothing which
two other and different times, during these nego- I shall limit the freedom of the seas in time of peace,
tiations, was, in different forms, but in substance  unless clearly defined by treaty.
the same as I have quoted, this subject presented    Thus stood the question after the treaty of
by the British plenipotentiaries, and on both oc-  Ghent, in 1814, until the convention with Great
casions, as on the first, was all discussion of it  Britain, which resulted in the treaty of 1818, conrefused by our commissioners. The treaty was twining the article under which both Governments




5
are now acting. Before, however, proceeding to   ment. Each party maintained its former position.
the examination of that article to ascertain what But from that correspondence, from the interviews
is its true and correct interpretation-what is its  between the Ministers of the respective Governscope and meaning-the history of the action of ments, and from the protocol of the contracting
both Governments should be scrutinized between  parties, when a treaty was concluded, we shall
the treaties of 1814 and 1818. That shows that i learn precisely what was claimed by the British
the British Government did not claim anything but j Government, and what were the intentions of the
a jurisdiction of one marine league along her coast. parties. There is no sounder rule of law than that
She made no claim to a right to exclude our fish- the intention of a law is to be learned from the disermen from the great bays or inland seas, as the  cussions of those who enacted it. And so of the
Gulf of St. Lawrence really is. Her claim was to  formation of treaties. The conferences and proa jurisdiction of three milesfirom the shore. In 1815, tocols of the parties will guide us to a correct cona British sloop-of-war warned off the coast of  elusion. And we find a remarkable concurrence
Nova Scotia, and about forty-five miles from Cape  of evidence to show, beyond doubt, that all Great
Sable, an American vessel engaged in the cod     Britain claimed was to exclude us from within one
fisheries. This was immediately brought to the I marine league of the shore; notto exclude from inattention of the British Minister, who promptly  land seas, whether called bays or gulfs. This indisavowed the act, as will appear by his note to  vestigation all becomes important and necessary,
Mr. Monroe:                                     to show that such is the construction which should
"' MR. BAKER TO MR. MONROE.           be given to our treaty of 1818.
" PHtILADELPHIA, lugust 31st, 1815.  Mr. Adams writes to Mr. Monroe, September
" SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of 19, 1815, giving an account of his first interview
your letter of the 18th ultimo, together with its inclosure, with Lord Bathurst, and he gives the language used
relating to the warning off, to the distance of sixty miles b  L d Bathurst. He, (Lord B.,) said:
from the coast of Nova Scotia, of some American fishing y  o, (      B.,) 
vessels bv His Majesty's brig Jaseur. This umeasure was, I" Great Britain could not permit the vessels of the United
as you have tjustly presumed in your note, totally unautor- I States to fish within the creeks, and close upon the shores
ized by His Majesty's Governmednt; and I have the satis- of the British territories. So, on the other hand, it was by
faction to acquaint you, that orders have been given by the  no means her intention to interrupt them in fishing any*naval Commander-itn-Chief on the Halifax and Newfound-  wherein the open sea, or without the territorial jurisdiction,
land stations, which will effectually prevent the recurrence  a marie leae from the shore."
of any simniar interruption to the vessels belonging to the  This shows clearly that all that was demanded
United States, engaged in fishing on the high seas."  o claimed was, simply, that our fishermen should
I have examined with great care all the cases  not exercise the right to take fish within a "maof seizure by the British Government, and believe  rine league of the shore."  No claim was preit may be correctly asserted, that none were made i ferred to exclude us from bays or gulfs. All that
outside of three miles from the coast, and no dis-  was required was, that we should keep three miles
tinction is drawn, or attempted to be drawn, be- from the shore. During all the correspondence
tween the coast of the sea and the coast of a bay. that took place between our Government and Great
These acts are all significant, as showing that no  Britain, that right only was insisted upon.
claim was preferred for anything but a jurisdiction 1  Under this state of the case, each Government
within three miles of the shore. On the other   adhering to rights as already advanced and dishand, we maintained that we were entitled to all cussed, and being unable to agree, Mr. Monroe
*the rights secured in the treaty of 1783.       says, in his note to Lord Bagot, December 30th,
On the 16th of June, 1816, an order was issued  1816, and in answer to a note from Lord Bagot of
by Admiral Griffith to the British cruisers to re-  November 27th, 1816:
move our fishing vessels from the coast of the    "l concur in the sentiment, that it is desirable to avoid a
Provinces. This order, however, was revoked,    discussion of their respective rights, [the United States and
and nothing was done under it. In May follow-    Great Britain to the fisheries,] and to proceed in a spirit of'ng,o an order was issued by Rear Admiral Milne l conciliation to examine what arrangement will be adequate
Cangpan  Sauord e l Cames fe ther Adm iral Milne o  to the object. The discussion which has already taken
to Captain Samuel Chambers for the protection of j place between our Governments, has, itis presumed, placed
the revenue, as also the fisheries on the coast of  the claim of each party in a just light."
the Provinces.  That order shows that vessels      And it was under that suggestion that a convenwere not to be disturbed unless                  tion was finally agreed upon, which negotiated the
" Fishing, or at anchor, in any of the harbors or creeks  treaty of 1818. The first article of that treaty is
in His Majesty's North American Provinces, or within our as follows:
maritime jurisdiction." 1" Whereas, differences have arisen respecting the liberty
That is, within three miles of the shore. Cap-  claimed by the United States for the inhabitants thereof to
tain Chambers did seize several American vessels take, dry, and cure fish on certain coasts, bays, harbors,
in the htnrbor on Ragged Island, and within British aInd creels of His Britannic Majesty's dominions in America, it is agreed between the high contracting parties, that
j'risdiction, but they were all discharged by the  the'inhabitants of the United States shall have forever, in
Provincial court.  These are the transactions    common w:th the subjects of His Britannic Majesty, the
which took place upon the fishing grounds. | liberty to take fish of every kind on that part of the southern
During the same time the same subject was under! coast of Newfoundland which extends from Cape Ray to
aDuring.he same time the same subject was ue   the Rameau Islands; on the western and northwestern
discussion between the two Governments. Mr.     coast of Newfoundland, from the said Cape Ray to the QuirAdams, with his great ability and comprehensive  pon Islands; on the shores of the Magdalen Islands; and
knowledge of the whole matter, was our Minister  also on the coasts, bays, harbors, and creeks from Mount
Joly, on tlhe southern coast of Labrador, to and through
who conducted the correspondence on our part. the Straits of Belle Isle, and thence northwardly, indefiHe maintained the same doctrine that was ad-I nitely, along the coast, without prejudice, however, to any
vanced at Ghent, that our rights were fully se-  of the exclusive rights of the Hudson's Bay Company:
cured by the treaty of 1783, and that t             And that the war of  Ad tht e American fishermen shall also have lib181 did not abrogate them. This was denied by *ertv, forever, to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled
1812 did not abrogate them. This was denied by  bays, harbors, and creeks, of the southern part of the coast
Earl Bathurst on behalf of the British Govern- j of Newfoundland, here above described, and of the coast




6
of Labrador; but so soon as the same, or any portion  water. All these things could only be done in the
thereof, shall be settled, it shall not be lawful for the said  small harbors which would afford shelter and
fishermen to dry or cure fish at such portions so settled,  ramao   i     rpair        t t, an
without previous agreement for such purpose, with the in-  here damage could be repaired. But to allow
habitants, proprietors, or possessors of the ground. And the  fishermen to go into the Gulf of St. Lawrence or
United States hereby renounce, forever, any liberty hereto-  the Bay of Fundy for repair or shelter! They
fore enjoyed or claimed by the inhabitants thereof, to take ht with far greater propriety seek the open sea
dry, or cure fish, on or within three marine miles of any of  f
the coasts, bays, creeks, or harbors, of His Britannic Maj- for shelter, for with sufficient sea-room they might
esty's dominions in America, not included within the above-  be safe, while in such bays as the Bay of Fundy,
mentioned limits: Provided, however, That the American  they would be sure of destruction upon a lee
fishermen shall be admitted to enter such bays or harbors,  shore. Better, far better, to seek the broad and
for the purpose of shelter, and of repairing damages therein,  tkl  f       to reair for wood or
of purchasing wood, and of obtaining water, and for no racess ocean or a selte t repair, for wood or
other purpose whatever. But they shall be under such re-  water. The very uses to which these bays and
strictions as may be necessary to prevent their taking, dry-  harbors are to be appropriated, must show what
ing, or curing fish therein, or in any other manner what-  was intended-such harbors and  ays as could be
ever abusing the privileges hereby reserved to them."  used for the purposes named. The same interThis is the law under which we now exercise    pretation of the word bay in the treaty, when apour rights. What is its true and correct construe-  plied to Fundy, Chaleur, or St. Lawrence, should
tion, is the question in dispute between the United  be understood, as when applied to the Bay of BisStates and Great Britain. The construction of that  cay or the Gulf of Mexico.
article by our Government has always been, that     Another view of this question will,it is believed,
a line should be drawn along the coast from in-  furnish us with what is the true construction of
dentation to indentation, and not from headland to  the treaty, by which we are restricted in certain
headland. It is contended by the British Gov-    bays, creeks, and harbors, therein named. What
ernment, that by the strict letter of the treaty, we  were the rights enjoyed by our fishermen under
are to be excluded from those great bays, so called,  the treaty of 1783? They had the right, and did
where they are not miles, but some of them degrees  use, what is known as the shore fisheries, inside
in width. The precise terms of the treaty may, at  of three miles from the shore, and in the bays,,
first view, seem to carry that construction, but  creeks, and harbors, with which the whole coast
when tested by what had been claimed by the       was indented. These were what we occupied;
British Government, as we have seen, such could   and for many purposes, they were very valuable.
not have been the intention of the parties.  The  To them were claimed a right, and these were the
only thing claimed through all the negotiations,  privileges which  e renounced. A line drawn
was that we should be excluded from     com       fro  indentation to indentation along the coast,
within three miles of the shore, not bays that were  as has always been contended for by our Governleagues in extent.  Had such been the intention  ment, would exclude us from the shore fisheries,
of any party to the treaty, we should find some-  which were and are so called in distinction from
where such a claim. None such was made. Had      the sea fisheries, more than three miles from the
there been, it would have been promptly denied.  shore.
That clause, which says, " that the United States   Besides, the intention of our ministers who nehereby renounce, forever, any liberty heretofore  gotiated the treaty, and the evidence which the
enjoyed or claimed by the inhabitants thereof, to  protocols furnish as the negotiations progressed,
take, dry, or cure fish on or within three marine  all concur to aid us in our construction. These
miles of any of the coasts, bays, creeks, or har-  protocols and this evidence of that time are of
bors, &c.," is to exclude us from the great bays  great importance, and cannot fail to carry convicand gulfs! Was such the intention of Great Brit-  tion along with them, as to what was intended by
ain?  She never made any such pretensions dur-   the language used in the treaty, and the reasons
ing all the negotiations, and when we renounced  for which it was placed there. Let Messrs. Galour right to the shore fisheries, as we did in the  latin and Rush speak on this matter. In their distreaty, and of taking fish within three marine   patch, dated London, October 20, 1818-the very
miles of the coasts, bays, creeks, and harbors,  day on which the treaty was signed-to the Secthat language became necessary to exclude us      retary of State, communicating the convention or
from the small bays, creeks, and harbors within  treaty which had been concluded, they say:
three miles of the shore-within the jurisdiction of  " We succeeded in securing, besides the rights of taking
Great Britain, and which we had formerly en-     and curing fish within the limits designated by our instrucoyed-claimed as a right. That such was the in-   tions, as a sine qua non, the liberty of fishing on the coasts
tention of the parties must be inferred firom the  of the Magdalen Islands, and of the western coast of Newfoundland, and the privilege of entering for shelter, woody
facts to which I have alluded, which took place  and water, in all the British harbors of North America.
during the negotiations.                         Both were suggested as important to our fisheries, in the
during thelast clause of the article containd in te  communiiications on that subject, which were transmitted to
But the last clause of the article contained in the  us with ourinstructioes. To the exception of the exclusive
proviso at the end, will explain what bays, creeks,  rights of the Hudson's Bay Company, we did not object, as
and harbors were surrendered up by our Govern-   it was virtually implied in the treaty of 1783, and we had.
ment. The article says:                          never, any more than the British subjects, enjoyed any right
there; the charter of that company having been granted in
"American fishermen shall be admitted to enter such  the year 1670. The exception applies only to the coasts and
bays and harbors for the purpose of shelter, and for repair-  harbors, and does not affect the right of fishing in Hudson's
ing damages therein, ppurchasing wood, and obtaining  Bay, beyond three miles from the shores, a right which,
water."                                          could not exclusively belong to, or be granted by, any nation.
" It will also be perceived that we insist on the clause, by
The bays and harbors which are surrendered up  which the United States renounce their right to the fishby the Americans, are the bays and harbors into  eries, relinquished by the convention, that clause having
which the American fisheimen may go to find a   been omitted in the first British counter projet. We inwhich the American fishermen may go to find asisted on it with the view-lst. Of preventing an implicashelter, repair damages, purchase wood, and obtain  tion that the fisheries secured to us were a new grant, an'




7
of placing the permanence of the rights secured, and of those  inland seas. This will comply with the treaty,
renounced precisely on the same footing. 2d. Of its being  and will exclude us from the bays, creeks, and
expressly stated, that our renunciation extended only to the  harbors thre e m s from  land. Th at such was
distance of three miles from the coast. This last point washarbors three miles from  land. That such was
the more important, as, with the exception of the fisheries  the design-that such should be the construction
in open boats within certain harbors, it appeared from the  for which we should insist-cannot admit of a
communications above-mentioned, that the fishing-ground,  reasonable doubt  The actual acquiescence of th
on the whole coast of Nova Scotia, is more than three miles
from the shore; whilst, on the contrary, it is almost uni- British Government for more than twenty-two
versally close to the shore on the coasts of Labrador. It is  years, and a virtual acquiescence up to this time,
in that point of view that the privilege of entering the ports  should preclude her from all attempts to give or
for shelter is useful, and it is hoped that, with that provis-y oer. Te m     t perf 
ion, a considerable portion of the actual fisheries on that  enforce any other. The most perfect commentcoast (of Nova Scotia) will, notwithstanding the renuncia-  ary of compacts and treaties is a cotemporaneous
lion, be preserved."                             acquiescence in their execution. Our position is
The first paragraph of this dispatch which in-  fortified by that acquiescence. It is too late to
vites our attention is the description which they  deny it now, and we shall be derelict in our duty
give of the rights which we surrender in the fish-  if we do not sustain it. I cannot doubt that our
eries. It explains what was their intention. They  Government will do so.
state within what limits we are to fish; and in allu-  What is the history of this acquiescence? The
ding to the prior rights of the Hudson's Bay Com-  British Parliament, in 1819, passed an act "to
pany, in Hudson Bay, they say expressly, that we'enable His Majesty to make regulations with
have the right to fish in that bay outside of three'respect to the taking and curing of fish on cermiles from  the shore, and that "WAS A RIGHT'tain parts of the coasts of Newfoundland, LabWHICH COULD NOT EXCLUSIVELY BELONG TO, OR BE'rador, and His Majesty's other provinces in
GRANTED BY, ANY NATION." That is and was pre-'North America, according to a convention made
cisely the American doctrine, and hence we can-'between His Majesty and the United States."
not be excluded from other bays more than three  This act recites and contains that article of the
miles from the shore. Such is the true meaning   treaty relating to the fisheries, but it gives to it no
of the treaty of 1818. Such the intention of the  construction. It then confers power upon His
parties who negotiated it.                       Majesty and his Privy Council, by any order or
The second paragraph of this dispatch shows    orders in council to be from time to time made for
from the protocol, that renunciation of our Gov-  that purpose, to make such regulations and to give
ernment to the right of the shore fisheries was in-  such directions, orders, and instructions to the
serted by our ministers, and for what purpose it  Governor of Newfoundland, &c., for the purpose
wasputthere-to show,that rights were renounced   of carrying into effect said convention. It also
and that in the treaty of 1818 we admitted no    contains certain other provisions in relation to the
grant to fish elsewhere by forming a new treaty.  same, not necessary to describe. But not a word
And, secondly, that it was expressly stated that is said in said act which gives a construction to
our renunciation extended only to fisheries within  said treaty, or of drawing a line from headland to
three miles from the coasts. But let us hear what headland of the great bays. That is the only act
Mr. Adams has said on this question, a man better  ever passed so far as I can learn.
acquainted with the whole subject in all its ramifi-  March 12, 1836, the province of Nova Scotia
cations than any other man. He was one of our    passed an act for the preservation of the fisheries,
commissioners who negotiated the treaty of 1814, and the first and third sections of said act are conand as Secretary of State he gave instructions to  elusive evidence as to what must have been their
Gallatin and Rush, and in those instructions, re- undoubted understanding of our just rights under
ferring to the fisheries, he said:               the treaty, and what was and is the true intent and;" The British Government may be well assured that not meaning thereof. These sections are as follows:
a particle of these rights will be finally yielded by the Uni-  "SEC. 1. Officers of the colonial revenue, sheriffs, magisted States without a struggle, which will cost Great Britain  trates, and any other person duly commissioned for that
more than the worth of the prize."               purpose, may go on board any vessel or boat within any
Again, John Quincy Adams's construction of harbor in the Province, or hovering within three miles of
the first articlen of the convention of 1818,  d the  a f the oasts or harbors thereof, and stay on board so
long as they may remain within such place or distance."
reason for relinquishing any right by our Govern-,    SEC. 3. If the vessel or boat shall be foreign, and not
ment:                                            navigated according to the laws of Great Britain and IreIn that instrument the United States have renounced  land, and shall have been found fishing or preparing to fish,
forever that part of the fishing liberties which they had en- or have been fishing within three marine miles of such
joyed, or claimed, in certain parts of the exclusivejurisdic-coasts or harbors, such vessel or boat and the cargo shall be
tion of British Provinces, and within three marine miles of forfeited."
the shores. The first article of this convention affords a Mark thelanguage of the first section, "Officers
signal testimonial of the correctness of the principle assumed by the American plenipotentiaries at Ghent; for as  of the colonial revenue, &c., may go on board
by accepting the express renunciation by the United States' any vessel or boat within any harbor, or hoverof a small portion of the privilege in question, and by con- cing within three miles of any coast or HARBOR."
firming and enlarging all the remainder of the privilege for- The third section, "if  foreign boat shall
ever, the British Government have implicitly acknowleded e third section,  any foreign boat shall
that the liberties of the third article of the treaty of 1783, have been found fishing or preparing to fish within
has not been abrogated by the war."              three marine miles of such coasts or harbors."  The
This was the opinion of Mr. Adams in 1822, description and terms given in these sections prove
expressed while Secretary of State, in an able re- beyond a doubt that up to that time our rights
view of the subject of the fisheries.            were well understood. That language conforms
The true intent and meaning of the first article to what was and is our construction of the treaty;
of the treaty, as our Government contend, is to  we were debarred from fishing within three miles
draw a line along the indents of the shore, and not of the shore, and a line drawn from indentation
from headland to headland of the great bays and  to indentation, as we contend, is just in accordgulfs, which would exclude us from what are really ance with this law of the Province, and just in




8
accordance with our use and occupation. So we    ly important branch of American industry, which could not
have continued to occupy and use these grounds| for a moment be admitted by the Government of the United
according to our construction-undisputed    for  States. 
more than twenty-two years, and virtually and      Mr. Stevenson thus states, with great clearness
essentially up to this time. Since 1841, the fish- and power, whatis the construction placed upon the
ermen have been much annoyed by the Colonies.    treaty of 1818 by his Government, and that such
Laws have been passed which are in plain and     a construction had been acquiesced in up to that
unmistakable violation of the treaty. The righttme        the British Government, a term of more
of entering her harbors on her coast by the fisher-  than twenty years.  This was the first corremen for shelter, repair, or water, secured by the  spondence of the two Governments, as to the true
treaty, have been infringed and limited. By one  interpretation of the treaty. None other but the
provision of law, the owner of a vessel, when    one which we hadadopted,and Great Britain had
seized for a violation of law, is required to prove w   assented to, by a quiet acquiescence, is to be found
his innocence. According to our maxims of law, prior to this time. The answer of the British
a man is called to prove his innocence after proof Government to the dispatch of Mr. Stevenson is
of guilt has been offered. Our vessels have some-  to be found in the opinion of the Crown officers
times been wrongfully seized and confiscated, and of Great Britain. A  case was prepared by the
it would be strange if instances could not be found Governor of Nova Scotia, May 8, 1841, submitwhere they may, some    of them, have infringed  ting certain questions as to the intent and meaning
upon the terms  of the treat    t   the practical of the first article of the treaty of 1818. All that part
use of these fisheries has been in accordance with of the case material to our inquiry at this time is
the construction for which we contend.           embraced in two interrogatories: First, whether
In May, 1841, the Governor of Nova Scotia, in  the war of 1812 abrogated and annulled our rights
a dispatch to Lord John Russell, said:           to the fisheries secured by the treaty of 1783? And
" In point of fact I have not been able to learn that any  second, whether a line is to be drawn from headseizures have been made when the vessels have not been  land to headland of the great bays? The answer
within three miles of the distance prescribed by the statute, of J. Dodson and Thomas Wilde, Queen's Advoor considered so to be, although it is true that the Bay of cate and Attorney General, August 30, 1841, is
Fundy, as well as smaller bays on the coast of this Province, is thought by the law officers in the Province to form  very explicit. It says:
a part of the exclusive jurisdiction of the Crown."' We are of opinion that the treaty of 1783 was annulled
Here, then, we have unequivocal proof of our   by the war of 1812."
use of these bays up to 1841; just our construe-   To the second point they answer:
tion of the treaty. Nor can I find the evidence of  The prescribed distance of three miles is to be measthe seizure of any vessel up to this day outside of  ured from the headlands, or extreme points of land next the
sea of the coast, or of'the entrance of the bays, and not from
three miles from the coast, whether in the great  the interior of such bays or inlets of the coast, and consebays or out of them.                             quently that no right exists on the part of American citizens
In 1841, Mr. Stevenson, then our Minister at   to enter the bays of Nova Scotia, there to take fish, althoug sh the fish being within the bay may be at a greater
London, called the attention of the British Gov-  thuh    an thee mfilesfrn o th  h the bay ma be at a greater
distance than three niles from the shore of the bay, as we
ernment to the true intent and meaning of, or    are of opinion that the term headland is used in the treaty
the construction which should be given to the first  to express the part of land we have before mentioned, exarticle of the treaty of 1818. In his dispatch, dated  cluding the interior of the bays and the inlets of the coast."
March 27, 1841, to Lord Palmerston, then princi-   Thus it will be observed that the question,
pal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr.  whether our rights under the treaty of 1783 were
Stevenson says:                                  abrogated or not, is most summarily disposed of.
" It also appears, from information recently received by  The manner of running from headland to headthe Governmentof theUnited States, that the provincial au-  land is also disposed of in the same way. The
thorities assume a right to exclude the vessels of these profound conclusions we are
States from all their bays, (even including those of Fundy  r       r
and Chaleur,) and likewise to prohibit their approach with-  not permitted to see. All that we can know is
in three miles of a line, drawn from headland to headland, upon a case made up by the government of Nova
instead of from the indents of the shores of the Provinces! Scotia; the Attorney General and Queen's Advo"They also assert the right of excluding them from  cte have so decided. There is one expression
British ports, unless in actual distress, warning then to depart or get under way and leave harbor whenever the  used in the opinion of these officers which is sigprovincial custom-house or British naval officers shall sup- nificant, and which we may well suppose aided, if
pose that they have remained there a reasonable tine, and  it did not control, the result to which they came.
this without a full examination of the circumstances under T   s   t      hdln       i  sd  n the
which they may have entered the port. Now, the fisher- ey  y tat t   term  eadland s   sed in t
men of the United States believe, (if uniform practice is treaty to express the part of land," S;c. There is no
any evidence of correct construction,) that they can with  such word as headland used in the treaty. Had
propriety take fish anywhere on the coasts of the British  such been the case, there would be some reason
provinces, if not nearer than three marine milesfrom land,
and have a right to their ports for shelter, wood, and water; for the conclu sion to which they came. The abnor has this claim, it is believed, ever been seriously dis- sence of that very term on which they say their
puted, based, as it is, on the plain and obvious terms of the  opinion is based proves their error.. The reason
convention. Indeed the main object of the treaty was, not  opinion s not there, and without it their
onlyto secure to American fishermen in the pursuit of their
employment, the right of fishing, but likewise to insure him  opinion or conclusion must be incorrect by their
as large a proportion of the convenience afforded by the  own showing.
neighboring coasts of British settlement as might be recon- This is but an ex parte decision, and one which
eilable with the just rights and interests of British subjects,  our Government has never assented to, and one to
and the due administration of Her Majesty's dominions.  our Government as never assented to and one to
The construction, therefore, which has been attempted to  which we were not a party. It in no way conbe put upon the stipulations of the treaty by the authorities  trols or disturbs the position of our Government
of Nova Scotia, is directly in conflict with their object, and  upon these questions   We are left to maintain
entirely subversive of the rights and interests of the citi-  uon   construction which involves all that i
zens of the United States. It is one, moreover, whic our own construction, which involves all that i
would lead to the abandonment, to a great extent, of a high-! now in dispute. What is the construction which




9
shall be given to the treaty, is a question for both  Falkland, Governor of Nova Scotia, dated SeptemGovernments to settle and determine.            ber 17, 1845.
This construction, thus formally given by the             " DOWNING STREET, September 17, 1845.
British Government, was allowed to remain with-   "MY LORD: ***           *  Her ajesty's Governout any attempt to enforce it by Great Britain. ment have attentively considered the representations conIn the mean time, from 1841 to 1845, the Provin-  tained in your dispatches, No. 324 and 331, of the 17th
In the mean ti~me, from 1841 to 1845, the Provin-June and the 2d July, respecting the policy of granting percial Legislature of Nova Scotia had adopted sun-  mission to the fisheries of the United States to fish in the
dry reports in relation to the fisheries, and some  Bay of Chaleur, and other large bays of a similar character
attempts were made by the provinces to exclude  on the coast of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and, apprehending from your statements that any such general conour fishermen from the Bay of Fundy, which led  cession would be injurious to the interests of the British
to a renewal of correspondence between the two  North American Provinces, we have abandoned the intenGovernments. All the information which I gather tion we entertained upon the subject, and still adhere to the
upon the point is from the dispatch of Mr. Ever-  strictletter of the treaties which exist between Great Britain
uand the United States, relative to the fisheries in North
ett, the American Minister at London, dated' April  America, except so far as they may relate to the Bay of
23, 1845, to Mr. Buchanan, Secretary of State:  Fundy, which has been thrown open to the North Ameri" Sir, with my dispatch, No. 278, of the 25th of March, cans under certain restrictions."
I transmitted the note of Lord Aberdeen of the 10th of  This, it will be seen, is dated but a few months
March, communicating the important information that this after the note of Lord Abedeen, to which Mr.
Government had come to the determination to concede toafter the note of Lord Aberdeen, to which Mr.
American fishermen the right of pursuing their occupation  Everett referred, relating to the fisheries in the Bay
within the Bay of Fundy. It was left somewhat uncertain  of Fundy. That note gave' us what we claimed
by Lord Aberdeen's note, whether this concession was in- as our right in that bay. This last dispatch of
tended to be confined to the Bay of Fundy, or to extend to  Lord Stanleyappies the British constructin of
other portions of the coast of the Anglo-American posses-Lord Stanley applies the British construction of
sions, to which the principle contended for by the United  the treaty to the Bay of Chaleur, and other large
States equally apply, and particularly to the waters of the  bays. It is their construction only, and can have
northwestern shores of Cape Breton, where the'Argus' no bindin  force upon us, or our construction.
was captured. In my notes of the 25th ultimo and the 2d  1           force un,  r  c    s
instant, on the subject of the' Washington' and Argus,  This dispatch has never been enforced, except as
I was careful to point out to Lord Aberdeen, that all the  we understand it is now attempted. We have
reasoning for admitting the right of the Americans to fish  continued to enjoy our ancient rights, hearing
in the Bay of Fundy apply to those waters with superior only the muttered threats of the colonies.
force, inasmuch as they are less land-locked than the Bay 
of Fundy, and to express the hope that the concession was  From all this history of the facts connected with,
meant to extend to them, which there was some reason to  and growing out of this question; from our orithink, from the mode in which Lord Aberdeen expressed  ginal rights; from what was demanded by Great
himself, was the case.                          Britain; from the correspondence and protocols of
" Ireceived last evening the answer of his lordship, in-Brtan; from the correspondence and protocols of
forming me that my two notes had been referred to the  negotiating ministers; and from an acquiescence in
Colonial Office, and that a final reply could not be returned  our claim of rights, and their use for more than
till he should be made acquainted with the result of that thirty years, we are justified in saying that our
reference; and that in the mean time, the concession must     f t   trt i nt n           t and
be understood to be limited to the Bay of Fundy.construct    o  the treaty   not only    t an
" The merits of the question are so clear that I cannot but right, but that it is the true intent and meaning
anticipate that the decision of the Colonial Office will be thereof. And, admitting that it is an unsettled
in favor of a literal construction of the convention."  question-the most that Great Britain can claimThe concession made was in fact, and could be-  the courtesy and the honor of our nation will deonly an abandonment on the part of Great Britain  mand that nothing less will be conceded in any
of her construction of the convention or treaty-for  settlement of the same, than our right to fish in all
I use the words as synonymous-so far as it applied  waters one marine league from the shore.
to the Bay of Fundy. It was in fact no conces-    Now we are informed, from such sources as
sion. It only allowed what was in our view the  are believed to be reliable, that Great Britain is
true intent and meaning of the treaty. Nor does  enforcing her construction of the treaty, and is
the term used at all disturb our construction. The  now driving American fishermen from the bays in
substance was important, and the most that can be  which they have always used the right to fish, or
said is, that it leaves Great Britain in a position  to seize aud confiscate their vessels. So far as we
where she may insist that she has not abandoned  know, not a word of notice or warning has been
her construction of the treaty. It was but a re- given to our Government. The first intimation
iteration of her claim which she put forth in 1814, we have, a hostile fleet is sent to enforce, with nawhen, in the negotiations at Ghent, her Ministers  val power, this construction upon our honest and
declared that no new grants would be made to the  hard-working fishermen. The ordinary rules of
United States to fish on the coasts of her provinces,  courtesy, which should mark the acts of all Govwithout an equivalent. This concession was made  ernments, it would seem, should have induced a
on our claim of the right, and the terms used in  different course.
securing our rights, cannotbe used to deprive us  Mr. SEWARD. If the Senator from Maine
subsequently of them.                           will allow me, I will state that, from the papers
It will also be noted that Mr. Everett speaks  this day communicated to the Senate, I find that
with an unqualified confidence that a literal con- the British Minister did communicate to our Govstruction of the convention will begiven by the Colo- ernment, on the 5th of July last, that a sufficient
nial Office; the plain meaning of which is, that a  force had been ordered upon the British coast for
literal construction of the convention will secure  the purpose of protecting the fisheries. I state this
to us the right to fish in all harbors more than  that the Senator may have the whole case as it is.
three miles from the shore. That was what Mr.   I say nothing here of the character of that notice.
Everett meant.                                     Mr. HAMLIN. I was speaking of what had
The only other reference which I propose to   been made public. And this dispatch, after the
make is a dispatch of Lord Stanley, (now Earl of  squadron had been ordered upon our coast, does
Derby, and Prime Minister of England,) to Lord  not at all obviate the objection made; and such




10
a fleet is not required for such a purpose. Notice  ferent one for more than thirty years; and a conwas not given until after the act was done. Such  struction, too, which we believe we have shown to
a notice does not alter the case at all; it is, in fact, be in accordance with the design and intention of
but an aggravation. This was like the action of the parties. Such a state of things cannot be subCharles the XII, the mad King of Sweden on      mitted to without disgrace and dishonor-nor will
another occasion.  He sent his army first, and  it be. With firm and patriotic councils no fear or
then gave notice that his minister would follow to  alarm need be entertained, though we may well be
negotiate. That will not do in this age, and with  astonished and startled at the flagrant violations of
our Government. The movement may be regard-      our flag in the recent seizures of American fishered as most remarkable, and leads to theconclusion  men. The acts which have already taken place
that it has some ulterior purpose. It is said that demonstrate the great propriety of the call made
reciprocal trade between the United States and the  by the resolution of the honorable chairman on
British colonies is thus to be enforced. If such be  Foreign Relations [Mr. MASON.] There was a
the object-for it cannot be supposed that, at this  necessity for knowing officially what had been
day, we are to surrender the freedom of the seas-  done by Great Britain, and what was intended to
I will only say, in my opinion, the wrong mode  be done by our Government, so far as that knowlhas been adopted to secure the end desired. It edge should be compatible with the public intermay have been designed to aid or strengthen a Tory  ests.
Ministry, which came in by accident, and, judging  We learn daily, by the mails, through the press,
from the recent elections in England,it will be like- and by the telegraph, of the continued seizures of
ly to go out by design.                         our vessels under the solemn protestations of the
What are the designs of the British Government parties that no violations of the treaty have been
is of much less importance than what are her acts. either designed or committed. And we are also inIt is with them that we must deal. What are they?formed from the same sources, that duties are imOur information is not yet official, but is presumed  posed upon our vessels, when seeking a harbor for
to be reliable. The Halifax Chronicle, in the last shelter, to repair, or for wood or water-rights
month, gives a list of the naval force cruising in  which we possess under the positive stipulations of
British waters. That paper says:                the treaty, and about which there can be no mis"For the information of all concerned, we subjoin a list of take. f duties can be thus imposed upon our vesthe cruisers our calculating neighbors are likely to fall  ke. If duties can be thus imposed upon oures
in with on the coast-all of which will, we apprehend, do  sels,they may be prohibited from the use of these
their duty, without fear or favor:              ports at all. It is a gross violation of our treaty
Cumberland*......74.............Capt. Seymour.  rights, and is another evidence that the faith of
Sappho.....     12.......sloop..........Corn. Cochrane. Great Britain in relation to her treaties with us is
Devastationt...... 6.... steam-sloop.... Com. Campbell. but a Punic faith. I fear much that our acquesBuzzard........... 6....steam-sloop.... Coin. ----
Janus............. 4 steam-sloop.... Lieut.  -  cence in her violation of the Nicaragua treaty, has
Netley............ 3....ketch...... Corn. Kynaston. served as an inducement to this.
Bermuda.......... 3.... schooner......Lieut. Jolly.
Arrow.............-.brigantine.... -    ---      We have accounts which are presumed to be
Telegraph..........-....schooner......         correct, of the seizure of Hayades, of Lubec,
Halifax............ 2....brigantine.....Mast. Laybold.  Maine. The schooner Wellfleet reports that, on
B    ell    e..........2....  brigantine...... Mast. Cr owell.
Bele........... 2 bricantiner..... Mast. Crowell.  the 23d of July, two American vessels were taken
Responsible........ 2....schooner......Mast. Dodd.
Daring.............schooner......Mast. Daly.  off Gosperhead by a British steam-frigate. Cap*Flag, Sir G. F. Seymour. t300 horse power. t220 tain Saybold, of the brigantine Halifax, informed
horse power.                                    Captain Whalan that his orders were to seize all
" In addition to this formidable force, his Excellency Sir vessels found fishing within the line laid down by
G. F. Seymour requires, we learn, two more vessels, besides the British Government. This will cut off our
the Arrow and Telegragh, (two beautiful craft, of whose
merits we have previously spoken,) to be fitted, provisioned,vessels rom fishing on all te grounds, except 
officered, and manned by the British Government. The the neighborhood of Gaspe and Magdalen islands.
Buzzard, hourly expected from Portsmouth, brings out men The distance from this line to the shore in some
to man these hired vessels. To these must be added two  places is fifty or sixty miles. Another restriction
from New Brunswick, one from Canada, and one from has been placed upon our vessels, in the shape of
Prince Edward's Island, making a total of nineteen armed
vessels, from the " tall Admiral" to the tiny Tender, en- anchorage duty, at sixpence per ton. In all the
gaged in this important service. His Excellency the Vice Provinces the fishing vessels have been obliged,
Admiral deserves the thanks of the people of British North  heretofore, to pay a like duty at Canso, and now
America for the zeal with which he has taken up this momentous matter, and also for the promptitude of his cobper- they are obliged to pay this anchorage duty at
ation with the Provincial Government. Janus comes to other Provinces in addition, which is something
Newfoundland direct from Gibraltar; she is an experimental never required before.
steamer, constructed by Sir Charles Napier, and by some
said to be a splendid failure. Cumberland sails immedi-  BOSTON, July 31st.-The fishing schooner Northern
ately for St. John's and the Newfoundland coast.'  Light, which arrived at Booth Bay, Maine, from the Gulf
A formidable force indeed, to prevent the peace-  of St. Lawrence, reports having been hoarded by a British
cutter and requested not to fish within three miles of land,
able and unoffending fishermen from violating thea line from headland to headland being marked out in their
treaty of 1818. And more are required as it is  presence.
stated. That such a force is at all necessary for  " The schooner Wave, which has arrived at Gloucester,
such a purpose will not be credited by any familiar 1 reports that on Monday last, while lying at anchor near Sawith the business. Nor is such the i ntention,  hle Island, in company with the schooner Helen Maria, of
with the business. Nor is such the intention, oGloucester, they were boarded by a British cutter, and fish
can any one believe. Such cannot be the object. bait being found on the Helen Maria, she was taken in PuThe true design is to enforce a construction o the     The crew of te Helen Mria allege that they had
treaty fori to its intention, and, as we believe,  not been fishing, and had no intention of evading the treaty
treaty foreign to its intention, and, as we believe,but had only put in for supplies. The intelligence has
against its fair interpretation; a construction which  caused great excitement among the Gloucester fishermen."
has been left for a Tory Ministry to enforce after  " SEIZURE OF ANOTHER AMERICAN FISHING VESSEL.it has been negatived by an acquiescence in a dif- I BosToN,.ugust2.-The American fishing schooner Union




11
has been seized for an alleged violation of the fishery treaty her argosies were found in every port along the
and carried into Charlottestown.j" British coast. Her vessels visited every port of
"SEBosr,   CONugst.-The scho r   sold atthe Mediterranean, and every coast of Europe.
St. John's to-day for a breach of the fishing treaty."  Her maritime commerce was probably not much
Such are the accounts of some of the many   inferior to all the rest of christendom. Such was
seizures which have taken place, and they can leave  Venice in the day of her greatest commercial prosno doubt that they are seized many miles from  perity, and that prosperity was in a great degree
shore. But I will pass from the consideration of attributable to the enterprise of her seamen, who
this part of the subject, and will proceed to the  had been trained and educated in the school of her
examination of the other branch of it. I propose  fisheries. They were hardy, industrious, and enerto show the importance of our fisheries, as con-  getic, and they went wherever commerce could
nected with our commerce and our Navy, and ex- find an avenue.
hibit the amount of means and the number of men  Holland also furnishes a remarkable example of
engaged in the same, for the purpose of presenting  the prosperity and commercial power of that countheir true importance to the country, and demon-  try, in connection with her fisheries and her seastrating the necessity, as well as justice, of pro-  men. Indeed, sir, the old Dutch proverb is, that
tecting their just rights and sustaining the honor  the city of Amsterdam  was built upon fishes'
of our country.                               bones. When Holland was the mistress of commerce, as she was from the year 1588 to the year
THURSDAY,.ugust 5, 1852.           1750, Amsterdam was perhaps the first commerThe President's message, in relation to the  cial city of Europe. History informs us that
North American fisheries, being again under con- that distinction was obtained by her fisheries and
sideration —                                  her commerce. Indeed, she had little else. By
Mr. HAMLIN resumed, and concluded as fol- her fisheries she won this great commercial power,
lows:                                       i and that commerce was sustained by her fisherMr. PRESIDENT: It will now be my purpose to  men. When Von Tromp swept the British ocean,
call, as briefly as 1 can, the attention of the Senate  with a broom at his mast-head, threatening entire
to the importance of these fisheries in a commercial destruction to the British navy, and annihilation
and maritime point of view, for the purpose of to the commerce of that nation, his vessels were
showing that, not only as a matter of right, but manned by those hardy and persevering men
as an obligation of duty arising as well from right which were supplied from the fisheries of Holas from interest, our Government should protect land. These were the men who were in fact a
our fishermen in the rights which properly and  terror to all her adversaries, and by which Holjustly belong to them by the treaty of 1783, by  land acquired such renown. Her commercial prosthe convention of 1818, and by the law of nations. perity and the prosperity of her fishermen were
We must have men for our Navy; we must coexistent with each other. The Government ithave men for ourcommercial marine. Those men  self, in a dispatch on the causes of its commercial
can only be had who have followed the occupa- prosperity, prepared with great care by the direction, and who have become proficient, by a train- tion of the Stadtholder, places the fisheries in the
ing in the sea service for a series of years. There  first class of causes as contributing to the advanceis no nation that has ever existed which has not  ment of the Republic in its unexampled prosperity
reposed with confidence on the fisheries as the  Such was beyond all doubt the fact.
great fountain of supply for its commerce and its  France furnishes a most remarkable example,
Navy. Our own Government, from its founda- too, of the intimate relation which exists between
tion to the present time, have regarded the fisheries  commerce, the naval power, and the fisheries.
as the great source from whence we are to draw  While that nation held her eastern colonies, and
our supply. They are the school in which our their fisheries, we all know that she was rapidly
seamen are to be trained to fight our battles on  equaling Great Britain in her commerce and in
the ocean and on the lakes. There is no other her navy; and an examination of the history of
school; there is no other training adequate to the  these times will show clearly and conclusively
purpose. There is no nation now existing that that, from the very hour she parted with her fishhas been distinguished for its commerce or its  eries, which had been the nurseries of her seanaval power, which has not had such a body of men and her commerce, her navy began to demen as a corps on which it could rely for the pur- dine. Under Louis XIV., and under that most
pose to which 1 have alluded.                 remarkable minister, Colbert, we find that her
From the days of the commercial prosperity of commerce had extended, and had become almost
Venice down to the present time, every nation  equal to that of England. Her navy was indeed
which has been distinguished for its commerce  formidable.
and naval power, it will be found, has not only  Allow me to read here from a communication
devoted its energies to this branch of industry, made to the National Assembly of France, at its
but it has relied implicity upon it as a great source  session in 1851, by M. Ancet, in relation to the
from which its navy and its commerce were to be  fisheries. It has been very kindly furnished me
sustained. When Venice was mistress of the    by a friend, and is not only an able, but a most
Adriatic; when she commanded absolutely the   valuable paper. In that review, which the French
Mediterranean, and almost the whole of Europe; Government have given to this subject very rewhen she was indeed the first commercial Power cently, I find very clear and satisfactory evidence
in all Europe, and it is said by some writers, of the value which they place upon their fisheries
equal to all Europe, she had a corps of fishermen, at this time, and of the extraordinary measures
with which to supply her commerce and her navy  which they are taking, not only to retain their
along her coasts and bays.  They covered the  present interest in them, but to extend the same.
lagoons, they swarmed the Mediterranean, and  He says:




12
" It is not, therefore, a commercial law that we have the  the early history of the country, calling the attenhonor to propose to the Assembly, but rather a maritime  tion of the Government to the mpotance of this
law-a law conceived for the advancement of the navalportan
power of this country.                            I branch of our industry.  I quote from his message
"No other school can compare with this in preparing i of December 15, 1802. He says:
them [seamen] so well, and in numbers so important, for  "( To cultivate peace, and maintain commerce and navthe service of the navy.                           igation in all their lawful enterprises; to foster our fisheries
It may be said of this fishery that if it piepares fewer  and nurseries of navigation, and for the nurture of man;
men for the sea, it forms better sailors-the Elite of the * * are the landmarks by which we are to guide ourselves
navy.                                              in all our proceedings."
"The preservation of the great fisheries assumes a de-  He states very succinctly the importance of th
gree of importance more serious when they are viewed as
being in fact the nursery of our military marine."  fisheries in a national point of view, as a school
To foster their fishermen they give a bounty ofin which to train the samen of our commerce and
twenty francs on a French quintal of two hundred   our Navy.    This shows very clearly the importand twenty and a half pounds avoirdupois-nearly    ance placed upon these fisheries by France, by
equal to two dollars per American quintal of one   England, by all great or commercial nations, and
hundred and twelve pounds; a sum     almost equal  by our own Government.      And, sir, that importto what our   s        ota        t                ace is n no what our fdiminishermen obtain for  their dried fof
when fit for market.                               time.  We are to rely upon them   now and hereThis shows the estimate in which the fisheries   after to maintain our supremacy upon the ocean.
are held by that Government at this time. Another    A like lesson could be drawn from the history
extract to which I will call the attention of the  of Spai, when her commerce and her navy had
Senate, is from the same report. In speaking of thereached its culminating point. She, too, drew
character of these fisheries, it shows the estimation  her support from  the fisheries in which she then
in which they were held at the period of time to   participated, and which she then held.
which I have already alluded-that period when        This branch of inustry has always been conthe colonies which now belong to Great Britain     sidered by the English Government as one of very
were in the possession of France.                  great importance; and she owes to it that supremM. Ancet continues:                              acy which in times past she has exercised upon
"The loss of her most magnificent colonies has occa-almost every sea. She owes it to the hardy seasioned irreparable injury to the commercial marine, which nmen, that she has educated that her commerce has
is an essential element of naval power."  *  *      been found in every quarter of the world. She
In order to preserve them [the fisheries] we must con-  owes it to this class of men that she has been entinue the encouragements they have received, even at pe-    maintain    naval superiority over any
riods when a commercial and colonial prosperity, infinitely   ta    v 
superior to that now existing, multiplied our shipping, and  Power that has ever existed.
created abundance of seamen. It is on our fisheries that at  Such is the importance of our fisheries in a comthis day repose all the most serious hopes of our maritime  mercial and maritime point of view. They are
enlistments."                                    ialso important when we examine them in connecIn the same connection, allow me to read, for    tion with the amount of means, the number of
the purpose of showing the estimate placed upon    men, and the persons who are engaged in them who
these fisheries, not only by the English, but by   are citizens of this Government.  The American
the French Government at the period to which I     tonnage employed in these fisheries at the close of
have alluded, before they passed from the French   the fiscal year 1851, amounts, in the total, to
to the English jurisdiction, an extract from a re-  146,155 84-95 tons, a fleet which, in another age
port on commercial tariffs and regulations, made   of the world, would have been regarded as adeto the British Parliament in 1846, by Mr. Mac-     quate to the commercial purpose of a whole nation.
gregor.  In that report he says:                   This is classified as follows:
" In speaking of the fisheries, De Witt says:    Amount of Tonnage engaged in Cod Fish eriesfor the year
"That the English navy became formidable by the dis-            ending June 30, 1851.
covery of the inexpressibly rich fishing bank of Newfoundland."     *     *      *                                           Enrolled ves- Licensed
"And from 1618, the fisheries were carried on by Eng-  STATES.     sels over 20 vessels un  Total.
land, and became of great national consideration."                     tons.    der0 tons.
"Before the conquest of Cape Breton, by these alone                     -
France became formidable to all Europe."  *         * Maine.............  41,233.00  4,294.72  45,527.72
"It was a maxim with the French Government, that  New Hampshire...   1,705.33    211.82   1,917.20
their American fisheries were of more national value, in  Massachusetts.....  38,110.57  1,871.58  39,982.20
regard to navigation and power, than the gold mines of Rhode Island......  26.40   344.73     371.18
Mexico could have been if the latter were possessed by  Connecticut.......  5,591.13  1,193.72  6,784.85
France."                                           New York.........   808.41    224.16    1,033.57
He says further:
~~~~~~~~~~He says further:~~ 87,475.89                        8,140.88  95,616.82
"It is very remarkable that, in our treaties with France, i___                       _____
the fisheries of North America were made a stipulation of Amount of Tonnage engaged in Mackerel fisheries, ending
extraordinary importance. The Minister of that Power                 June 30, 1851.
considered the value of those fisheries, not so much in a
commercial point of view, but as essential in providing                                   Total Cod
their navy with that physical strength which would enable    STATE               Makerel
them to cope with other nations.                                                 Fish.    Mackerel.
" The policy of the French, from their first planting col-.
onies in North America, insists particularly on training  Maine........................  9,857.59  55,385.36
seamen by means of these fisheries. In conducting their  New Hampshire...............  481.16  2.398.36
cod fishery, one third, or at least one quarter, of the men  Massachusetts.................  39,416.40  79,398 60
employed in it were'green men,' or men who were never  Rhode Island..................  189.76  560.94
at sea before; and by this trade they bred up from four  Conecticut...............   594.01  7,378.86
thousand to six thousand seamen annually."         New York.....................            1,033.57
I beg leave also to call the attention of the Sen- 
ate to an extract from the message of Jefferson, in                             50,539.02  146,155.84




13
The Boston merchants, who are practical men, 1851, and inspected within Massachusetts alone.
who are engaged in the business, and are so situated  It embraces the whole amount caught and inspected
that they can avail themselves of more reliable in- there, and it gives to us thelocalitiesin which they
formation than can be by any possibility acquired  were caught. The quantity of cod, or the value
at this point, have estimated the whole number of of the same, taken by Massachusetts vessels, or
vessels employed in this branch of industry at inspected in that State, for the year 1851, 1 can2,500, and their value at $12,000,000, including the  not obtain. If the quantity and value of all deoutfit. The value of fish caught by this fleet can- scriptions of fish could all be ascertained from one
not be estimated with any considerable degree of State, it might furnish a rule upon which estimates
accuracy. It varies from $3,000,000 to $5,000,000  for all could be based.
annually. According to the information which    I find from Macgregor's report, to which I have
I have been able to acquire, I am inclined to the  already alluded, that he has given to us the result
belief that an estimate varying from $3,000,000  of his investigations in relation to the fisheries of
to $4,000,000 annually, will be very near the true  Massachusetts alone in 1837. His is not an aupoint. It is a fluctuating and an uncertain busi- thority which would be likely to over-estimate the
ness, and the results of one year cannotform at all quantity of fish taken, or the importance of those
a reliable basis for the results of a subsequent year. fisheries. According to his estimate, in 1837, we
A trouble which arises, and which prevents the  have the following in regard to the fisheries in
obtaining of such information as is desirable, and  Massachusetts:
as will enable us to state with accuracy what is
as will enable us to state with accuracy what isNumber of vessels employed in the cod and mackerel fishthe annual amount of production of our fisheries,  ery...............................   12,290
arises from the want of accuracy in the returns, Tonnage of the same.........................  76,089
and from the fact that full returns are hardly ever Number of quintals of cod fish caught..........  510,554
made. There are, however, some returns which Value of the same............................. $1,569,517
made. There are, however, some returns which  Number of barrels of mackerel caught..........  23459
may be found at stated periods, and other returns  Value of the same...........................$1,639,049
at particular localities, from which we may draw  Men employed................................  11,146
a conclusion that will safely justify us in the opin- Total value of cod and mackerel............. $3,208,866
ion that the annual production of our fisheries  The number of seamen estimated there, as bemust be at least from $3,000,000 to $4,000,000. ing engaged in that year, is placed at 11,146. That
Some years they may exceed that sum. The re- is the number of seamen actually engaged upon
port of the inspector general of fish, in Massachu- the ocean. There is another class of men, very
setts, gives the quantity and value of the mackerel numerous, which serves to increase the number a
inspected by him in 1851. He puts down 940    very considerable per cent., who are left upon the
vessels, making 59,417 tons, with 9,998 men.  shore for the purpose of curing, preserving, and
Now, it will be remarked that in our commer- taking care of the fish; and who alternate with
cial tables the tonnage engaged in the mackerel those who do the fishing; consequently the numfisheries is put down only at 50,539 tons, while  ber of fishermen who are returned as actually emthe inspector general of Massachusetts puts it ployed in the business, is not the actual number
down at 59,417. The difference between the two  of those who devote their lives to that occupation.
may be explained in this manner: By a decision  And the number of seamen who are engaged at
of the late Justice Woodbury, fishermen who   different times in the fisheries cannot be accurately
were engaged in the codfisheries, and who were  ascertained; but it is at least fifty per cent. above
compelled to complete their four months between  the number of those who are employed at any
February and the November following, might de- given time in fishing.
vote a portion of their time to the mackerel fish-  I have, Mr. President, some other tables to
eries. A portion of them were engaged in the  which I wish to call the attention of the Senate.
mackerel fisheries; and by the estimate made by  They are as follows. They are not as full and
the inspector of Massachusetts, are placed in that complete as I could desire, but they are the best
column, thus making the aggregate of tonnage en- which can be obtained, and are sufficient to show
gaged in the mackerel fisheries, some 10,000 tons that our fishing interest is a great and important
above that which appears in the commercial tables  one:
reported at the Treasury Department. The first
reported at the Treasury Department. The first Statement of the Tonnage of Vessels employed in the Fishpart of those tables exhibits the number of vessels,  eries of the United States each year jrom June, 1843, to
the number of tons, and the number of men en-   June, 1851.
gaged.
The same report also gives us information as   Year       Cod       Mackerel
to the localities in which the mackerel were caught.      fisheries.  fisheries.     otal.
I find that 140,906 barrels were caught in the Bay  1843-   61,223     11,775      72,998
of Chaleur, and other large bays on the coasts of 1844.....  85,224   16,170     101,394
the Provinces from which we are to be excluded, 1845.......  76,990    21,413      98,203
under a line drawn from headland to headland, 1846........  79,318     36,463     115,781
and that 188,336 barrels were caught in all other  1847......,  78,280  31,451    109'731
1348........  89,856    43,558     133,414
waters. Therefore, we learn from the report of 1849........  81,695    42,942     124,637
the inspector general that if we are excluded from  1850........  93,806  58,112  151,918
those large bays by drawing a line from headland  185........  95,616  50,539    146,155
to headland, we are excluded from waters in which
very nearly one half the mackerel caught in the  I offer this for the purpose of showing that the
year 1851 weretaken. The valueof these,accord- amount of tonnage engaged in that branch of ining to the estimate placed upon them by the in- dustry is very large, and has continually increased
spector general of Massachusetts, was $2,315,576.  from that period of time up to the present-showThis is only the amount of mackerel caught in  ing its growing importance.




14
Statement of Pickled Fish inspected in JbIassachusetts, commercial and naval prosperity, and the great
from 1841 to 1850, inclusive.        fountain and source of the commercial and naval
Barrels.   prosperity of every maritime nation that has ex1841..................... 50,992   isted. Thus hastily have I presented, as far as I
1842........................ 46,537       have been able, the amount, the value of our fish1843........................... 74,893     eries, the number of men employed, and the pro1844........................... 98,014     ductions of these fisheries-all showing their im1845....................... 212,296    portance, and imposing upon us the obligation to
1846....................... 195,194  maintain the just rights of our fishermen, and to
1847............................238,980     sustain them in what properly belongs to them.
1848........................300,336      A few words more, sir, and I shall have done;
1849............................203,499   and in these few words I shall invite the attention
1850............................ 246,463    of the Senate to the character of the men whom
This is the amount of pickled fish inspected in  we are called upon to protect-whose interests are
Massachusetts only. It is hardly sufficient to  involved, whose rghts are invaded, and who
base a calculation of value upon, but is still one  come here to call upon us to stand by them, as
element that will aid in a correct understanding of they have stood by the fag of their country in the
the magnitude of the whole business.           day and hour of trial and peril.
These men come here and claim of us the proExports of Dried and Pickled Fish from the United States  These men come here and claim of us the produring the years ending June 3, 1843, to 1850, inclusive.  tecton  hich we, as a nation, owe to them; and
it is a protection that we must give to them, or we
Dried          pickled                  shall be faithless to the trust reposed in us. We
I Dried  i     iic~ieci         Tntni                             l  l    11Total
Years. Fsh    Value.  Fish-   Value.'  a       have induced them to embark their all upon this
quint'ls.       barrels.                 perilous enterprise. We have induced them, by....... -— bounties, and encouraged them forcommercial and
I843*. 174,220 $381,1751 30,554 $116,042 $497,217  maritime purposes, to pass their lives upon the
1844.. 271,610  699,833 46,170  197,179  897,015  stormy ocean; and there, sir, it is, in sunshine and
1845.. 288,380  803,353 44,203  208,654 1,012,007  in storm, that they are following that vocation
1847.. 258,870  659,569  357,00  230491  795,851  which fits them for, or makes them the best sea1848.. 206,549  609,482 23,736  109,315  718,797  men the world can produce. Our Government
1849.. 197,457  419,092 25,835  93,085  513,177  has given to them a just right to protection by in1850.. 168,600  365,349 19,944  91,445  456,794  sisting, from the treaty of 1783, and from  the
The retuns for 1843 were but for nine months.  treaty of 1818, and by the principles of internaThe returns for 1843 were but for nine months.  tional law, that they have a right to fish within
This exhibits that while we have lost the mar- those waters. But it is said that they are now to
ket of the Mediterranean for our fish, and much those waters. But it is said that they are now to
ket of the Mediterranean for our ish, and much  be prohibited; and, sir, if their vessels are to be
of the market of Cuba, and other West Indiaseized-if they are to be excluded from those
islands, yet, from our fisheries we exported, for  waters-if their vessels are to be confiscate then
waters-if their vessels are to be confiscated, then
that period of time, about three fourths of a mil- this immense amount of propety, thus invested,
lion annually.                                 will become useless, and leave them in want and
The next table which I present, is for the pur- beggary, or in  n in foreign jails.
pose of showing the hazard and loss of life which,        in  in in     ein 
Many of them, indeed, have embarked their all
is incurred by the fishermen who follow this pur-  in  e   enterprise. In the great majority of cases
suit. It is a table which exhibits-          in the enterprise. In the great majority of cases
suit. It is a table owhich exhibits-           these fisheries are conducted by men who own
Number and value of lAmerican Fishig Vessels, and nu- the vessels in small shares, who have not even the
her of lives lost in 185  1.,,,'       --- 
er of lives lot in 1.             ability to own the whole vessel. Few instances
District of-. f               Loss   can be found where a single fishing vessel is owned
District of-       Tonnae.
vessels.                of life.  by a single individual.  They are divided into
-Gloucester. 9       _ 629.49  1 --- very small fractions. They are built, they are
P    enobscote......  9  696.01  14,40  22    sailed, they are conducted by the men who own
Penobscot......  14   696.01   149400   22
Portland.......  7    369.54    5,600   66    them in fractional parts.
Barnstable.......  10  563.50  24,100   43      We shall need these men hereafter; we shall
Portsmouth......  6    328.00   16,200   47    need them, as we have needed them, to fight our
Passamaquoddy..  3  143.91  3,600    17    battles upon the ocean and upon the lakes. God
Total.........  49  | 2,730.53  83,266  219  grant, sir, that the time may never come when
___________ _______ _____-the supremacy of our commerce upon the ocean
What the number of lives, the number of tons,  shall be tested by the force of arms. Still, judgand the value of vessels would be, if we could  ing from the past-and we know that the past is
get correct estimates from all the ports, it is im- "philosophy teaching by example"-we may not
possible to tell; but this table exhibits, at a single  suppose that that supremacy is always to be
glance, the great hazard which is experienced by  maintained by peaceful and quiet movements.
our fishermen in the pursuit of their lawful calling.  We should be prepared when that struggle shall
The life of a fisherman is not only one which de- arrive to assert that supremacy in whatever way
prives him of the comforts of home, but is a con- may be demanded at the moment. And when
stant scene of disaster and danger. More severe  that time shall come, it is the American fisherman
toil is endured by none. He labors harder and  who is to fight your battles; it is your American
obtains a smaller return than is afforded in any  fisherman who is to fight them as he fought them
other branch of industry.                      in the war of 1812. Then, when the British GovI have thus briefly, Mr. President, called the  ernment threatened to sweep our little, but galattention of the Senate to the importance of these  lant Navy, from the bosom of the ocean or sink it
fisheries, as the great source and fountain of our  in its vortex, and to annihilate our commerce, it




15
was the fishermen from Marblehead,and all along  naval battles proper fought mainly by your fishour coast, who rallied with patriotic hearts and  ermen, but the greater portion of the commerwith ready hands to sustain the stars and stripes cial vessels of Great Britain was captured by
of our country. And it was by their prowess these very men. We do not desire to train every
that Great Britain was made to feel the force of a  seaman for naval purposes in the Navy; that
freeman's arm whenever wielded in a holy cause. would require thousands of dollars, while training
Whenever the cross of St. George came down to in the fisheries would cost not a single dollar. It is
the stars and stripes we were indebted mainly to for these reasons, in addition to the duty of our
them for that victory. We shall be faithless to  Government to protect the rights of every citizen
the trust that has been reposed in us if we do not everywhere, and at all times, that we are to sustain
sustain and stand by what are their legal, their them and protect them in their rights. If we do
international, and their treaty rights. Why, sir, our duty faithfully by them, we shall find them
in that war of 1812 we captured from the British  when the calls of a common country are made
more than 2,300 sail of vessels, mounting more  upon them, rallying to support that flag to which
than 8,000 guns; we captured 56 men-of-war, they now look for support. I cannot doubt that
mounting 886 cannon; and took in all about 30,000  they are to be protected, nor can I doubt that any
prisoners of war.                           branch of this Government, either legislative or
The American loss was, three frigates-the  executive, will be derelict in its duty. Though
Chesapeake, the Essex, and the President; six  not in the language of diplomacy, or legislation,
brigs, and fourteen small vessels, two sloops, and  yet it is appropriate to this occasion for me to say,
one gun-boat;-making in all twenty-five. And, thatI shall do what has been said by the individual
by the Admirality report of Great Britain to the  who is now conducting the negotiation-stand
House of Commons, it was stated that 1,407 Amer- by them in their just rights, defend them at all
rican merchantmen were captured or destroyed  hazards, and "protect them, hook and line, bob
by the British, and 20,960 seamen taken prison- and sinker."  Stand by them as they have alers of war. Now, sir, not only were all your  ways stood by their country-they ask no more.








SPEECH
OF
HON. ZEIO      SCUDDER, OF MASS,,
ON
THE FISHERIES OF NEW ENGLAND,
AND THE
ENCOURAGEMENT AND GROWTH OF AMERICAN SEAMEN.
DELIVERED
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AUGUST 12, 1852.
WASHINGTON:
PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL JLOBE OFFICE.
1852.








7HE NEW EJKGL AD FISIEIEES.
The House being in the Committee of the [ for, and so are these. Time and experience have
YW'hole on the state of the Uniion-          i lent aid to the theory, and demonlstrated the fact,
Mr. SCUDDER said:                          ithat the labolr so importantly spoken of is " mnMrV'. CHAIRMANIS: Availing myself of the liberty 1mentous" indeed.
of debate as practiced in this committee, I propose  The Republic of Venice, standing as she did in
to speak unon a subject which has not frequently the commercial history of the Middle Ages, with
been brought to the attention of Conhress.    her almost innumerable shios and merchant
Som-e, on occasions like this, have been definin  I princes. received her first impulse of prosperity
their personal positions and making kown to   fio  the nurtured fleets of fishermen that sought
country where they stand among the jarring ele-  er harbors and hovered around her coast.
melts of political discord. Up)on these I anr con-  So important were the fisheries in the view of
tent to stand where the record puts me. So far as tlis Republic, that the omission, by a reigning
they have bee,. pract caliy brought before theDoge, at an ananal festival, to notice the honors
louse my position has been defined by my vote; which had, time out of memnory, been paid to
and 1swatever of interest it may be to mv constit- them, well-nigh overthrew the power of the ruling
uency or the country, it may'there be found re-  order.
aorded uin perpetrasm memoriam.                 The frundation and prosperity of Genoa was
Others have discussed the merits and demerits also based upon this humble but important callof the distinguished presidential candidates now  in.  Ansterdam, the city of the Dutch, was
beforee the country.  t is well known to my con" reared by the profits and skill of her fishermen.
stitu1enc, and those to wvhom I pelk, that I have So directly was her wealth and commerce derived
a decided preference for one of the nominees; that from their indus.-try that it formerly was a quaint
for years I have had a strong and unshaken con- saving: "'Am sterd.m is founded on herring-bones,
fid enue in the ad.ptati on a nd alility of Gen ercl ancd Dotclhmen's abdics are built of icklled fish."
Scott. fr the Presidency. I prefer, howeveer, and  Frnce, elevated asc shle is i tlhe family of nathink it my duty, to leave the contention upon this i tions is alo ilndebIted to le'r fi -;!eri.es for thefoundasubject to the tribuna-l of the people, where the  ion of her Navy, and the ext.e,,t of her conmerce.
Constitution has placed it, and proceed to the dis- She has the credit of beih g the fir;t nation that encussion of a department of i dustry, and the gnov- couraged the p:irsuit of this ind stry in the Ameriernmental policy connected there vith, which, in  can waters; and in thiis she dcvrel ped her rnval
my opinion, is more appropriate to this body,.  operations anad mnLtr e stren-th, by atltemptin to
I speak, sir, upon the suibj'ct of Ameri-cn fish- I r' lieve herself from thle comretition of the Enlish.
eries, particularly the cod and nackerel fisheries Her appreciatinn of this marine enterprise, as a
on the Atlantic coast. It is time for the public natinal interest,  s never ceased under any of
mrind aind the legislation of the country to be the sovernnental -mutationsl to which it has been
aroused upon this subhect. It once ras a theme  l subjected. She ls not only, for a century and
whi.h shaired largoelv the attention of our states- i more, given it a liberal pro.tecltin,an encouragemen. One of the noblest of then, in nthcos d          a e     od Is  merrt as a source o p  a  inlece, but. her
upon an occasion similar to this, truly  nd ern- 1 lae move;ne;ts, ats I sla!l have occasion to show
phatically said: " The catchlin  of codfish is a in the co1urse of my re;n-irks, have tended to an
momentous concern."   I know not that the en- etraordin ry policy in this respect.
terprise is of any less moment now than in the I The fis-heries of which I speak are coeval with
days when these words were spoken by Fisher i the first settlement of our country. They were
Ames. They were times when the good of the the principal inducements, says a reputable writer,
Republic and the labor of her citizens were cared i connected with reliious aspirations, which prompt



4
ed the Puritans to leave the Old World and plant | their barks upon the fog banks of Newfoundland.
themselves upon the shores of New England. The  There they vied with the French, Spanish, Portucorrectness or incorrectness of this assertion, is of guese, and British fleets which had frequented the
but little importance for my present purpose. It regions from a period almost coeval with the disis enough for me to know, that the taking of fish I covery of the Continent. So important had the
was an important item of labor with our ancestors, i French Government considered these adventures
and has continued so to be among theirdescendants for the aggrandizement of her Navy and commerto the present time. How important a part this  cial influence, that in 1744 she had no less than
calling has performed in the formation of New  564 ships and 27,500 seamen employed therein.
England character, habits, and politics, I will not  At, or a short time prior to this period, the
stop to inquire. In passing, however, I think it British Government also awoke to the imperious
but justice to the committee and the subject to call necessity of increasing the strength of her marito mind that memorable political compact, which  time influence; vying with her avowed enemy for
was formed and adopted on board the first fishing  the supremacy of the ocean, stung by the rapid
vessel of our country. Scarcely were the sails of increase of the French marine, she put forth her
the Mayflower furled in the harbor of Cape Cod, vigorous efforts. By dint of war and parliamentwhen the emigrant patriots and statesmen made a i ary encouragements, in 1755, she had won succouncil chamber of her cabin, and there formed  cess, and become triumphant in the fisheries over
the first American Constitution, as follows:   her formidable marine rival.
"In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are vn-  The colonies, with the exception of the interderwritten, the loyall subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord, ruptions caused by the French wars, made steady
King James, by the Grace of God of Great Britaine, France,
and Ireland, Kin-, De^fender of the Faith, S&c.  iprogress in their industry, and with such success
"Having vndertaken, for the glory of God, and advance- that from the year 1764 to the commencement of
ment of the Christian Faith, anld honor of our King and \the Revolution, they employed annually 665 vesCountrey, a voyage to plant tile tirst Colony in the northern I el and 4 405 seamen
parts of Virginia, doe, by these presents, solemnly and nu-  Sir, it needs no ar
tually, in the namrie of God and of one another, covenat  cant exmineeds no argument from me. No man
and combine ourselves together into a civill body politike, can examine the history of the cod fishery on the
for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance as coast of North America without discovering the
the ends aforesaid; ad by vertue hereof to enact, consti- undoubted source of the French and English
tute, and frame such juste and equall Lawes, ordinances,    i
acts, constitutions, offices, from time to time, as shall be commerce, which has extended to every part of
thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the world; and not only this, but the source which
the Colony: unto which we promise all due submission and gave the first impulse to the two rival navies
obedience. In witness whereof we herevnder subscribed
our names. Cape Cod, 11 of November, in the yeare of i   r dde  triumph   y un te 
the raigne of our Sovereign Lord, King James of tngland, for the last two centuries.
France, and Ireland, 18, and of Scotland 54. Anno Dom-  The success of British arms, with no puny aid
ini 1620.'"                                    of the colonies, had, prior to the Revolution, exThis paper of State being finished, and signed  tinguished all European sovereignty and dominion
by John Carver and forty others, they then cast over the fisheries of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia,
forth their lines, and took the fish from the waters and the other provinces, excepting a limited fishery
-the fish which had previously given name to to France, which she still enjoys. The British fla,the barren sand-peaks of the coast, which then  then proudly waved over the whole coast from the
encircled their shattered bark.               Mississippi to the North Pole.
Thus, to the fishing regions of Cape Cod belongs  Sir, the battles of the Revolution came, and they
the honor of issuing the first written constitution  were fought by the patriots, not only for their inin America; and although in its loyalty to King I dependence on terra firma, but for their rights in
James it may not now seem the most acceptable, U the fisheries on the northeastern coast of the conyet it was the first scintillation of that political tinent. These inestimable treasures and sources
spirit which has since passed over the continent, of their enterprise had been wrested from them by
illuminating it with a constellation of thirty-one  the bill of Lord North which had passed the Parindependent Republics.                        liament, and they then claimed them as rights, and
In a more superstitious age, when the flying ofl not as fluctuating privileges of British legislation.
birds and the responses of oracles determined the So essential and valuable were these rights considcourse and policy of States, the fortunate coinci- ered that the Congress, when peace negotiations
dence of the simultaneous origin of written con- were pending, resolved to make no peace without
stitutions and New England fisheries, might have an acknowledgment of our rights to the fishing
been considered an omen of good to the latter; but grounds.
the days of auguries having ceased, the only ben-  i New England, in resolute tones, declared that
efit which they now claim from the circunmstance there was no victory without these rilghts. Samuel
is the encouraging and protecting influence of the Adams, her cha.ipion and defender, echoing her
improved principles of their ancient cotemporary. sentiment, boldly proclaimed "N'o peace without the
The untrammeled energies of these founders of'fisheries."
the fisheries were not long to be circumscribed by  The sensation in the New England colonies
the coast of Cape Cod. They soon pointed their was deep and abiding. They had fought the French
little ship across the bay to the memorable Ply- battles of the mother country for tlre purpose of
mouth Rock, and in a few short years they were achieving these very rights, anrd they were not to
found with their crafts and pinkies not only explor- be tamely yielded to her imperious demands.
ing the bays of the cape and the shoals of Nan- John Adams, one of the peace commissioners,
tucket, for the cod, anchovies, and salmon which  than whom rno one knew better the value of the
had been so attractively spoken of by Gosnold, fisheries to New England and the country, when
but, in 1670, their adventurous spirits had led them I the British commissioners expressed their willingto brave the high waves of the Atlantic, and moor ness to acknowledge them as a privilege, but not




5
as aright, vehemently replied, "the right, theright,  beyond that of any other nation in their encouror no treaty."                                 agement of this industry. They have considered
The point was ultimately settled, and the pro- it a measure productive of national wealth, and
vision of the treaty of 1783 was:              their statesmen have cherished it as a flattering
" That the people of the United States shall continue to  means by which they might wrest the commercial
enjoy, unmolested, the right to take fish of every kind on  and naval palm from the British Empire.
the Grand Bank, and on the other banks of Newfoundland;  Under these circumstances, with the experience
also, in the Galf of St. Lrarence, and at all other places in f  r
thesea, where the inhabitants of both countries used at any                    knowing t
tihme heretofore to fish; an(d, also, that the inhabitants of l the commerce and navy of the country could not
the United States shall have liberty to take fish of every succeed without seamen, the General Government
kind, on such part of the coast of Newfoundland as British  began to take measures for their increase, by fosterfishermen shall use, (but not to dry or cure the sament of industry, which
that island,) and, also, on the coasts, bays, and creeks of                        can coh i
all other of His Britannic Majesty's dominions in America; would tend to encourage their pursuit.  can conand that the American fishermen shall have liberty to dry  ceive of no wiser policy of Government than that
and cure fish in any of tie unsettled bays, harbors, and  of patronizing an industry or art, which, while it
creeks of Nova Scotia, Magdalen Islands, and Labrador, s o 
creek ^f P^ovaScnti ^lndn lgives nurture and support to her citizens, it also
long as the same shall remain unsettled; but so soon as the gives ur  t to her citizens, 
same, or either of them, shall be settled, it shall not be law- cultivates and retains a national corps which are
ful for the said fishermen to dry or cure fish at such settle- prepared, when the exigency calls, to man her
ment, without a previous agreement for that purpose with i ships and fight her battles upon the ocean. When
the inhabitants, proprietors, or possessors of the ground." 
tprivate and public duties can be so intertwined as
I have been quite particular in stating the  to make the practice of the one the necessary traingrounds, diplomacy, and treaty, upon which the  ing and preparation for the other, then we behold
most important part of the American fisheries de- the perfection and beauty of civil government.
pended at the commencement of our Government,    When, by the payment of a small bounty, we
in order that the country may fully understand its  can have our civil marine and line steamers changed
basis, and the relations which exist between the  at the call of the Government into naval corps and
United States and Great Britain upon this subject.  war liners, then we shall demonstrate the theory
The rights of the fishermen, secured by these re-  that the functions of our Government are perlations, have, of late, in my judgment, been un-  formed not only by the people, but by the business
warrantably invaded. I now allude to this sub-  of the people. Our Government gave no direct
ject, but shall take occasion to speak more fully | bounty or allowance to her fishermen, except as a
upon it in the course of roy remarks.          drawback of duties, until 1792. Mr. Jefferson, SecSir, under the full and just rights recognized by  retary of State, at the previous session of that Conthis treaty, the fisheries, which were nearly de- gress had made a labored report, in which he restroyed during the war, began to revive, and so  viewed the whole subject of the fisheries, and the
vigorously were they pursued, that in 1789 the  policy which other nations had pursued in relation
vessels employed nulmbered 539, and the seanen  to them. He expressed his strong apprehensions
3,287. At this period, it was found that the bless- that without soime encouragement, the business
ings of independence had opened new avenues for I would have to be abandoned, and engrossed by
American enterprise. Agriculture and the fish-  England and France, who were then liberally eneries could not alone wield the power and develop K couraing it by their bounties. " The loss of
the resources and energies of the growing country.  seamen," said he, " unnoticed would be followed
Manufactories were to be established; ships to be  by other losses, in a long train. If we have no
built; the carrying trade secured, and a navy' seamen, our ships will be useless; consequently
raised. The fisheries were then looked to as the' our ship-timber, iron, and hemp-our ship-buildgreat national nursery, in which seamen were to' ing will be at an end; ship-carpenters go over to
be trained for the manning of the private and pub-'other nations; our young myen have no call to the
lic ships; but as the necessity of this auxiliary to' sea; and our produce carried in foreign bottoms."
our maritime success became plain and urgent, "Again," said he,' the rapid view of the codthe probability of its increase or continuance grew' fishery enables us to discern under what policy
doubtful and uncertain.' it has flourished or declined in the hands of other
There were other departments of industry' nations, and to mark the fact that it is too poora
springing up, in which labor was better rewarded.' business to be left to itself, even with the nations
The fisheries in themselves were not sufficiently' most advantageously situated."  He enumerated
productive to attract the citizens from the new and  the advantages and disadvantages under which
more profitable pursuits which were rapidly in- i our fisheries were prosecuted. He considered the
creasing in the country. This was the view which i impost duties on salt, tea, rum, sugar, molasses,
the statesmen ofthe ae took of the subject.   hooks, lines, lead, duck, cordage, cables, iron,
On one occasion, after a long and faithful exam- hemp, and twine, which were consumed in their
ination, Mr. Jefferson said:                 j prosecution; also, the duty on coarse woolens
" On the whole, the historical view we have taken of worn by the fishermen, and suggested to Congress
the fisheries, proves that they are so poor in themselves, as that such duties should be remitted, as an equivato come to nothineg vith distant nations, who do not sup- lent to the fishermen in the form of drawback or
port them from their treasury.                bounty.
Great Britain and France, for the purpose of  I have thus given the early views of one of the
raising seamen to monopolize the carrying trade  most eminent of American statesmen, who well
of the world, and to maintain their naval ascend- knew the object of the Constitution, and the extent
ency on the seas, had both given large bounties to  of the protective policy which it contained. At a
their fishermen. They had also imposed prohib- later period, when Mr. Jefferson was elevated to
itory duties on the importation of foreign fish. the Presidency, in his second message to Congress,
The policy of the French has always extended far; he says:




__' -_______                                  6_____ ___                ________
"To cultivate p-ace, ani aina:itain coimmerce and ravi-1'55; but the Government allowance, under the
gation, in all their lawfivcntecr-priss-; tojbster or jis/ic, ies to-sunn-e act, ont sni  a vessel would have been
as mnurserics of ait'.io.: ad ii r the nurture o & man, &c.; -Ir tn suh a e  i  ha be e n
te, ellow.itise zci  are tie Iti'-imar-is by which we are' 62 0. 0   vhen  we deduct from the drawback
to guide ourscivet in a-ll our prsoceedings. By continuig duty a reasotable al mount based upon an estimate
to make t  th e rule of our actiun we o-hall eind.ecr to our 1of homne consumption,  we shall find that the
countrymen the &u-e principles of the Constitution."   l     e w    conderay more than.
Itonna"ge aitowa.nJce was considerably  more  than
I do not pretend that Mr. Jefferson ever said, twice the amount of the sum for which it was a
in totidemt verbis, tat you shall pay money from  t,bstiitte, as has been contended in later years. I
your Treasury for the support and encouragemenent consider it therefre as proved and submit it to
of your fisheries; but he directed it as clearly and  the committee and the country, that the allowance
explicitly as lie directed any other disbursement 1 made by the statute of 1792 was a direct bounty
thereftrom.'It will rest, thesefore," said he, ifor the increase of seamen through the fisheries.
" with the wisdom of the Le-islature to decide I t is undoiuebtedly the fact, that in estimiating the' whether pro hibitioun should not be opposed to pro- allowance necessary to induce the pursuit of the
hibiton,"&c., &c.; and " whether any and which i fisheries, the duty on salt was considered as one
of the naval and other duties imay be remitted or among te many obstacles that stood in the fisher( an equivalent given to the fishermen,'" &c., &.  i mens way, but it wvas by no tmeans the sole one;
Sir, I have no hesitation in averring, that any  and had it been, I see not as it would have altered
legsislation wiich relieves an individual or a class i the case or the policy, so long as it was not reof individuals firomi th-e ordinary duties on imports! quired that the fish should be cured with dutiable
is as clearly a special bounty or favor of the Gov- east and expoited, in order to be entitled to tIe
ernment as tihou-h the duties were first collected  allowance.
into the Treasury and then paid out in coin. Un-  Again: In 1792, the year when the tonnage alder the instructions of Mr. Jefferson's report, the  lowance was establish ed, there were 3G4,898 quinsucceeding session of Congress passed the law of tals of fish exported, it being a very successful
1792, which provide d that there should be paid  year, with a lari'e export. The ten cent export duty
annually to the owners of vessels, qualified ac- was $36,489. This snm averaged on the tonnitage
cording to law for ca rrying on tie codfisheries, of that year, which was 32,0132 tons, would Le but
and that should be eaiployed at sea for the terim i  13 per ton. This is another conclusive proof
of four months of the year, for every ton of bur- t  that the allowance was not a substitute for the
den, if over twenty and not exceeding thirty  drawiback. I ha-ve endeavored to establish the
tons, $1 50; and if above thirty tons, t2 50 per basis upon  wic'h this law was fiouded, in order
ton; of which allowance three eighths should ac- to correct     thion that distinguished gentlemen
crue to the ownert, anid the other five eighths be  - hrve heretofore expressed, tiat the bounty law is
divided among the crew and fishermen. This; the relict of a systen-, tle reasons for which have
was a boutn!y, an enc-ouragement given, and not, I ceased; and as I progrei s in the review of the
in spibrit, entirely a substitute for a drawback on I subject, I have no hiesitation in saying that this
fish cured with dutiable salt and exported, as has [1 mistake will becoie -i imoe eand mnore apparent.
been contended by some statesmen who have in-   The imiie-iai-iate lif andl i miulse which thins new
dicated the adoption of measures which would i encoutragemett gave to the fihaheries, exceeded the
destroy the fisheries of the North. The reasons mniost sanguite eaxpe tations of' the country. The
and policy of this first important act of the then ei ocean in a, few years became whitened with the
new system, can be seen in the omitted, as well as 0ba-nkers and shore crafts, manned by thousands of
the expressed lang1uae. There is no provision' sailors, vying with each other in the art of seamanthat any specified quantity of fish shall be caught. ship; while at the same time they were obtaiini
Neither is there any proviso that the fish taken  comparatively a corafortable support for themshall be cured with dutiabloe salt, nor even that selves and families.
they shall be exported.!s So rapidly did th;'s industry increase undier the
A strange substitute, indeedl, is this for a law i new pri(te.ati-ssn of' Goere-iment, that, in 1805-7,
providing for drawback on fish cured with foreign  ti-ere were 57,465 tous of ship pin, and about 8,000
salt and exported! But there is one expressed pro- seamen employed;ad in 1805 the exportsamounted
viso which shows the oblject and policy of the act. to O2 058,000. Bat this bright day of fishermen's
It requires th-at the vessel sIhall be employed at sea  prosperity was shoit. It was soon to be clouded
four months. No matter wha-t her success, whethers by fluctuiateions and changes, as many-i other policies
she uses ten or a thousand bushels of salt, nor of' the Governenoet -have been. In 1807, tie eactof
whether it be dutiastle or domestic-she must i 1792 was repealed, logether with the act laying a
spend the prescribed ti;ize at sea. This looks evi-s duty on foreign salt.'Whether the coincidence of
dently and unqcpCstsatscrzly to a result, which is that repeealiang these two acts at the same time was the
of training seamien by a long drilling upon the  resuit of a suaposjtiO- that the allowance to the
ocean. Truly, the act also repealed the duty or  fishermen xwas a m-ere offset for the duty pas id on
drawback payable on the exportation of codfish, salt, I xwill n-,t pretend to dec de; but if it were,
which was ten cents pe; quintal; but if that were the effectus of the!-cisolation showed it to be a very
the only reason for givinsg the tonnage allowance, palpable - isceke.
it is very tunaclcoae - wl tinhy tle susbstiteute given  ri The result was, that under this repeal, the fishshould be more than twvice thae amount that the  eries declined i-sn as great a ratio as they hadl indrawback averaged, even uponi l the supposition l creased under- the act. So disastrous was the
that all the fish taken in t-he country were ex- I efiect ocfthe repeal, thatin three years friom the tine,
ported. A vessel of sixty-five tons generally ob- in 1810, the tonnage employed haid dwindled to
tains from five to six hundred quintals of fish in i only 34,000 tons, and the number of seamen had
the season. The drawback duty on such a cargo, faillen to about 4,857; anfd under thiis withdr-awal of
provided they were all exported, would have been -- protection, the business continued to decrease until




7
1812, when it became almost annihilated by the! the law of 1792. This act also imposed a duty of
war.                                          twenty cents per bushel on imported salt, which unThe disasters which followed the repeal of 1807, idoubtedly was a part of the inducement; yet it could
form an instructive commentary upon the theory  not have been the sole, or even the principal, reaof tho se who consider the fishiing bounty and salt son for the fishing allowance, as this also amounted
duty so allied and connected, that they should  to more than double the sum that the amount of
stand and fall together.                      drawback would have been. Neither does this act
By this repeal, the fishing bounty was not only  provide that the fish shall be exported, cured with
discontinued, but the salt duty also. Why did foreign salt, or that even any salt shall be used in
not this latter measure have its theoretical effect?  order to entitle the vessel to the bounty. This
Why did not the remission of the salt duty oper- subject again enlisted the attention of Congress in
ate as a substitute for the fishing bounty? The  1819, and then the fisheries were encouraged by a
only reason was, that they were not so germane to  further additional bounty.
each other as some in their theories have sup-  By this act three dollars and fifty cents are given
posed. The latter was a policy adopted by the  to all vessels above five tons and under thirty tons,
Government, not for relieving the fishermen from  and four dollars per ton to all vessels above thirty
the trifling dity on salt alone, but for the purpose  tons, upon condition of thefour molths' sea service,
of relieving them frcom  many other obstacles and  as in the former acts. In this act the allowance
repulsions which beset their calling.         of three dollars and fifty cents per ton is also
I have thus shown t.hat there was a period in  granted to vessels above thirty tons for three and
our history, when the Government, apparently  one half months' of sea service, provided the crew
neglectful of the fisheries, withdrew its aid and  consists of not less than ten men. In this act no
permitted them to languish and become almost ex- alteration of or reference to the salt duty is made.
tinct.                                          This being the last act on the subject, and emBut, sir, a circumstance incident to nations soon  bodying the whole policy of the former ones, it
awoke the slumbering interests in their behalf. needs no more argument to show that the prime,
The war of 1812 ensued. A call was made for   medium, and final object of this series of statutes
the manning of our public ships. The sea-coast was, and is, the cultivation of seamen by the enwas resorted to for enlistments, and then the value  couragement of a business which, in itself, was,
of the sailors, who had been trained on board the  and is, too poor to be sustained.
fishing vessels of New Engiand, was folly appre-  The law of 1819 has continued to this time, and
ciated. They responded to their country's call, under its protection there has been a gradual inenlisted in her service, and fought her ocean bat- crease in the business. It has, however, been
ties, such battles as will be remembered in naval small in comparison with that of other departhistory so long as such history exists.       ments of commerce; showing that with all the aid
New England does not vainly boast of the    which the Government has rendered, it is still too
prowess of her sons on that memoralale occasion. poor in its returns to be followed to a great exShe only did her duty to herself and the other tent.
sections of the American Republic.  Her sons    The tonne employed in the business during
had been trained to the seas by the patronizing  the year preceding this act was, according to the
influence of the Government, which called for their custom-house registry, 58,551 tons. The average
aid, and it was their highest amnbition to render tonnage for the ten years ending June, 1851, was
service to the source of their patronage. I will 79,251tons. The tonnage in the year ending June,
not enumerate the thousands that leaped from the  1851, was 95,616 tons. (This is the largest amount
sands of Cape Cod, the shores of New H amp- of any one year during the ten.)
shire, and the Capes of Maine, into the foretops I The number of men employed was about one
of the battle-ships during that war; but according I for every seven tons, making an annual average
to a late estimate, I am authorized in satyin that of 11,321. The average quantity of the fish
the small town of Marblehead alone, in Massa- taken annually was about nine quintals to the ton,
chusetts, which has been engaged in the fisheries making the average annual produce of the United
from its first settlement to the present time, fur- States, for the ten years, 713,259 quintals; the
nished more men for the service than some wsholie average price per quintal, including the oil, &c.,
States. Very truly did the honorable Secretaryv is about.2 60, mnaking the whole annual income
of State, on a recent occasion, say, " our fisher- from the codfisheries $1,854,473 40. The expenses' ies have been the very nurseries of our Navy. of outfits (not including vessels' bills and depre-'If our flag-ships have met and conquered the i ciation in value) upon an average amount to fifty
enemy on the sea, the fisheries are at the bottom  nper cent. of the gross income, which being deductof it. Tile fisheries were the seeds from which  ed therefrom leaves $927,236 70 for distribution'these glorious triumphs were born and sprilng."  among the owners and crews. From this deduct
Sir, this war, which showed the necessity of twenty-five per cent., the customary part of the
American semamen, and the alacrity with which  owner, wlhich leaves for the fishermen $695,427
they would enlist in the public service, again  53. This sum, divided among the whole number
brought the subject of their encouragemielt before i of fishermen, gives to each one $62 31. To this
Congress; and pending the war in 1813, an act should be added the allowance or bounty which
was passed not only restoiinz the former allow- is paid them from the Government. The average
ances, but making large additions thereto. By  aninual sum paid by the Government for the ten
this act two dollars and forty cents per ton was s  years ending June, 1851, was $264,192 19. From
given to vessels over twenty and under thirty t!his deduct $99,084 06, being the three eighths that
tons, and four dollars per ton to all vessels abovee belong to the owners, which leaves $165,108 13.
thirty tons. In other respects, relating to the time n, This asum, divided among all the fishermen, gives
necessary to be spent at sea, &c., it conformed with i them }14 53 each. This being added to the catch



8
ings, makes the annual voyage of a New England  ermen and shoremen engaged in it are of the same
cod-fisherman $76 89.                          class as those that pursue the codfishery. In fact,
Sir, I have thus far confined my remarks to the  they often change a number of times in the same
codfishery; but there is another branch of the fish-  season from the one to the other, according to the
ing industry in New England, which is about equal luck. The expenses and outfits are about the same
to that in magnitude and importance. I refer to in each. These fish are taken in the waters nearer
the mackerel fishery. This has principally come  the coasts than the codfish are. A considerable
into existence as a prominent business, since the  proportion, from one third to one half, are taken
time when the Government first extended its pro- Ion the coasts, and in the bays and gulfs of the
tection to the other. Had it been coeval with the  British Provinces.
codfishery in its origin and progress, it probably  The inhabitants of the Provinces take many of
would have received the same encouragement.   them in boats, and with seines.
It never was recognized by the Government as   The boat and seine fishery is the more successa business distinct from that of the codfishery  ful and profitable, and would be pursued by our
until 1828, when an act was passed authorizing  fishermen were it not for the stipulations of the
collectors of the customs to license vessels engaged  convention of 1818, betwixt the United States and
in it. Although this fishery has never, until re- Great Britain, by which it is contended that all
cently, been recognized by the Federal Govern- the fisheries within three miles of the coasts, with
ment, yet, for its reputation, I am happy to say, a few unimportant exceptions, are secured to the
that one hundred and seventy-nine years ago, it Provinces alone.
was recognized and established as a literary founda-  I shall speak more fully upon this subject before
tion for the education of the people whom I now  I close.
have the honor to represent, by an ordinance of  The average tonnage in this fishery, during the
the Plymouth Colony, in the following words:  five years next preceding 1851, was 51,503 tons.
" June, 1673.-It is ordered by the Court, that the chargeThe number of seamen was one for every five and
of the Free Scoole, which is three and thirty pounds ayeare  four fifths tons, making the average number, durshal be defrayed by the Treasurer, out of the profitts arise- ing the five years, 8,879. [The amount of toning by the fishing at the Cape, untill such time as that the nag  and number of seamen in Massachusetts
nage and number of seamen in Massachusetts
minds of the freemen be knowne concerning it, which will alone, in 1851, according to the report of the inbe returned to the next Court of Election."alone, in 1851 according to the report of the in<June, 1674.-This Court haveing received, by the Dep- spector of that State, exceeded this estimate; and
nties of the several Townes, the Signification of the minds the amount and number reported this year far exof the major pte of the free men of this Collonie, that all ceeds it which shows the extraordinary fuctuathe proffitts of the fishing att Cape Cod,graunted bythe Court ee   csows   extrao y  uctuafor the erecting and maintaining of a Scoole, be still con- tions in the business.]
tinued for that end if a competent number of scollars shall  The number of barrels taken was five and a half
appeer to be devoated thereunto, which this Court judges to the ton, making the average annual product
not to be lesse than eight or ten —Doe therefore hereby con- 283,266 barrels. The average value per barrel,
feirme the graunt of the aforsaid proffitts of the fishing at 3,d  all qualities, is a5 50, making the annual
the Cape to the maintainance of the Scoole; and that there ncluding all qualities,  5 50, making the annual
be noe further demands, besides the said proffitts of thei gross income $1,557,963. From  this should be
Cape, demaunded of the Country for the maintairnance of deducted fifty per cent., the average cost of outfits,
the said Scoote."                            including salt, provisions, gear, barrels, &c., &c.,
Here, sir, we find the first appropriation for a  but not the vessels' bills and depreciation in value,
free school in America. It was based upon this  which leaves $778,981 to be divided among the
fishery; and from this humble, though propitious  owners and fishermen. The average share of the
origin, have arisen, in Massachusetts alone, 3,987  owner is twenty-seven per cent., which being depublic schools, dotted over her surface, supported  ducted, leaves to be divided among the fishermen
byan annual tax of $915,839, and taught by 8,694  the sum of $568,656 13. This divided betwixt
public teachers; in which 196,536 children, be- the 8,879 fishermen, gives to each one $64 04.
twixt the ages of five and fifteen years, are being  This, sir, according to my calculation, is the avereducated and prepared to perform their duties as  age voyage of a New England mackerel fishercitizens of this Republic. Sir, I state these facts  man. The codfishery being the most profitable,
to the committee and the country with no ordinary  by reason of the Government allowance, invites
emotions in view of the prospect of my native State the greater number to its pursuit.
and the future character of her citizens. They  Sir, I have had some hesitancy in stating my
are intimately connected with the subject upon  deductions relative to these two fisheries. I would
which I am speaking. I must leave them, how- alter them if I could, but the facts will not admit
ever, and pursue the course of my remarks.    of it. That there are 20,200 fishermen in New
In 1830, two years after the act authorizing the  England, and many more according to recent relicensing of vessels in this employment, the ton- ports, whose principal income is only from $64 04
nage engaged in the business was about 36,000  to:76 89 per annum, is almost incredible; yet such
tons. This cannot be considered the increase of is the fact. As a class they are poor. Their toil
those two years. The probability is, that the  and industry has never been rewarded as that of
greater part of it was previously engaged in the  other pursuits in the country. The time employed
same business, under codfishing or coasting li- on their voyages is from five to seven months. It
censes. Since that time, tie average tonnage has  involves all the mild season of the year. They
varied from 11,000 to 73,000 tons. This is much  employ, however, the inclement season in casual
more fluctuating and uncertain than the codfishery. jobs, trips, and boat or market fishing, which help
In one season it may yield a profit, and in another  out the deficiencies of their principal income.
prove disastrous, both to owners and crew. Even  It should also be understood, that of those who
an one part of the season it may be successful, and  constitute the fishermen, but few have families,or
in another very unsuccessful. It seems, in a great follow the business for life. They are generally
degree, to be a chance game or lottery. The fish- 1 boys or young men, who are serving their marine




apprenticeship. They soon pass this initiatory  the dependence of our navy and commerce upon
degree and move on to more distinguished  osi- it, I am confident that there will be but few reptions in their profession. Some of them become 1 resentatives in Congress who will desire or think
seamen and officers of your State ships. Others it politic, to take from the fishermen the small
transfer themselves to the merchant service, and  pittance which they now draw from the Governmove grade by grade from the forecastle to the  ment. No, sir; they will rather seek to extend it
cabin, A large proportion of them ultimately be- to that class who have not heretofore been its recome the commanders of your line ships and    cipients.
steamers. The highest ambition of a New Eng-    I have already shown that the codfishery being
land boy, when he stands upon the sand bluffs or patronized by the Government, returns the better
barren rocks of the coast, looking out upon the  profits and employs the greater number of men;
ocean, whitened by the sails of the fishermen and  but were the same patronage extended to the
the merchantmen in transit, is, that the day may  mackerel fishery, it would undoubtedly increase
arrive when he shall be large enough to become  far beyond that of the codfishery. It is considan active participant of the scenes that are before  ered a more pleasant and desirable business. It
him. Thus, those fishermen who have families, has greater attractions for the youth of the country.
and continue in their calling, avail themselves of Though fraught with equal sea danger and toil,
the early energy and industry of theirsons. It is  yet in incident and adventure it is better adapted
not unf'requently the case that the father and three  to the enthusiasm of the young man who is about
or four of his sons sail in the same business, and  to take his first voyage upon the ocean.
often in the same vessel. From their joint voy-  Let the Government extend its aid to this branch
ages, by the exercise of the most rigid economy, of our industry and the scarcity of American seathey are enabled to sustain their household, and  m an which now prevails would soon cease to be
lay by a small fund for support in declining age. felt.
In this manner the boy, while preparing himself  Is there any reason why this should not be done?
for the higher and more profitable pursuits of his  I see none. Are not the eight thousand eight huncalling, is taught habits of industry and frugality  dred and seventy-nine young men engaged in this
which attend him through life.                business, training themselves for the Navy, the
At the age of twelve or fourteen, his education, 11 merchant service, and the country, as effectually
obtained at the free schools, is so far advanced as as the eleven thousand three hundred and twentyto warrant his absence during the fishing season, one who are in the codfisheries? Undoubtedly
At that time he lays aside his satchel and his books, they are. Is there not a pressing emergency now
and cheerfully springs from the school-room to  existing for the increase of seamen? Yes, sir.
the vessel's deck, which to him is the El Dorado  It is notorious that many of our merchant ships
of earthly hopes, and the long-sought theatre of his have been delayed, during the last year, for the
early imagination. After spending the season in I want of crews; and others have proceeded to sea
fishing on the banks and coasts of the continent, only half manned. Our public ships have also
he returns to his home in the autumn, with the  been delayed from important expeditions from the
pleasant reflectionofhavigtaken his initiator step  same cause. The Japan expedition has been dein the noble calling, which is to be the basis of his layed for months for the want of seamen, and the
future usefulness and distinction. He then re- \ Cumberland frigate departed with thirty men short
enters the school of his childhood, with a thirst 1 of her complement. England, with her tons of
for knowledge, made keener by his absence, and 1 shipping, exceeding but little, if any, those of the
plies himself to the acquisition of learning, till the  United States, has three hundred thousand seaspring sun announces that the time of fishing has  men, while the United States have but one hunagain arrived. In this way, alternating betwixt Idred and seventy-five thousand. This disparity
the school of the land and the school of the sea, in our marine force is already exhibiting its effects
the one fiunded by the State and the other by the | in the carrying trade of the world, and calls loudly
nation, he spends his minority; and then, or soon  upon the country for relief.
after, he enlists in the merchant or other service,  It has been announced upon this floor, that
where he meets with encouragement more worthy  more than three fourths of the seamen in our
of his merits.                                Navy are foreigners! Is this consistent with the
A correspondent from the Boston custom-house, interest and honor of our country? Does it look
in a late communication to me, says:         like independent America! No Government can
be independent which relies upon foreigners for
"Were it not for the fisheries, in less tan ten years, e  be independent which relies upon foreignes for
shtould not unave Americas sease enaouagl to navigate our the sailing of its battle-ships; and the policy
ships as masters and mates; and even now Cape Colt fulr- which leads to such a necessity, is unworthy of
nislies a large, a very large, proportion of the active, intelli- our support. The scanty crews of our merchant.
gent ship-masters and maates out of this port, antd very  m
magen         out  o       f w Yportok.  d    men are also from one half to two thirds foreign*
era; and those of the coasting vessels are one third
I should feel myself fortunate indeed, had I the  foreigners; but the crews of the fishing vessels are
means to state to the country w t n   ber     what number  wholly American, with occasionally a cook of
proportion of the ship-masters and mates, who sail foreign birth. We have a statute which requires
from the Atlantic cities, originated from Cape Cod, two thirds of our seamen to be citizens of the
and took their first maritime lessons in the school United States; and if it were enforced, one half of
of her fisheries; but for the present I must leave  our ships would lie rotting at our wharves. The
it to the inference which may be drawn from this  cry comes from all the large ports of the Union,
correspondence, and the world-wide renown of her that something must be done for the increase of
nautical reputation.                          seamen.  The gold mines of California have
When the system of maritime training in our already drawn thousands from this pursuit; and
fisheries is fully understood by the country, and  the land bill, giving to every man a farm, under




10
certain circumstances, if passed by the Senate, of the Confederacy? That it is expedient for
will draw off its tens of thousands.        Congress to build railroads, in order to be ready
A strong and powerful argument, in favor of J to transport soldiers when the emergency requires
the land bill, was that it would encourage the poor it, and that it is not expedient to encourage seaman, and develop the agricultural resources of men, in order that our Navy may be manned to
the country. If this was an argument sufficiently fight the battles on the ocean? I trust that no such
potent to warrant the donation of the public lands; inconsistencies will ever be practiced by the legislahow much more so the argument that something i tors of our country. I do not advocate the special
should be granted, either in lands or dollars, to. p.tronageofthe Governmentto mereprivate enterencourage the poor sailor, and develop the re- prises, where there is no public or ulterior advantsources of the ocean. In the labor of the fisher- age in view. There should be something more naman we are not only bringing in the riches of the  tional in the design than the mere feeding fiom the
sea, and fostering commerce, which is the hand- public Treasury. But when the advancement of
maid of agriculture, but we are fortifying the lib  private enterprise can be made subservient to
erties of our country, and preparing ourselves to  public prosperity and security, then it is the high
cope with other nations. A bounty upon this duty of Government to foster it by pecuniary aid.
labor is nothing new in principle or policy.  Under such a system the industry of the people
It has been protected by every modern nation, becomes the bulwark of the nation. In the appliwhich has ever attained eminence in commerce or cation of this policy to the raising of seamen and
distinction in war. France, England, and Spain, 1 building of ships we might avoid, I doubt not, a
adopted it generations ago. It is based upon the  large part of the enormous expense of a naval peace
same policy which has founded our Naval School i establishment. The seamen in the fisheries might
and Military Academy, in which young men are  be so trained, and many merchant ships and line
educated at the Government's expense, and re- steamers in commerce so built, as to be readily
tained as a reserved force for the time of their converted into an efficient and powerful navy
country's need. Although more humble in pre- i when the emergencies of the country should retension, yet not less important in practice are the I quire it.
schools of marine service on board the fishing!  I am aware, sir, of the source of the opposition
fleets of New England.                      which has heretofore been made to the en(courageOur appropriations have always been liberal for ment of the fishing industry of New England.
the protection of citizens. We have devoted mil- The western section of the country, whose induslions of dollars for the support of Western fron- ~ try is agriculture, have not, in my opinion, taken
tier armies to protect the farmer from the attacks a broad, national view of this subject as they are
of the Indians. This has been as it should be. accustomed to do in relation to others. They
New England has never withheld her support have considered it as a local, individual indusfrom this policy, and she never will.      l try, without national importance, and, like agriShe knows full well that the frontier life with its \ culture, should support itself, or not be supported
incidents and hardships, like that upon the fishing i at all. I cannot admit that this industry, though
banks with its toils and disasters, can never be comparatively less important in production of
sustained without the special protection of the  food, does not bear a different relation to the GovGovernment. Our public lands have been bounti- errnent from that of general agriculture. It is
fully appropriated for the establishment of schools one of those enterprises which is too poor to supand the education of children in the arts and scien- port itself, yet too important to the Government,
ces. This receives my hearty approbation. No i the commerce, and even the agriculture of the
duty of this Government is more important than  country to be permitted to cease.
that of educating its citizens, and preparing them  Neither can I admit that the agriculture of the
for usefulness. I contend, however, that the same  West has not and is not now receiving special
policy should lead to the establishment of agri- appropriations and protection fiom the Governcultural and marine schools, either by an entire or ment far beyond those of the fisheries. What are
partial support, as the necessity of the case may  the appropriations for the support of the frontier
require. It is as important to the welfare of our army? for the clearing of rivers, &c.? Are they
Government, and the perpetuity of its blessings, not for the purpose of encouraging the increase of
that a class of men should be educated as naviga- farmers in those regions, by protecting them from
tors and practical seamen, as that the boy should  the Indian depredations? To enhance the value
be taught the ordinary branches of the schools. o of labor by furnishing facilities for marketing their
Both will contribute to our national glory, and  corn, flour, beef, pork, &c.? As to the approhave undoubted claims upon its patrimony.  I priations for their rivers, it may be said New
We have, during the present Congress, appro- England has an offset in the appropriations for
priated public lands for the building of railroads. her harbors. I will freely admit it, if it be necesThe argument was that they would facilitate the  sary that such accounts should be balanced.
trade and commerce of the country, and expedite  But what offset do we have for the appropriations
the movement of troops and munitions of war. for the frontier army, unless it be the bounty upon
Am I to be told that it is constitutional and politic the fisheries? Sir, I deprecate such sectional acto make appropriations to facilitate the transport counts, feelings, and jealousies as may lead us to
of produce, from the interior of Missouri and  vote for appropriations for one section of the
other States on to the Mississippi, and thence  country and not for another which is equally merdown that stream to the ocean; but that it would itorious. We are too apt to look at appropriabe unconstitutional and impolitic to make appro- tions or policies as local in their effects, merely
priations for the increase of seamen, in order to  because they are to be expended or practiced, as
facilitate the further transport of that same produce, they necessarily must be, in some particular loeither across the Atlantic or to the northern ports cality. This should not be the statesman's view




11
of the subject. Effect, good effect, is what we U cient importance to be sustained by a bounty? Will our
want in the ramifications of the business of the  nation abandon the fisheries to that nation from whom
pand it'matters not where or what the cause  alone we have anything to fear? The bounties necessary
people, and it matters not where or what the cause  to encourage all our fisheries would probably not equal the
that produces it.                              h deterioration in any navy-yards in our Union. We have
The money expended for the support of the     now two seas in which we must, in case of war, maintain
fleets; and who are to man them? Shall the example of
army to protect the agriculturists upon the fron-  et Brita and l Fran c e tn tbe los t upon usle of
tiers, or for the purpose of clearing the rivers of                 be lot un 
I  Sir, there are many difficulties appertaining to
the West, is a cause which is primarily seen and   l there are many    ifficuties appertaining to
felt only in those regions; but the effect is as sen- ourfisheres, to which  wish to cal the attention
sibly felt by the State of Massachusetts as by 1,' of the Government. I will first speak of the obstacles which the fishermen encounter in obtainthem. The same circumstance in this case which   te       ich the fsh   n eoute         ob
increases the demand and raises the price of pro-  ing their bounty. The defects in the bounty laws,
duce at the home of the roducer lowers it at the  or in the constructions that have been put upon
duee at the home of the producer lowers it at the
home of the purchaser or consumer. The small I themare so numerous that in many instances
bounty that is given for the encouragement of they defeat the object whch they were intended
fishermen, in its commercial bearing, has the same  to secure. This has become a matter of so much
effect. It is first expended in New England, and  importance that it demands of Congress either an
prompts the pursuit of an industry which yields I amendment of the laws or a resolution correcting
prompts the pursuit of an industry which yields
a gross income to the country of $3,412,436 40.  the vron constructions.
Now, sir, where is this income eventually dis-  The existing law ias follows:
bursed? After being divided among the fiher-      "There shall be paid on the last day of December, anmn     o   ta   he bursed? Afterx     d beingdvie   mogth   ihe-,nually, to the owner of every fishing-boat or vessel, or his
men, more than three fourths of it is expended for  agent, by the collector of the district where such boat or
the corn, flour, beef, pork, and other produce of vessel may belong, that shall be qualified, agreeably to law,
the western States. Hence, the very allowance h for carrying on the banlk, or other codfisheries, and that
which is looked grudginglyl upon by the agricul-, -shall actually have been employed at sea for the term of
which is looked grudgingly upon by the agriculfour months, at least, of the fishing season, next preceding,
tural States, is annually giving a patronage to  which season is accounted to be from the last day of Febtheir labor and produce not much short of $3,000-  ruary to the last day of November in every year, for each
000. Permit me to ask, whom     does the small and every ton of such boat or vessel's burden, according.u which the Government pays to the fiser-. to its admeasurernent as licensed or enrolled, if of more
bounty which the Government pays to the fisher- than five tons, and not exceeding thirty tons, $3 50; if
men benefit? It seems to me that it is a bounty  above thirty tons, $4; and if above thirty tons, and having
to the West as well as to the East. Take from   had a crew of not less than ten persons, and having been
the fishermen this bounty, and let the indus-   actually employed in the codfishery, at sea, for the term of
three and one half months, at the least, but less than fiour
try cease, as it undoubtedly would, what then   months, of the seasmn aforesaid, 43 50."
to the West would be a substitute for this trade                      f          o 
I can answer: Nothing, nothing, except that they i    shalso pto th fishermen, and th other three
would have to take the fishermen themselves as    i sh      go to the fisheme ande the princi
competitors in their labor. They would have to        s o te wne          ee ar t     pn
provisions of the law, and it needs no argument to
leave the sterile coasts of their fathers, and wend.  show that its main object is to encourage a class
their way to the rich West, and join the pioneers           erorm lar un te sa an         l
in the tillae of tl sl'            of men to perform labor upon the sea, and learn
in the tillage of the soil. 
n  *thetllag of            I s.  the art of seamanship, and not merely the taking,
But what would become a substitute for the loss  drying, and exporting of fish, or the consumption
of American seamen? I know of nothing. There     of salt.  Hence the provision that four stonths
could be none. Our commerce, which demands      must be spent at sea, where there is no stipulation
them, would have to cease or dwindle, and fall as to the number of crew, in order to obtain the
into the hands of foreigners. The time which    whole allowance, and three and a half months
my Boston correspondent speaks of, would then   where the crew is not less than tenpersons, in order
come when    "there would not be American       to obtain the partial allowance. If ever there was
seamen enough for captains and mates of our C a statute which carried its policy and test for conships;" and what would become of'agriculture itships;" and what would become of griculture it truction upon its face, this does.  Tisme spent at
self, which is so dependent on conmmerce for the | sea in the cod fisheries. This is the requirement,
transportation and exchange of its products?] and the only requirement, if the vessel is duly
This would decline also. That part of the ocean  licensed &c
which is now traversed by thousands of vessels    I will now ask the attention of this committee
for the purpose of drawing riches from its depths, to a circular from the Treasury Department, dated
would be deserted, excepting by now and then a  December 20, 1851, many of the provisions of
lonely craft, cruising to obtain fresh fish for the which seem to me to be in direct conflict with the
city markets.                                   spiit and letter of this law. I shall quote only
Upon these effects I will quote from my corre-  those sections and clauses which areobjectionable.
spondence with a gentleman of Cohasset, Massa-,   After stating that no allowance can be made
chusetts, of high standing and respectability. In  unlless the proofs therein pointed out are duly made,
writing upon this subject he says:              a part of the second paragraph of the first section' I have ceased to have any personal interest in the fishing  reads as follows:
business, yet Imy experience has confirmed fme in the opin-  i j "n the case of a boat or vessel of more than five and
ion that a bounty is essential to sustain the fisheries in New  less than twenty tons burden, an account from the owner
England, which I deemn of great national importance. of such boat or vessel, showing that there have been landed
Without it not a codfisheruman would be fitted out from this therefrom during the preceding season at least twelve
place. Can it be possible for a nation, which deems it ne- 1  quintals of fish, when dried and cured fit for exportation,
cessarv for national security to build ships-of war to decay; according to the weight thereof at the time of delivery when
upon the stocks, to fill its navy-yards with perishable mate-  actually sold, for each ton of the admeasurement of such
rial for the construction and maintenance of a Navy, estab- boat or vessel."
lish naval schools. (all for possible contingencies,) to deem
the fisheries, which afford the most efficient school of in-  By this clause or paragraph, the Department
duction tbfor the effective use of these mIaterials, not of sufli- t makes it necessary that boats and vessels under




~_~~_                         12
twenty tons shall catch and cure twelve quintals to I ment or shipping paper, and also a certificate, by
the ton, in order to be entitled to the allowance. him subscribed and sworn to, stating the particuFor this requisition, I have not been able to find  lar days on which the vessel sailed and returned,
any satisfactory law. I am aware that it has been  &c. And it further provides, that if the owner
long practiced, and is supposed, undoubtedly, to  or any other person shall make any false declarabe based upon the sixth section of the statute of tion, he shall be deemed guilty of willful perjury,
1813, which made such a provision. But the stat- and punished accordingly. This is the evidence
ute of 1819, the object of which was to enlarge  prescribed by the law upon which the bounty is
and increase the allowance to the fisheries, gave it payable; and I submit that this is the only evidence
to all boats and vessels above five tons upon the  that can be required, and that it is conclusive upon
same conditions, without reservation except as to  the collectors and the Treasury Department; but
the amount, and the provision in regard to time, if not, the Department has no right to require any
where the vessel was above thirty tons, and the  specified form  of evidence, in writing or othercrew not less than ten. The last section of the  wise. If the facts are proved by such evidence as
act of 1819 reads as follows:                   is always admitted in ordinary executive or judi-," That such parts of the fifth and sixth sections of the act  cial tribunals, it should be satisfactory.  It is no
(act of 1813) hereby amended, as are contrary to the pro-  trifling inconvenience for the skipper of a fishervisions of this act, be, and the same are hereby, repealed."  man to have to record in exenso, daily, the occurAs this act provides that every vessel and boat,  rences which transpire on board his craft. It may
from  five tons and upwards, shall be entitled to  appear simple to us, or to the Reporters at the
the allowance without any condition as to the    desks, who can take down a speech as fast as it
quantity of fish taken, &c., it seems to be the ir- is uttered, but I assure you it is a very different
resistible conclusion that the conditions in the act process to him who spends his time at the fishing
of 1813 were thereby repealed. And such appears  rail.
to be the opinion of Mr. Justice Story, in the case  Again: The fifth section reads thus:
of the schooner Harriett.  [Story's Reports, vol.  " It is also required that the owneror agent of every fish1, page 251.]  In this case, the learned judge   ing vessel of the burden of twenty tons or upwards, for
says:: which bounty is claimed, shall make a certificate stating
e ft sion of tt at (e at of 1)     therein the particular (lays on which such vessel sailed and
Tfifth n  sixth sections of that act ( othe act of 1819 )s into  returned on the several voyages or fares during the season
fifth and sixth sections (referring to the act of 1813) into          3 c
one, so far as the allowance or bounty is concerned, and  wiuch coeprise the period for hcich bonty is claihed.
apportions it by the same rule, the tonnage of the boat or;  ia expively employed in taking codfish fr the purpose
vessel, and upon the same condition, the employment at sea  of bein dried or ry- cured, for such period. This certififor a specified period."                      cate must be subscribed by the claimant, and sworn or afThe last paragraph of the fourth section reads  firmed to betore the collector."
as follows:                                        Here, sir, the Department requires that the cod" Unless a regular journal or log-book is kept day by day fish taken shall be for the purpose of being dried
on board a fishing vessel while at sea, and such journal or or drl-czued. I have yet to find that there is any
log-book is produced to the collector, duly verified by the            uisition as to vessels either
oath or affirmation of the master or skipper of such vessel   athor   ts requ on as to vessels ether
it will not hereafter be considered that the necessary evi- above or below twenty tons. The last bounty
dence of her employment at sea in the codfishery is pre- statute-that of 1819, which I have previously
sented. Such journal or log-book iust contain the dates quoted in full-provides absolutely that all boats or
of her departure from, and arrival at, every port or place  ssels from five to thirty tons, and from  thirty
she nay touch at durin her voyages or fares, and state thethirty
material daily occurrences on board, as is usual in other tons upwards, qualified according to law, which
sea-going vessels, and must specially contain daily entries shall be employed in the cod fishery the prescribed
of the catch of fish by each person on board."  time, &c., shall be paid their respective allowances.
By this paragraph it seems that the Secretary is There is no proviso as to how many fish they
going to impose it as a condition precedent that a  shall take, how they shall cure them, whether they
log-book shall be kept in order to entitle the vessel shall cure them at all, or how they shall dispose
and crew to the bounty under the statute. Where, of them. If the time has been spent on the ocean
Mr. Chairman, is the law requiring such a log- in the training of seamen in pursuit of codfish, it
book to be kept; and providing that it shall be the is all that the statute requires. The whole policy
only and necessary evidence of the services per- and letter of it is complied with, whether the fish
formed? There is none. It is intimated in a pre- are disposed of in a green or fresh state, for the
ceding part of this section, that the legal necessity  supply of the current market, or salted and dried
of keeping such a log-book had been decided by   as an article of commerce. The circumstance
the United States circuit court of Massachusetts.  which has led to this erroneous construction by
The case referred to is that of the schooner Har- l the Department is, that when the Government
riett, 1 Story's Reports, page 251; but the law, as first extended its patronage to the fisheries it was
laid down in that case, has been misunderstood, in the form of a bounty or drawback on dried fish
if it is supposed that it enjoins the keeping of a  exported; but when the business of the country
log-book in order to be entitled to the bounty. developed the necessity of a more liberal patronThe only principle decided there was, and which  age for the purpose of multiplying seamen, the
was by no means new, that where there was sus- form was changed and the allowance given absopicion or evidence of bad faith, the introduction  lutely to the tonnage employed, with no reference
of loose papers, memoranda, &c., would not be i ultimately to the fish, whether green, dried, or exadmitted to control it; but that if any such evidence I ported. Yet, in the construction of the Departcould be admitted, it must be a regular log-book  ment, the old provision relative to dried and cured
or journal.                                    fishl has, by some unaccountable oversight, been
The statute, itself, prescribes the only specific retained, although the law upon which it was
evidence which is requisite for the allowance; that based has long since been repealed, and, in fact,
is, that the owner shall present the originalagree-  never was applicable to the system  after the




_________13 ______
patronage was changed from an export duty or 1i at the inclement seasons of the year, averages once
drawback to a tonnage allowance.                   or twice a week.
Again: A part of the sixth section reads as fol-  Again: The seventh section is as follows:
lows:                                               " From the original act of 16th February, 1792, changing the
" The master or skipper of every fishing vessel for which  drawback on dried fish exported to bounty on the tonnage of
bounty is intended to be claimed, immediately on her ar- vessels employed in the bank or other codfisheries, it has
rival from any voyage or fare of such fishery, at any port always been held that, to entitle any fishing vessel to bounty,
or place at which any officer of the customs is stationed, she  ust be shown to have been employed at sea exclumust report such arrival to such officer, who is required to  sively in catching codfish for the purpose of being dried or
examine such vessel, her papers, equipment, and the qtuai- dry-cured, during the period prescribed by law. It is not
tity of fish on board, and to enter the result of such exam- required that the entire period be embraced in one voyage
ination in these respects upon a record kept by him for that or fare. or in voyages or fares immediately succeeding each
purpose, which is to be returned to tie collector of his dis- other; but it is indispensable to the allowance of bounty
trict whenever required. In case the master or skipper of that the period.required shall be comprehended in distinct
such vessel neglects or refuses to make report of his arrival, voyages or fares in which no other kind of fishery is purthe officer will state that fact upon his record, with stch  sued. No part of a fare or voyage in which halibut, mackother particulars respecting such vessel as mav conme to his erel, or any other fish, are taken as an object of pursuit, as
knowledge. Such neglect or refusal to report bv the master 1 well as cod, can be rekconed as a portion ofthe time required
or skipper of any vessel claimning bounty, will operate e  by law; where other fish are taken merely as bait for cod,
against the allowance of the claim, unless a full and satis- or as food for the crew, no objection will be made, as such
factory explanation of such neglect or refusal is made un- takin is regarded as strictly subsidiary to the codfishery 
lder oath.                                         but if sch other fish remain on board until the close of the
"The collectors of the respective districts will direct the  fare or voyage a  are carried into port, the fare or voyage!inlrt be regarded as one of mirtd fisliery, whic   cannot be
inspectors at the several ports therein; or where the district must e  arded as ne of  ed  ery  hic cannot be
contains but a single port, the collector will detail an in  taken into te computation of the time required by law fog
spector, to examine all fishing vessels arriving at such  the allowance of bounty. A vessel may be exclusively emports;, re qui ring them to take dovtn their names, and of I pioyed in the codfishery at sea for one, two, or three months
iheir mnasters, their employmenrt, whether they had fish on  iii a distinct tare or fares in the first part of the fishing seaboard, and of what kind, and whether fresh, pickled, or son, then pursue the makerel fishery under the license reotherwise, and report the samle to the collector of the dis- q1ired by s  afterwards may surrender her mackerel
quired by law, afterwards may surrender her mackerel
Itrict at such times as may be required."
trict at such times as iriy be required. "         license, and then complete the period required by law by
i another distinct fare or fares, of exclusive employment in
Here is another very onerous requisition which  the codfishery, previous to thle last day of November. But
is not provided for in the law. It requires the    the taking of mackerel by any vessel under codfishing
skipper of every vessel, on his arrival at any port license, except as bait or food for her crew, is regarded as
a violation of the license laws. Such illegal fishery during
or place, to go and report himself to an officer of any season will forfeit all claim to bounty for that season,
the customs, if there is any such at the place.  I' and when the factis known to any collectorhe is instructed
have no doubt but this may be a good regulation   to refuse the allowance hereafter accordingly.
for the G(overnment, and if it were a lame, wnould'  V"Vessels employed in taking any kind offish for sale and
or t, an  i it w e a la, wuld   consumption in a fresh or green condition, as well as fish
not complain, though it would be attended with    to be preserved by pickling, are not within the bounty laws,
many inconveniences. It seems, however, that, and no voyages or fares in which such fisheries are pursued
without the authority of any law, the Department Ican be lawtully computed as any part of the period required
for the allowance of bounty."
is casting an official duty of the officers of the
customs upon the skippers of the fishing vessels.    Here, in my opinion, the construction of the
If it is necessary, and I doubt it not, that the fish- j Department again runs counter to the law in coning vessels should be watched or boarded as other sidering that the fish should be caught "for the
vessels are, let the inspectors of the customs do it purpose of being dried or dry-cured."  The statute
as they do to other vessels. Let it be at the expense  of 1792, which first changed the drawback into
of the Government and not of the fishernmen. I an allowance on the tonnage, did not require that
know of no rule of the customs in any other De- the fish should be exported, neither that they
partment which requires captains or owners to j should be dried, excepting those that were taken
report themselves or cargo unless there is a stat- by vessels under twenty tons; and this provision,
ute which provides for it.   If it is inconvenient a as I think, was repealed by the statute of 1819,
for inspectors to be located upon the coast, so as to  which gives the bounty upon like conditions, only
see the vessels when they enter the harbors and    differing in amount, to all boats or vessels above
voluntarily visit them, it is equally inconvenient five tons; and repeals or amends all the previous
and much more onerous for the skipper to leave     statutes on the subject, so far as they are contrary
his craft in the harbors or roadsteads and go many  to the provisions of this, (the one of 1819.)  And
miles, whichl he often will have to, to look up the | this, as I have before said, appears to have been
officer to tell hin that he has arrived.  It will be  the opinion of Mr. Justice Story, in the case of the
recollected that the " port or place at which any  schooner Harriet, (1 Story's Reports, page 251.)
officer of the customs is stationed," is a very in- This construction defeats, in a considerable dedefinite location.  In my part of the country the  gree, the policy of the law, and deprives many sea"' port or place" is " all aiong shore."  in one of men of its benefits, who, during certain parts of the
the collection districts which I represent there are  season, and during parts of certain trips, take fish
one hundred and seventy-five miles or more of sea- to be disposed of in the fresh or green state, in the
coast, with a population of about thirty-six thou-  city markets and other places.
sand settled upon its banks, or " risings," and      The fish in this condition have become quite a
indented with coves or harbors at almost every     arge and healthy item  of food for the country.
point, whicl are frequented by the fishing vessels; By the facilities of railroads and ice-packing, they
and the whole corps of custom-house officers, in- are transported into the interior, and consumed by
eluding the collector himself, is only nine. It Ithousands of our citizens who never saw the seamay readily be perceived that it is a burdensome   board of the Atlantic.  Now, according to this
tax upon the time as well as the purse of the      construction,if, at the latterend of a voyage, within
skipper of a fisherman to travel and hunt up one  a day or a few hours of entering the port, any
of these sparsely-located officers every time he j quantity of fish should be caught, carried in, and
arives ito one of these I ports or places," which, 1 disposed of in this way, the whole time which had




14
preceded such catching, would be lost, and the  their pursuit, and saved a bankrupt voyage by
bounty forfeited. This could not have been the I "filling up" with mackerel, and the collectors of
intention of the law.                       the districts have allowed the bounty, provided,
This section of the circular also decides that no  after deducting the time spent in mackereling, four
part of a fare or voyage shall be counted in the! months of the codfishery remained. In this I feel
computation of the time, if, during any part of it, I assured they have acted in keeping with the letter
any mackerel or fish other than cod are taken which  and intent of the law, the required time at sea having
remain on board till the end of the voyage, and  been made out in the codfisheries. But this is
are carried into port  This is in direct opposition  now forbidden by the circular.
to the law, which says nothing aboutfares, parts of  " No part of a fare or voyage," it says, " in
fares, or voyages. Time is the important subject H'which mackerel, &c., are taken as an object of
of the statute. Time spent at sea in the cod-'pursuit, as well as cod, can be reckoned as a porfishery, not trips, fares, or voyages. These are;'tion of the time required by the law." Hence,
the recognized divisions of the Department, not of | if a vessel which has been to the Grand Bank and
the law. As well might the Department devide spent her whole four months at sea in quest of cod,
the time into any other portions, as to say it withouthavinggotonequarterof a voyage, should,
shall be continuous on a fare or voyage. There when returning, perhaps within six hours sail of
would be the same authority for requiring the her home, fail in with a shoal of mackerel, and take
whole four months to be a continuous voyage, as a few barrels to help out the voyage, and "foot
that any twenty, fifteen,or five days shall be con- the provision bill," she would forfeit her pretinuous in order to be counted.             viously hard-earned bounty.
It seems to me to be not only a perversion of  This is a construction fraught with too much
the law, but an oppression of the fishermen, to  disaster, unless the law has so provided; and such
first divide the time into fares or trips, and then  a provision I have been unable to discover.
to decide that if one day in those divisions or  Again, this section provides that if a vessel,
fares is devoted to mackerel fishing, it shall under a codfishing license, shall take mackerel
destroy the whole count of such trip or fare. I other than for bait, &c., during any see son-that
This is making fares or trips the condition prece- is, on any fare-she shall forfeit her bounty! I
dent to the allowance of the bounty, instead of am at a loss to learn upon what law this declaratime. As well might they say the time shall be ition is based. By this construction, if a vessel in
the time of sunshine, time of rain or time of fog, the month of March, under her codfishing license,
as to say it shall be the continuous time of a fare. should catch and dispose of three barrels of mackIf they have the right to qualify it in the one way, erel, and then go to the Grand Bank and spend
they have in the other. If they can say they will five months in the legal pursuit of codfish under
not count the time by days, but by fares, they can, her license, she would not, according to the Secwith equal right, modify and qualify the fares them- retary's orders, be entitled to the bounty. This,
selves, and stipulate the number of days of which  upon the face of it, is nothing more nor less than
they shall consist. If they can say that a trip of an attempt by the Treasury Department to inflict
twenty days shall not be counted even as nine- upon the fishermen, for the breach of a general
teen, because one of them was devoted to mackerel law, an additional penalty which that law has never
fishing, then I know not any limit to the modifi- recognized. It has long been known to the fishcations and restrictions which the Department ermen, that under the law they were not entitled
may not impose. It would thus be in the power ito bounty for time employed in taking mackerel;
of the Department to obtrude obstacles or afford  and there has never been an instance, to my
facilities that would so restrict as to defeat or en- I knowledge, where they have claimed it. It has
large, as to pervert the whole law, according to l also been long known to them, that under a genthe different views which successive Executives i! eral law of Congress, a vessel licensed for one
might take of its policy and expediency.    trade becomes forfeited if, under the same license,
The difficulties arising from this construction are  she pursues another, and that this is applicable
momentous. They operate upon the most unfor- i to the different sorts of the fisheries. But never
tunate voyages. I have stated that the cod and  before has it been known-if it be so-that the
mackerel fisheries are distinct species of industry, i Secretary of the Treasury has power to impose
but it is almost compulsory that they should cross | an additional forfeiture of a fishing bounty which
and run into each other. The waters in which  may have been legally earned subsequently or
they are pursued are the same. The vessels, fish- previously to any such breach of the general
ermen, and outfits, are about the same; so that I1 law.
they change their licenses and alternate in their  I contend, sir, that these provisions of the cirvoyages betwixt the two very frequently. Often  cular are not based upon any existing law. They
upon the same voyage or fare a profitable turn can  are constructions and assumptions which crept
be made by changing from the one to the other, i into the Treasury Department during the mtaaccording to the promise of success. The whole, tions and progress of the laws upon the bounty
as it is well known, and often severely felt by the  subject, and never have been revised and corrected
fishermen, being a chance voyage, depending upon  to comply with the more modern legislation relathe inexplicable habits and varying voracity of the  ting thereto. No Administration or Secretary is
piscatory tribe. Sometimes the ocean swarms with  particularly responsible, therefore, unless it is for
the mackerel, but they will not " bite;" and at the negligence of permitting old constructions of
other times the codfish are abundant, but " full old laws to stand as the new construction of new
fed," and too dainty for the hook.          laws. It will be perceived that this modern cirUnder such circumstances vessels heretofore, cular of December, 1851, is a mere digest of
after spending months in fruitless attempts to pro- former circulars issued by former Secretaries.
cure a cargo of codfish, have frequently changed  There are great wrongs done to the fishermen




15
by these constructions; and let the blame fall increase of 83,719 above the average of the prewhere it will, they should be investigated and re- ceding four years.
moved.                                         With this rapid increase it cannot be many
Another obstacle to the prosperity of our fish- years before our whole market will be supplied by
eries is, the unequal competition which we meet foreigners, and our own valuable fisheries limited,
with in those of the British Colonies. Theinhab- if not extinguished. A discerning writer in the
itants of those Provinces have not only become North American Review, as early as in 1843, anformidable competitors in the foreign markets, but, ticipated this very result. Said he: " We know
under the present tariff, they are made rivals in'something of the energy and skill of our fisherour own.   Their vicinity, near to the fishing'men, and appreciate them highly; but we feel
grounds, gives them a facility of access, with a' quite certain that, under a system of uniform ad
very small comparative outlay, whilst we at a'valorem, or sensible reduction of specific duties,
distance have to approach them by long voyages' these colonial competitors would take from them
and expensive outfits. A great difference in the' the supply of our own markets, as they already
price and quality of vessels, is another peculiar' have taken away the principal markets of cathocharge upon us. As a matter of necessity, our' lie Europe."
vessels having to perform so long and oft times  That such a policy should be pursued by this
boisterous voyages, must be larger, stronger, and  Government, whose interest it is to protect its own
more thoroughly rigged, in order to insure safety labor and furnish a home market for its proto the crew and property. The vessels of the ductions, is strange indeed! And the more so,
Provinces are cheaply built, rigged, and fitted. when we consider that Mr. Jefferson, the father of
They are not such as would command a crew from  the American commercial policy, when speaking of
New England. In fact, a considerable part of the prosperity of the country, said one ofits" land
their fishery is carried on without any vessel, a  marks" was to foster our fisheries, as a nursery
common open boat serving their purposes by rea- of navigation, and for the nurture of man.
son of their shore privileges. Their habits of life, IAnother source of danger which threatens our
and social relations, permit them to pursue the fisheries comes from our ancient ally, who has
business even with a smaller profit than we do or ever been vigilant in protecting her ocean fisheries
can. Their manner of living, educating their chil- as the prime source of her marine and naval powdren, &c., is far below that of the fishermen of the  er. I refer to France, whose Navy now numbers
States. They can be hired, as I am informed, for 224 sailing ships, 100 war steamers, and 291 mera much less sum than what our fishermen make. chant steamers; a large portion of which are so
ThismayanswerforthelaborerofNewBrunswick, built as to be made available for war purposes;
Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward's Island, but far and whose naval seamen number 21,000. With
be the day when the intelligent and independent this numerous fleet and armament, and recognizfishermen of Cape Cod, Plymouth, Cape Ann, and  ing the policy which has produced it, she is
Mt. Desert shall be reduced in their small earnings making still further efforts to increase it by giving
which they now obtain.  The Provincials also  extraordinary bounties to her fishermen. She has
have great advantages in the curing of their fish. not forgotten her maxim, which is quoted by Mr.
They are put on shore at short intervals, and dried  Andrews in his excellent report on the trade and
by females, children, and others, who, by age or commerce of the British North American colonies
infirmity, are past going in the boats; while, on  -" that these American fisheries were of more
the other hand, the fishermen of New England l national value in regard to navigation and power
have to pack their fish in the vessel's hold, bring  than the gold mines of Mexico could have been,
them home and cure them and dry them on flakes  had she possessed them."  " For many years,"
at great expense.                            says a late writer who has investigated the subIn addition to these difficulties, there are others!ject, " the French Government has paid a bounty
under which our fishermen labor, more with- to its seamen in the codfisheries, at a rate per
in our own control. They are those of our own  quintal larger than the whole average price at
creation. The tariff of 1846 changing the duty on  which American codfish have been sold."
fish from specific to ad valorem has brought the  In a late report, which I have before alluded to,
Provincial fishermen in competition with ours, recently made to her National Assembly, a maneven in our own ports. They have now, not only  uscript copy of which has been shown me, it is
taken from us in a great degree the fish trade of proposed to allow each fisherman annually fifty
the West Indies, but they are, by means of their francs-nine dollars thirty-seven and a half cents;
low-price labor, and superior natural advantages, and to pay twenty francs on every French quintal
rivaling us in our own market.               of fish exported to transatlantic countries, which
The annual value of the imports of codfish du- is about equal to two dollars per American quintal.
ring the four years next preceding 1846, averaged  Such is the estimation which France puts upon
$5,859, and the average value during the four the fisheries, and such is the policy by which she
years next succeeding 1846, was $55,178.    intends to encourage them for their intrinsic value,
The annual value of the imports of mackerel for and for the purpose of strengthening her commerthe four years previous to 1846 was $219,626, and  cial and naval marine. It is by this means that
the annual value the four years succeeding 1846  she intends to contest the briny palm with her
was $465,806. Hence it will be seen that under British and American rivals.
the tariff of 1846 the quantity of codfish brought  If the doctrine which was taught by the early
into the country to compete with our own fish- statesmen, that "prohibition should be applied to
eries increased nearly tenfold; and the quantity of prohibition," and that which is involved in our
mackerel considerably more than doubled,     late act relative to the Collins line of steamers,
The value of imports of mackerel during the  giving a bounty to protect ourselves from the effects
year 1850-'51 was $549,525, showing an annual of foreign bounties, is to be the practice and policy




16
of our Government, then, truly, it seems to me  Said Gouverneur Morris:
that we should act immediately in behalf of our  " 6The fisheries and the Mississippi are the two great obfishermen, and protect them from the effects which  jects of the Union."
this French bounty may have upon them. This    Mr. Grayson, in the Virginia Convention, said;
French export duty amounts to a sum nearly equal  Ithat the Newfoundland fiseries and
to the average price of codfish in our market; and  the Mississippi are balances for one another"
if, under our present tariff, the French fishermen
should think proper to supply us, such competition, it seems to me, would entirely annihilate our tion when speakig of the efect of the fsheries
fishing industry. But if they should not extend  sai
their trade into our ports, they will undoubtedly  "The Nav so necessary was to coae from the north
monopolize the remnant of our West India mar- ern, ald not the southernl tates.
ket, which, under similar adverse influenc, ha   r. Ames, hain the first Congress, said:
long since been dwindling. In S105 we exported  "'The taking of fish on the banks is a nmomentous concodfish to the value of $2,058,000. In the fiscal cern; it frres a ursery for seamen, and this will be the
year ending June, 1851, we exported only to the  source fti1 w1ich we areto derive maritie importance."
value of $367,729.                             Mr. Gerry, on a similar occasion, said in relation
Sir, I have spoken of the advantages which the  to the fishery:
inhabitants of the British Provinces have in their  " It is well known to be the best nursery for seamen. The
boat and shore fisheries. So abundant are thei United States have no other, and it never can be the inmackerel in some seasons of the year, on these ||lo tention of gentlemen to leave the navigation of the Union
coasts and shores, that forty thousand barrels o the  cyf foreiners
have been taken in a season with boats and seines, I  Little, sir, did these statesmen think that any
on a section not more than twelvemiles long. The  circumstances could occur, after these rights were
shore fishery, with the exception of certain parts I once secured, which would embolden the British
of the coasts of Newfoundland, the Magdalen I Government to claim them, from our country,and
Islands, and coast of Labrador, has been claimed' make us dependent upon foreign nations for the
as solely belonging to the British, by reason of the I! supply of our fish. No, sir; these declarations
war of 1812, and the provisions of the convention i were made under a due senae of the value, and anof 1818 betwixt the United States and Great Prit! ticipated security of, these fisheries. The history
ain, and it has partially been yielded to them.  of them for a hundred and forty years or more,
Our vessels have generally, of late years, fished  had convinced the country that the security of
three miles from the outer coasts, and from the i them was essential to ita maritime liberties and
coasts or shores of the gulf, bays, and harbors. greatness.
Even at this distance, fiom the shores, the fish- i  In the negotiations for the peace of the Revolueries are very valuable.                    I tion, the right in all the fisheries of the banks,
From one third to one half of the mackerel bays, coves, and shores of the British Provinces
caught by our citizens are taken in these waters, were claimed by us as a part of our heritage, and
and at a season of the year when they are rarely  not as a mere easement or privilege. As I have
found anywhere else. Our fishermen claim these i before said, the Congress, though wearied with the
fishing grounds as a matter of right to them and  war, then resolved "to make no peace without a
their successors. They claim them as the prizes I guarantee of our rights to all the ancient fisheries;"
for which our fathers fought in the French wars,! the people of Massachusetts and New England
and which were achieved by the mother country, declared that they " would never lay down their
chiefly by New England valor.                arms without this right," and Samuel Adams,
(" The colony of New England," says a his- echoing their sentimeits, cried "I.ob peace iwithout
torian, "gavepeace to Europe by raising, arming, t thefisheries." The elder Adams, one of the treaty
and transporting four thousand men who took I commissioners, declared, with an appeal to the
Louisbourg.")! " Almighty God," thlat he would never put his
They now claim them from the British Govern- name to a treaty that did not recognize the right;
ment as a part, and a prominent part of the sacred  and when the British commissioner spoke of yieldrights which were contended for and achieved by  ing them as aprivilege, he aain replied, " the right,
our fathers, who asserted and obtained the Amer- the right, or no treaty." Under the prevalence
ican Independence; that they are the trophies of of these feelings, and the patriotic determination
the Revolution; the price of blood. Lord North'si of the commissioners, our claims were acknowlbill in the British Parliament, upon which Mr. edged and the treaty of 1783, which I quoted in
Fox displayed the first indications of his ability the former part of my remarks, was made and
and oratory, deprived the colonies of these fish- ratified.
eries, which were bought, as it was said, by   Under this treaty the fishermen were substan"American sufferings and arms." Truly was it tially remitted to all their privileges under the two
said by the English! orator, "God and nature had  distinct titles of" r ight to take fish," and " liberty
given the fisheries to New England and not to   totake fish," which I shall hereafter have occasion
Old England."  And at a later period by our to speak of in connection with this subject. They
noble American orator, when negotiating with the  considered the fishing privileges secured by this
British on the subject, that "if war, and blood, and  treaty as permanent, and decidedly prominenlt,
treasure, give a right, ours is as good as yours."  H among the other achievements of independence.
Sir, these rights were considered as important These rights, or liberties, were never called in
by the statesmen who assembled for the forma- I question again until after the second war with
tion and adoption of the United States Constitu- Great Britain-thewarof 1812. When the peace
tion as by those who had fought the battles of the  commissioners of 1814 were appointed, they were
Revolution.                                  expressly instructed to abandon all negotiations




17
unless the fishermen's rights, under the treaty of mentioned limits: Provided, however, That the American
1783, could be preserved. Pendin   the+p neoti- I fishermen shall be admitted to enter such bays or harbors
e  for the purpose of shelter, and of repairing damages thereations of that treaty, the British commissioners in, of purchasing wood, and of obtaining water, and for no
contended that, by the law of nations, the war other purpose whatever. But they shall be under such rehad abrogated the provisions of the previous treaty I strictions as may be necessary to prevent their taking, drynrelative to the fisheries, and insisted that the ne-  lg, orcuring fish therein, orin anyother manner whatever
relative to the fisheries, and insisted that the ne- l                    O'S 
abusingi the privileges hereby reserved to them."
gotiations on that subject should be for new and
limited privileges; but the American commission-  It was undoubtedly considered by the negotiaers took the high and consistent position that the  tors at the time that this was an advantageous arfisheries were held by the same right and tenure  rangement; and, although it relinquished valuable
as the independence of our nation, and that the  parts of our shore fishery, it probably would have
one was no more the subject for new acknowl- been acquiesced in as a final settlement, had we
edgment than the other. Tlheir arguments, based I obtained the uncontested liberties which the comupon such fundamental premises, finally prevailed, missioners supposed we had. In fact, the fisherat least, so far that the matter was left as it was men throughout the country, viewingthe construcfound. No stipulation having been made, either tion to be undoubted, that they could fish at a
confirming or altering the rights under the first distance within three marine miles of any of the
treaty, the fishermen continued to pursue their shores or coasts of the gulf, bays, harbors, and
industry as they had done.                     indents, hailed it with joy. That they could fish,
Sir, 1 acknowledge that the general principles of unmolested, in the waters from which they had
the laws of nations are, that war dissolves all con- previously been driven, seemed to them  to be
tracts, or licenses betwixt the belligerents, and  a matter of new acquisition. Not being versed
that unless stipulated for anew at the settlement, in the learning of treaties and diplomacy of States,
or treaty, they are forever gone; but I deny that it they did not realize that what they considered as
dissolves all rights which have been recognized in  a newo privilege, was nothing but a part of their old
each other by the belligerents. Hence, so far as liberty.
these fisheries had been acknowledged as rights, it  Mr. John Q,. Adams, however, in speaking on
was not in the power of England, by iwar, or oth- the subject, says: " Upon the whole, I consider
erwise, to abrogate or extinguish them without'thisinterest,as secured by the convention of 1818,
the consent of the United States; but, so far as  in a manner as advantageous as it had been by
they were recognized as liberties granted by the'the treaty of 1783. It has secured the whole
British Crown, I will not contend but war, accord-' coast fishery of every part of the British domining to the laws of nations, abrogated them. In'ions, except within three marine miles of the
this respect they would be held by contract, by'shore."  With this understanding of their rights,
sufferance, and subject to the rules which apply  our fishermen have pursued the fisheries from the
to all contracts betwixt nations.              time of the convention to the present year, within
Notwithstanding this apparent acquiescence by  three miles from the coasts or shores, whether in
both partiesin the treaty of 1783, the British, soon  the open sea, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Bay of
after the dissolution of the treaty convention of Fundy, Bay of Chaleur, or any other waters of
1814, claiming to put their own construction upon  the British North American Provinces. They
the effects of the war, soon forbade our fishing  have continually persisted in their claim for thirtyvessels from approaching within sixty miles of four years; and never, so far as I have learned,
the coasts of the Provinces, and for a breach of have they been molested when without three miles
tiis unjust and arrogant prohibition, they seized  from  the shores, unless by some provincialists
some of them and condemned them. These dif- without governmental authority. This fishery in
ferences, with some others, led to the convention of the bays has not been secretly, but openly pur1818.                                          sued. It has been practiced with the knowledge
By this convention, which consisted of Mr.   of the Colonial Governments, the Imperial GovGallatin and Mr. Rush, on the part of the United  ernnent, and the deputations from the English
States, it was provided as follows:            Admiral, commissioned to cruise in those waters
"That the inhabitants of the said United States shall for the purpose of enforcing the treaty stipulations,
have, forever, in common with the subjects of his Britan-  which 1 shall briefly allude to before I close.
nic Majesty, the liberty to take fish of every kind on that  Sir, the present difficulties with the fishermen
part of the southern coast of Newfoundland which extends  on the coast of the  rovinces have arisen fom a
from Cape Ray to the Ramieau Islands, on the western and
Northern coast of said Newfoundland, from Cape Ray to the  comparatively recent construction which the British
Quirpon Islands, on the shores of the Magdalen Islands;  have put upon our treaty relations. It is such an
and also, on the coasts, bays, harbors, and creeks, from  one as presents a new obstacle to their progress,
Mount Joly, on the southern coast of Labrador, to and  and threatens nlmost a total destruction. In the
through the Straits of Belle Isle, and thence northwardly
indefinitely along the coast, without prejudice, however, to  year 1841, or thereabouts, the Provinces of Nova
any of the exclusive rights of the Hudson's Bay Comipany;  Scotia and New Brunswick, conceiving that a strict
and that the American fishermen shall also have liberty, and stsrineent construction of the treaty of 1818
forever, to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays,rs which we had
harbors, and creeks of the southern part of the coast of might exclude us from  e waters which we had
Newfoundland, here above described, and of the coast of improved, made complaint to the Imperial GovernLabrador; but so soon as the sa;me or any portion thereof | rent. A case was made up for the opinion of the
shall be settled, it shall not be lawful for the said fishermen  law officers of the Crown, and the opinion thus
to dry or cure fish at such portion o ettled without pe-rescribed distance of three
vious agreement for such purpose, with the inhabitants, 1obtained was, thattheprescrbed distance ofthree
proprietors, or possessors of the ground. And the United K miles mentioned in the convention, was to be
States hereby renounce, forever, any liberty heretofore en- measured from the headlands, and from the enjoyed or cure fised, by or within h  itreeants thereof, to toke  r  tranceies of the bays or indents of the coast, and that
or cure fish on or within three marine miles of any of the I i  * *,. on   <* r  A  *     *+*
coasts, bays, creeks, or harbors of his Britannic Iajestv's there was no right on the part of American citidominions in Anerica, inot included within the above- I zens to enter the bays, &c., or take fish, although




18
they should be taken at a distance of three miles;sioners, during the negotiations of 1814, did not
from the ihores. By this construction, if adhered  even claim the relinquishment of any part except
to, we are excluded from the Gulf of St. Law-  the shore fishery, which is wivthin the three miles
rence, (lthough I think I shall hereafter show that of the shores of the bays, &c., and that the conthe fishinol  in this C'ulf was not affected by the  sultations proceeded upon this basis alone; and
treaty of 1818,) Bay of Fundy, Bay of Chaleur, that Lord Bathurst then said:
and the other waters in which the principal part of  " As, on the one hand. Great Britain could not permit the
our fishing in those regions is pursued. Against vessels of the United States to fish within the creeks and
this construction our AMinaister at the Court of St. i close upon the shores of the British territories, so on the
other hand, it was by no means their intention to interrupt
James remonstrated; and, after reiterated remon- them in fishiln anywzhere in the open sea, or without tile
strances, the British Ministry, in 1845, receded territorial jurisdiction, a marine lecage from the shore."
from their construction, or enforcement of it, so i And that at another interview, he said:
far as related to the Bay of Fundy; and in prac- j  It is not of fair competition that His Majesty had reason
tice, there has been no earnest attempt to enforce  to comlplain, but of tle preoccupation of the British harit in the other bays and waters until the present bors and creeks."
year. But now, sir, since the inhlabitants of the  Thus acknowledging that no complaint or oljecProvinces have discovered their advantages in sup- tion was made to our fishing three miles from the
plying our market under the tariff of 1846, itsuits shores, but that the objections were to our occutheir convenience and interest to enforce theircon- pying the harbors, shores, and creeks, hauling seines,
struction, and repel us from the fishing grounds. drying fish, &c., to the exclusion of the British.
If they are successful, it will add much to their I submit, that with a knowledge of these facts, it
already fattering prospects of supplanting us in is not to be supposed that our commissioners
the fish trade of our own market. Sir, if thereis yielded what the British now contend for, unless
any philosophy in politics or governmental move- such is the only interpretation of the language of
ments, nothing can lbe better demonstrated than; the treaty, which is by no means the case.
that the tariff of 1846 has brought upon our fish-  2d. Because the commissioners put a different
ermen the tirubles which they now experience  construction upon the treaty at the time it was
from this source. The colonies, having thereby i made.
tested the advantages of our market, are now!  On the day that the treaty was signed, they
strenuous in their efforts to extend them. Their wrote to the Secretary of State, saying they had
present attempts are to monopolize then entirely. 1 agreed to the insertion of the renunciatory clause,
This has become evident from the whole circle of i " with a view of its being expressly stated, that
events since our destructive policy has admitted l our reniunciation extended only to the distance of
their fish into our ports under an ad valortem duty, three miles; " and that fiom their information, &c.,
which, in practice, amounts to almost nething.  i " all the fishing grounds, with the exception of
For the purpose of obtaining these advantages, the opeen-boat fishery, on the whole coast of Nova
the Imperial Government has been induced to   Scotia, is more than three miles from the shlore."
lend her aid to the colonies, and station armed  Now, sir, as the bay and shore fishery was the
steamers, slhips, land cutters in the waters, to be only subject upon which they were negotiating,
joined by those of Newfoundland, Canada, Nova- this renunciation to the distance of three miles
Scotia, and New Brunswick, to drive us frioo our from the shore, according to their understanding,
pursuits. If these insults are tamely submitted  a pplied to bays,harbors, and creeks, within which
to, we shall lose that which has been the principal the boat fishery only was carried on.  This will
pride and foundation of American commerce, and  appear more apparent when I show, as I trust I
which has had no small influence in increasin- the  shall, that by the letter and spirit of this renunciaAmerican tonnage friom that of about nothing to  tory clause, it applies to the fishing liberties, instead
nearly 4,000,000 tons. Sir, it is not the character of the fishing rights, which distinction had always
of the New England fishermen, any more than it been kept up in all the negotiations, and that the
is that of our distinguished statesmen, to claimn liberties were what we had in the bays, creeks,
that which does not belong to them. If they   harbors, &c.  Thus, sir, the very subject-matter
could not justly and honorably retain these fish. of which the renunciatory clause treats, was the
ing facilities, I assure you that they would scorn  i nter, and not the outer fisheries, and of course
the possession of them.                       the three miles must be applied to them, and nothBut I contend, sir, that the commissioners of ing else, and so did the commissioners intend.
this Government in the convention of 1818 never  3d. Because Great Britain herself did not supintended, and never did, expressly or impliedly, pose that we had yielded what she now claims.
alien or relinquish the rights or liberties which tie iShe has put, or permitted to be put, upon the
British Government say they did, and for the fol- treaty of 1818, a very different construction.
lowing, among other reasons:                    Sir, construction determines the law and extent
1st. Because it was well known to the commis- of a contract.  Betwixt citizen and citizen the
sioners-Messrs. Gallatin and Rush-that the    Government itself, throuoh its judiciary, performs
fishing rights were of great importance to the  this duty; but in contracts betwixt Government
country; that at the treaty of 1814, at which Mr. t  and Government there is no tribunal, no umpire,
Gallatin was also a coimmissioner, the subject ofl except the parties themselves. They make their
the shore as well as vessel fishery was introduced, I own constructions, and if nct acquiesced in,'war
discussed,and claimed as appurtenant to the inde- i and might determine the right. "  AVar, however,
pendence of the country, and as a riglt recognized  is the i ast resort. Thtousands of pacific construcunder the treaty of 1783; also, that the commis- tions are muade to one of the belligerent. Pacific
sioners were instructed by Congress not to give; constructions are made by Governmaents as by inup any of the rights under that treaty.       dividuals, sometimes by mutual express agreeThey were also aware that the British commis- i nment as in conventions and treaties, sometimes




19
by actions and practice, and sometimes by nove-' annually, where thiey remain without molestaactioni, acquiescence, or implied permlission.'What —' tion from the Govermnents.i'
ever a Government does, expressly or impledly,  If his silent emiion on the part of     ritis as binding upon it asupon an indi'viduanl.  Now, ish, under our continued claim and *,ctice, vag
sir, I contend that Great Britain, upon all the not an assent to the construction wlich our fishprinciples of implication, has put, or pernitted to ernmen put upon the treaty, as unequivocal, and
be put, the same construction upon the renun-  more so, than w(ords could make it, then we must
ciatory treaty of 1818 as that which the American  acknowledge that diplomatic negotiations arid jufishermen are now contending for. She has looked  cicial tribunals have hereiore made wron- conquiedy on and made no formnal resistance, whilst i! clusions and deductions from the action,: or lations
we, for a period which gives title to the most im-i and men. I do not intend to wink at the flict,
portant estates, have been claiimiing and possessing 1 that as early as 1841, twenty-thiee years aft'er
the premises which she now attempts to deny to i our practical construction cammenced, the Britus. Is it to be admitted that one of the contract- ish Ministry, throu'hl their law officer, on a case
ing parties to an agreement or treaty will look  made up by the House of Asscnimbly o Nova
quietly on and see a supposed breach made of it, Scotia, did avow their conssructive ci;iion onf le
commencing contemporaneously with the contract treaty, which was the same that they are now enitself and contiinued for thiity-four years with out deavoring to enforce; but on the remonstrance of
taking action upon the subject? It is contrary to  our Government, through our Minister in London,
all the principles of human nature; and so forcible  Her Majesty's Government receded from the enis the inference in such cases that the judicial'  frcement of it. Whiat efiect the postpo iiemint of
tribunals of all civil countries have been driven i the enforcement oftheir opinions sh ould iave upon
to deduce it as a conclusion of law that no actual the present diiniculies, I will notnow; fr the
breach has been made.                         good resolution continued but a short tire. Lord
Now, sir, what are the facts in relation to Great Stanley, it appears, communicatcd itto Lord FaulkBritain upon this subject?                    land, Lieuitenant Governor of Nova Scotia, by a
Immediately after the treaty the Anmerican fis  dis dispatch of May 19th, and Lord Faihlkland being
ermen withdrew their fishing operations to within| dissatisfied with the liberal notions of thie i ome
three miles of the shores of tihe interior of the I Government, requested that ah ne otiatoio  shioutld
bays, &c., and claimed that line as their boundary. be stopped until lie could have ani o0portunity of
They have ever since, from  1S18  to the present 1 addressinlg Loid Stanley on the subject. O0 the
time, made continiued claim and kept up coitinued; 2d1 of July lie communicated his objectioni, witl
occupation of these wvaters for their fishin puti- the law opinion of t!he Attorney GeCneral ohf lova
poses. This has been done in open sight of the iScotia. The proceedings on the part of Nocva
Provincials and the Provincial Governments, and I Scotia caused Her Miajesty's GoveirneiL to adwith a full knowledge on the part of the Imperial here to its former construction, " exceit so far as
Government. Even their State vessels, sent into related to the Bay of' Fundy."  Yet, si, ts co2these waters to see that the treaty was adhered to  struction has never earnestly been attemipted to be
and to protect their own rights under it, have seen  enforced until the present season.
these waters, without the three miles, swarming  By this and other circumstances, we have
with American fishermen, and yet have not nmo- evidence that it is the will of the Colonial Govlested them. They have even seized some for sup- ernments, and not of the Imperial, tiht is now
posed violatious, and, finding' that they were three  boeinig enforced. And a view of the history of
miles from the shores of the bays, &c., have re- these proceedhin;gs, if I had time to give it, would
leased themn without trial. British Admiral Milne,  show tiat this is one among many of the appliin his instructions to Captain Chambers, who was i auces, which the British colonies are nakintg ior
to cruise unon the coast, says:                the purpose of eflecting a lon-desired object, viz: a," On your mneetin with any foreign fishing vessels fishing reciprocity of trade aind navigation between them
or at ancior in any of the harbors or creeks in His Majes- and the United States. Having obtained, ounder
ty's Norti Americtnm Provinces, or w   ini    thein our marifi                         ket,
jurisdiction,   you  wvil seize,"'   &c'.
they are determined, by means of their low labor,
These would be extraordinary instructions, in- and natural facilities, to monopolize the whole of
deed, to a maritime force whose duty it was to  its prcfits, either by firee trade or excluding us
keep our vessels three miles frlom the headlands or  fr'om tile fishitng irounds.
entrance of the bays of thLe country. Captain    If the tariff of 1846 had never been enacted, we
Chamobers, in his report, says that he did seize inever should have seen the British 2alvy seizing
vessels foiund fishingin the creeks and harboers, and i ori fishermen and driving them fiom teir fiEshing
within the interdicted limits of the three miles in  l haunts. Free trade or expulsion firom the fishingthe bays, &c. He speaks not of seizing any oth- grounds, seems to be their intention. The one
ers.                                           with them is about equivalent to the other. I do
The schooner Comnmerce, one of our fishinm;  not say that, by the superior energy Lof our fishvessels, is reported to have beeii seized in the Guif0| ermen, we might not compete with them against
of St. Lawrence, and sent in for trial by a colo- a!i disadvanmeges, provided we could have the shore
nial cutter, and  avis released after a  earing, fishery; but without thiIs,I contend that reciprocity
because, though withimn the body of the gilf, no  would be deanti to our fishermien, and extremely
offense lind been committed wi:hmn the shore pro:hi- lnjulrious to the country. Sir, I am here, again,
bition. In an official letter of the coimmanlder of deeply impressed with the importance of inimedianother British revenue vessel, whose duty it was  ately so regulating the tariff of 1846 as to protect
to protect the fishermen of the Provinces, it is  us friom te gane wlhich the British Ministry are
stated "that fiomn six hundred to seven hundred  now attempting to play upon us. Raise your'sail of American fishermnien drive into the gulf i tariff, sir, to a prohibition of the importation of




20
fish from the Colonies, and you would no longer  " And the United States hereby renounce, forever, any
see the British fleet chasing oura fishermen firom t1 liberty heretofore enjoyed or claimed by the inhabitants
see the British fleet chasing our fishermen from
thereof, to take, dry, or cure fish, on or within three matheir industry.                               rine miles of any of the coasts bays, creeks, or harbors, of
Again, sir: Independent of any treaty or con- His Britannic Majesty's dominions in America, not includstruction, favorable or unfavorable, our fishermen  ed within the above-mentioned limits: Provided, hovever,
have gained the right which they claim. Thirty- Thlat the American fishermen shall be admitted to enter
have gaed the right which they claim. T1 hirty- such bays or harbors, for the purpose of shelter, and of refour years of claim and occupation on the part of I pairing damages therein, of purchasing wood, and of obour fishermen, independent of the rules of implied  taininv water, and for no other purpose whatever. But
construction, would, by the principles of the law  they shall be under such restrictions as mray be necessary
of England itself, give us a snei and os-i isnl ne-right, to prevent their taking, drying, or curing fish therein,
of England itself, give us a new and original right,                           I.-    or in any other manner whatever abusing the privileges
if such were wanted to make out our case. By  hereby reserved to them."
the great principles of justice, as embraced in the  It will be perceived that we renounced the libcommon law of England and all other civilized (
common  of Engand and all other ivzed  ty to take fish within three miles of any of the
countries, if one person claims and enjoys openly  coasts, bays, creeks, or harbors, &c. Now, wha
a right or title to another's estate for twenty years, bays, creeks, or harbors, were intended to be reand the right is not contested within that time, a j nounced by this clause?  It is a veneral rule of
grant is presumed, and the juries are so instructed. |w in construing a contract, that each part of it
A lost grant may be pleaded; and evidence of   ast be considered as referrinto the subject-mattwenty years' uninterrupted possession is proof, itr, and asexplanatoryof theotherparts. The
as the courts say, that a grant was made and lost. second paragraph of this renunciation serves to
This rule of presumption has become so inter- interpret the preceeding one. It says:
woven with our knowledge of the affairs of men,  e apried, howerer, That the American fishermen shall,, Provided, hoitever, That the American fishermen shall
that courts have adopted it as a rule of action.  be admitted to enter such bays orharbors for the purpose of
Now, sir, why should not this rule of wisdom l shelter, and of repairing damages therein, of purchasing
wood, and of obtaining water," &c.
be applicable to nations as well as to individuals? wood, and of obtaining water," &c.
Why should it not be applied to England as      Now, sir, one of two positions must be admitwell as to her subjects? I contend that it should: ted-either that these bays, &c., from which we
and that, by the evidence of thirty-four years' were to be excluded, consisted only of such bays,
possession, under a claim of title, by the law of! creeks, and harbors, as are frequented for shelter,
nations and the perfection of human reason, as the for repairing damages, for wood, water, &c., or
common law is called, a newe grant, if necessary, the high contracting parties must be charged with
may be presumed and pleaded from the British  the absurdity of supposing that the open waters
Government.                                   of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Bay of Fundy, and
Vattel, after reasoning upon the subject, and  Bay of Chaleur, were convenient and appropriate
showing that a nation may have a fishery on its places for the American fishermen to repair their
coast, and exercise the sole control over it, says: vessels, and supply themselves with wood and
" But if so far from taking possession of it, it has once water. I trust that no individuals or Government
acknowledged the common right of other nations to come will do the commissioners the injustice to say,
and fish there, it can no longer exclude them from it; it has that the latter was the position which they asleft such fishery in its primitive freedom, at least with re- sumed. Such bays and harbors as we renounced
spect to them who have been in possession of it."  were those into which vessels -o for repairs
This national law is laid down as applicable to  wood, and water. And sutch were the bays and
the English herring fishery on the same coasts harbors, &c., concerning which the complaints
where our rights of fishing are now contested. had arisen that we preoccupied them, to the exSir, can any American citizen, or citizen of any  clusion of the British fishermen.
other country where law and order is known,     Again, sir, I have heretofore alluded to the
either national or municipal, doubt that England, broad and recognized distinction betwixt the right
either by cotemporaneous construction, tacit ac- and liberty of fishing in these British waters. I
quiescence in our possession for thirty-four years, shall now proceed to show that our right of fishing
or upon the principles of lost grant,has yielded to  in the vhole of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which
the American fishermen the rights which they now  includes the Magdalen Islands, Prince Edward's
claim?                                        Island, and other valuable coast and shore fishAgain, sir: Without the aid of cotemporane-  eries, has never been touched or affected by any
ous and implied construction, thirty-four years' treaty since that of 1783, by which it was recogpossession, and an undoubted netw or lost grant, nized and stipulated for.
let us look to the treaties themselves, and see if,  At the close of the Revolution, the United States
by any construction, our fishermen can be ejected i claimed these fisheries in common with the British,
from the gulf and bays of the Provinces.      as a right appurtenant to the country, and which
Whether the war of 1812 had or had not ex- had become fixed by the acknowled.gment of indetinguished our liberties of fishing cannot now be  pendence. The British, on the other hand, conbrought into the question. We made ane'w agree- tended that we had no right, but that if any priviment with respect to thein by the treaty of 1818. lege in them appertained to us, it was a liberty. It
I do not, by this, mean that we made any new is itmportant for the committee and the country to
agreement by that treaty as to the rights of fishing-, note the denomination of the easement which each
which, as I shall presently show, are very distinct, was tenacious of. The Americans denominated it
and based upon a different foundation from that i a riTht. The British denominated it a liberty.
of the liberties. The liberties were affected by the  However unimportant this distinction may appear
treaty of 1818, and not the rights. The question  at the first view, yet it was considered of vast inis, What liberties did we renounce or give up by / portance by those who negotiated the treaty of
that treaty? The renunciatory clause reads as | 1783, and I intend to show that it is equally as
follows:                                      important in construing the treaty of 8181. The




21
right signified the holding of the fishery independ- "| In the third article Great Britain acknowledges the right
ent of, and without the permission of Englald- of the United States to take fish on the banks, &c., from.ent o, and without the permission* of England  which Great Britain has no right to exclude," &c., &c.
but the liberty signified the holding it under con- 
tract, and by her consent. In the former case, a     And further, he says:
subsequent war would not abrogate it; but in th e ]   It is surely obvious that the word right, is throughout
the treaty (the treaty of 1783) used as applicable to what
latter, it would, unless provided for anew in the  the United States were to enjoy in virtue of a recognized
treaty of peace. If any one will examine the dip- independence; and the word liberty to what they were to
lomatic correspondence and debates of the peace    enjoy as concession, strictly dependent on the treaty itself."
commissioners of 1783, he will find much earn-       The treaty of 1814 was finally concluded, with
estness in the discussions upon this subject. It no settlement whatever in regard to the fisheries,
was then that John Adams said:                    or the effect which the war should have upon them.'Gentlemen, is there or can there be a clearer right?  The titles of the right and the liberty were thereIn former treaties, that of Utrecht and that of Paris, France  fore held in abeyance, at least the latter, until the
and England have claimed the right and used the ord.  third era or stage arrived, which was that of 1818,
If occupation, use, and possession give a right, we have in which we have paper muniments and evidence.
t as well as you. "   If  ar, ad blood, and treasure give n which we have paper  unments and evidence.
a right, we have it as well as you." " If the right cannot  What effect did this treaty or convention have
be denied, why should it not be acknowledged and put out upon the two titles of right and liberty? Sir, this
of dispute?" " Why should we leave room for illiterateconvention treated of but one of those titles, leavfight, or no trea         cae                     ing the other as it existed under the treaty of 1783.
rin~~g~The treaty of 1, or no treaty."d,
The reasoning of Mr. Adams was confessed to       The treaty of 1818, which   hae before quoted,
be good, but the British commissioners doubted  so far as it relates to taking fish, reads as follows:
be good, but the British commissioners doubted
their authority to acquiesc.  M   Adas  an  Whereas differences have arisen respecting the liberty
their      authoriter, and said he would never again  claimed by the United States for the inhabitants thereof to
pressed the matter, and said he would never sign   take, dry, and cure fish on certain coasts, bays, harbors,
the treaty without the acknowledgment of the      and creeks of His Britannic Majesty's dominions in Anmerright and not the liberty. Eventually the treaty  ica, it is agreed between the high contracting parties that
was made, in which the Xriht in certain parts and! the inhabitants of the said United States shall have, forever,
wa  s made, i   which the right in certain parts and  in common with the subjects of His Britannic Majesty, the
the liberty in others was acknowledged.     This liberty to take fish of every kind on that part of the southern
treaty of 1783, upon its face, shows that it was the'coast of Newfoundland which extends froin Cape Ray to
result of a compromise betwixt the ri fght and the  the Raneau Islands, on the western and northern coast of
berty, for both are provided   its terms  said Newfoundland, from the said Cape Ray to the Quirpon
kberty, for both are provided for by its terms.   Islands, on the shores of the Magdalen Islands; and also
The first provision of the treaty, which acknowl- on the coasts, bays, harbors, and creeks from Mount Joly,
edges the right, reads as follows:                 on the southern coast of Labrador, to and through the Straits
" It is agreed that the people of the United States shall of Btlle Isle, and thence northwardly indefinitely along the
continue to enjoy, iamolested, the right to take fish of coast, without prejudice, however, to any of the exclusive
every kind on the Grand Bank, and on all the other banks jlhlts of the Hudson's Bay Company  And the United
of Newrfoundland; also, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and at States hereby renounce forever any liberty heretofore enall other placeN s in the sea where the inhabitants of both joyed or claimed by the inhabitants thereof to take, dry, or
countries usedsat any time seheretofore to fisnhabi."ant o cure fish on or within three marine miles of any of the
countries used at any time heretofore to fish."S'" crconT                          S         e^
coasts, bays, creeks, or harbors of His Britannic Majesty's
The second provision, which acknowledges the    dominions in America, not included within the above-menliberty, reads as follows:                        tioned limnits: Provided, however, That the American fishnd als,  a  e naans  e  ned    aes ermen shall be admitted to enter such bays or harbors, for
" And also, that the inhabitants o f the United States  the purpose of shelter, and of repairing damages therein, of
shall have liberty to take fish of every kind on such part of purchasing wood, and of obtaining water, and for no other
the coast of Newfoundland as British fishermen shall use, purpose whatever. But they shall be under such restric(but not to dry or cure the same on that island;) and also, tions as may be necessary to prevent their taking, drying,
on the coasts, bays, and creeks of all other of HIis Britan- or curing fish therein, or in any other manner whatever
nic Majesty's domiinions in America."              abusing the privileges hereby reserved to them."
Here, sir, we find the two distinct interests pro-  Now, sir, the preamble of this treaty shows that
vided for by two distinct, though immediately      but one of our titles to the fisheries was to be modconnected clauses.   If they were synonymous,      ified or affected thereby. It says: " Whereas difthey would both have been included in the same     ferences have arisen respecting the liberty claimed
clause; but they were not; they were so different  by the United States," not the right. The subseas to be separately stipulated for.                quent part of the treaty confines itself to the same
By this treaty we have the British acknowl-     title, the liberty. It says: " And the United States
edgment of our title to a right on the Grand Bank,  hereby renounces, forever, any liberty heretofore
and on all the other banks of Newfoundland, in     enjoyed or claimed," &c.
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and at all other places    Sir, this treaty operates upon the liberty alone,
in the sea where, &c. And the grant or acknowl-    which Lord Bathurst contended had been affected
edgment of a liberty to fish on such parts of the  by the war; but not one word is said or contained
coast of Newfoundland as the British fishermen    in it relative to the right of fishery, which Lord
shall use, and on the coasts, bays, and creeks of  Bathurst had admitted were not affected by the
all others of His Britannic Majesty's dominions.   war.
With these facts and distinct titles before us,    Now, sir, let me ask this committee and the
we will proceed to the next stage of their history,  country, to refer to the treaty of 1783, and see in
which grew out of the war of 1812. At the treaty   what part of these fisheries we had aright, instead
of 1814, and the subsequent correspondence, it was  of a liberty. Sir, among other places, we had and
contended by the British commissioners that the    have still a title of right in the whole of the Gulf
war had abrogated our title to the fisheries. They  of St. Lawrence. Let the British Ministry, or any
did not contend, however, that it had abrogated    other power on earth, construe the treaty of 1818
our right to the fisheries, but the liberty which  as they will respecting the liberty on the bays,
depended upon treaty or contract. Thus, in Lord    creeks, and harbors, still it cannot affect the title
Bathurst's correspondence with John Q. Adams,      of right in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which has
he says, referring to the treaty of 1783:          never been modified or altered since the treaty of




22
1783, and the subsequent expression of Lord    The fishermen's devotion to their country has
Bathurst, that it could not be modified or altered. I not been less conspicuous in deeds of war than in
will leave it to the fishermen and the country to usefulness to commerce. No sooner do belligdefine the extent of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It erent relatios drive them from the deck of the
contains, besides the Magdalen Islands and Prince fishing vessel than they find them in tle foretop
Edward Island, many other important coasts, of the frigate. No patriots have responded more
shores, &c., which are resorted to for our fishing  readily to their country's call than the fishermen
purposes.' of New England.   Who were the seamen in the
Sir, I have read accounts within one day of our two wars that guarded our coasts and captured the
fishing vessels being seized in the Gulf of St. Law- gallant ships of the British navy? They were
rence for a breach of the treaty of 1818! They  mostly the fishermen of our country.  Where
might, with the same propriety, seize vessels in  were they educated for these ditties? In the free
Plymouth Bayor Provincetown harbor forhaving schools of New England, on the banks of Newmade a breach within the purview of that treaty, foundland, and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
as to seize them in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. I Whence could these seamen have beent supplied,
contend that every inch of that Gulf may be trav-' had not Congress, in its wisdom, encouraged the
ersed by our fishermen in pursuit of their indus- fishing industry? I leave this for others to antry, with no breach of any convention, and with swer.
no one rightfully to molest them or make them  If any one doubts their usefulness and importafraid. Our title of right in that water has never, ance, let him refresh his memory by turning over
no, never been discussed or jostled since 1783, the pages of the Revolution and the naval history
when it was first acknowledged by the British  of the country. He will there find the naval
Government. Sir, I am willing to submit this achievements of the celebrated Captain Manley,
opinion to the country, knotiing that when it is and others, of Marblehead, called the " hook and
fully understood, they will concur with me.  line, bob and sinker cruisers," who did honor to
Under these views of the subject and its difficul- their country. It is related, upon authority, that
ties, I Ihope the Government will not be tardy, but in the small town of Marblehead " at the close of
send such! a naval force into those waters as will the Revolution there were more than thirteen hunconvinc;e the British that the rightful industry of i dred widows and fatherless children" who lhad
our fishermen is not to be insultingly tampered  been so rendered by deeds of war. At the close
with.                                        of the war in 1815, it is said that more than five
Sir, the attacks from w-ithout and the obstacles I hundred citizens of this town were released from
within whileh impede the course of the twenty' one British prison.
thouas r'c or more fishermen of our country, are  A celebrated fisherman of the State of Maine,
of no tSiCir!: imhpo:rtance. By their pursuits they  Skipper Tucker, as he was called, captured more
scarcely obtain a competency for themselves and g-uns, during the revolutionary war, than any
families. But to how many millisns of citizens naval commander in the service. He was the cormand of property are their sufferings and labors mander of the ship that carried John Adams to
made subservient! Their adventures produce not Europe in 1779, on which occasion he not only
only the necessaries of life and the energies of exhibited his superior naval talent, but patriotic
commerce, but the securities of peace and the life- obedience and fidelity to the orders of his country.
blood of war. Their calling is fraught with expe- It is related of him that, on his passage, he fell in
riences which arouse the noblest faculties of the with an enemy, resolved to fight him, and reman. The very element upon which they movel quested Mr. Adams to retire below to a place of
inures them to danger, and prepares them to over-' safety; but he soon observed him with a gun fightcome the obstacles of life. The ocean has no  ing as a comol n nmarine, and in tones ofauthoriwave, no chasm, which can cause them to quail, ty ordered him to leave the deck. Mr. Adams,
and which they will not ascend and descend with  however, continued at his post, when Commodore
a heart as buoyant and fearless as the bravest of| Tucker at last seized him and forced him away,
the brave. Sch is their character; and such has exclaiming, "I am commanded by the Contineltal
been th.i:precietion in some ages and countries  Congress to ccary you safely to Europe, and by
that evrl the shafts of war have not deigned to -   I will do it."
molest tmt.                       t            Where were the fishermen at the siege of TripThe t-'-"y orf 7 99b betwivixt the United States oli? They were there, sir, fighting for the honor
and Prut'o- pro- i c s that fishermen, by reason of of their flag and the liberty of the seas. Where
their oc c.; - ticn:iin, for the conmmon subsistence  were they in the war of 1812? They were sailing
and beiilt;t of malkind, slhall be allowed in time  your war ships upon tle Atlantic and the Lakes.
of war to'continue their employment unmolested.  It is said, sir, by a writer of reputation, " that
Sir, i'o class of men ever received protection  without our fishermen, we could hardly have
froms youro Government who have given a like sat- mannsed a frigate or captured one during that war."
isfactory response to its patronage. They have Mi arblehead alone, as I lhave before said, furnisled
been worthy recipients of the small bounty from  more men for the public service during that period
your Treasury. They have been encouraged by i than some whole States. I do not pretend, sir,
our bount-: the object of which was, and still is, that the enlisted peace establishment of the Navy
that througih their industry a marine force may be I is made up of fishermen. Farfrom it. The term
reared;which cnn be made available, not only to  " man-of-war's man" is exceedingly repugnant to
commerce, but to our Navy, when the emergency  their feelings and their enterprise.  They are not
may call for it. In this policy the Government of that class who perform patriotic duties for the
has not been deceived. It is no longer a theory, "rations and the stipends." They are the men
but a demonstrated fact, that the fisheries indeed  for the emergency. They will leave their fishing
are the nursery of our seamen.             i rails to fight your battles when the exigency




23
requires it; but to return to their calling when peace  the duty of the collector of the district to which any vessel
will permit it.                                     may belong, on application forthat purpose by thile master or
ill per thereof, to issue a license for carrying on the mixed
This, sir, is the class of men for whom 1 speak, fisheries for codfish and mackerel, to such vessel, in the
and whose industry and art I ask the Government fortnm prescribed by the act entitled "An act for enrolling
to protect. The indication of the times, the scarcity  and licensin ships or vessels to be employed in the coast1f seafnen  and the weakness of our Navy requ! ing trade and fisheries, and for regulating the same," passed
of seamen, and the weakness of our Navy require!the eighteenth day of February, in the year one thousand
it. England has her forty thousand, and France i seven hundred and ninety-three: Provided, That all the
her twenty-one thousand naval seamen; and the;provisions of said act respecting the licensing of ships or
policy of this Government should be to provide a i vessels ibr the coasting trade and fishery, shall be deemed
1 and taken to be applicable to licenses and the vessels so
reserved corps, from whnich a marine force could    licensed by this act for carrying on the mixed fishery for
be called forth to meet them.                       codfish and mackerel, as aforesaid.
The circumstances which affect the New Eng-         S E C.2. nd be it fJrther enacted, That there shall be paid
land fishermen are not the less oppressive because  on the last day of Deceiher annually, to the onver of every
I vessel, his asent, or lawf'l representative, by the collector
of their patience. Citizens of other callings simi- oftie district where such vessel may belong that shall be
larly affected would undoubtedly besiege the Capi- 1 qualified according to this act for carrying on the mixed
tol, and quarter themselves in every corner and     fisheries aoiresaid,u and that shall actually have been emlployed in such mixed fishery, or either of them, at sea, for
lobby of the House.    They come not here themthe term of five months, at the least, of the fishing season
selves; neither do they look to the legislation of next preceding, which season is accounted from the last day
the country as a speculating matter for the creation  of February to the last day of November in every year, for
of their wealth. They are upon the ocean, buffet- each and every ton of sunch vessel's burden, accoiding to
ing the storms, and trying to draw up the treas-     e  diene     c   as ieed or enrolled  ur  llar, of
iwhich allowance tlihree eighth parts shall accrue ai;s belong
ures of the deep. In their name, I will ask the     to the owner of such fishing vessel, and the other five
Government to disperse the British cruisers that eighths thereof shall be divided by him, his aaient, or lawful
have now   poeunced upon them, and adopt such a jI representative, to and among the several lislhermen who,oli   will relieve them from  their embarrass  I shall have been employed in such vessel during the season
policy as will relieve them fiom their embarrass- |Iaotresaid, or a part thereof, as the case may he, in such
ments, and protect their industry.                  proportions as the fish which each one may have caught
Sir, I propose the following as the course and     i ill bear to te whlole quantity of fishI taken on board
sucil vessel during the w-hole season: Provided, That no
policy which the condition of the fisheries and our    rae 1easo an                       VI    c  U
owner of anv vessel shall be entitled to anv allowance unnaval and marine interests demand of the Govern-de tis act, who, for the same season, shall claia, or is
ment:                                               entitled to, any allowance on the simue vessel under any
1st. That the British cruisers which are attack-  oiier statute of the United States relating to filhermen, or
ing our fishing vessels on the coasts of the British  vessels eri lone, isi n the fisheties: 4el poiied  i tthero
sht'Ihat tia e hllownacre nihoesaid on any cue vessel, ior one
Provinces, should be withdrawn; and that by con- season, shall niot exceed O360.
vention, or otherwise, arrangements should be         SEC. 3. Jnd hbe it farther enacted. That no vessel emmade for our fishermen to enjoy their riliht of up!oved as asoresaid shall be entitled to the allownance (.lranted
fishin - in all parts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, I bI tlin c, unles   siper      aster there   ll be
cy t      aci(1s o in     -tie arn aoase  the i in svlo  t.,re he proceeds oi.is voyage, make an agreement in wriaccording to the treaty of 1783, and their liberty of                        fierein,.?   ting or iu0 print, "-ith every fisherman employed tiherein,
fishing within three miles of the harbors and creeks I stating the time fiior wich lihe has shipped, and the general
of the Provinces, according to the treaty of 1818.  terms and conditions of the voyage; also the pay, share, or
2d. A law   authorizing the licensing of vessels  otther compensation, which he is to 1ave rl his services and
~for the mixed fishei'y of codfish. \nd ma i    i' catchin_-s uwhil-t so eiployed, which agreemient shall be
for the mixed fishery of codfish and mackerel, indorsed or counter-:igncd by ithe tmanaging owner or agent
giving to said fishery the same bounty that is now  of said vessel; ald unlder such a'greeimtent all the rights,
given to the codfishery, and extending the time to  duties, and liabilities of owners, vessel, and fishermen,
be employed at sea to five mont!s instead of four.    ail    e      a ts    provided  r     a   etiled
I: nr act                          ctr tile'rverimlenit o0 t er:ions ii crtaill ifishleriesAlso, allowing the fish taken to be disposed or i passed the ni-neteenth day of' June, in the year eighteen
in a fresh, green, or dried state, as may best ac- i hundred anid thirteen.
cord with the judgment of the owner and crew.         SEc. 4..dnd be it further enacted, That the -aid allowI have prepared a bill embracing these provis-    ance shall be paid only on vessels, the officers and, at least,
ions, which is now   pending before the Commit-      if thie r-cve of wl;C i Shiall wh     -c IJc, ho the
satiietion of tile collector of Ihe district wthtre ic'tlei vessel
tee on Commerce, and shall annex a copy of it siall si-ahbcn o,  to be citizens of the Unit; d States, c2r persons
to these remarks.                                    i not subjects of any foreign prince or State.
3d. In case the above-prescribed law     should     SEC i.. idad be it fiirther enacted, That the cwners of
not be acceptable, then that a resolution or law ber the i                                       actspassed to obviate the difficulties which have arisen  vi      no      a t o  rceiving te alloan e llce  e rein provided ii, profrom the constructions put upon the existing law    duce to the collector who is authorized to pay tli; same,
by the circulars firom the Treasury Department.     tile original agreement or agreements, which i av llave
4th. That the tariff of 1846 be so modified as i               t    isr      ei es
sel as herein before required; and -l- a certihi(ate to be
to prohibit or essentially restrain the importation bI y  hri or them subceribed  -- tharein mentioning the
of fish from the British Provinces.                 particular days on which such vessel sa:ileds and returned
This policy, with such modifications as further   oia thie several voyages or fares she may have made in tie
investigations may suggest, I consider essential to  priccdion f hilt  s0k orv  urnal w hic shall e verified b  th
the welfare of the fishermen, and the commerce      on board of every such vessei, and t'he oath or affirmation
and navy of the country, and to it I ask the atten-  o'such owner, agent, or representative.
tion of the Legislative and Executive Departments I   SEC 6. 6. nd he it fi-'ther esnacted, That if at any time,
withint one year after payment of such allowance, it shall
ao ppear tat any fiau d or deceit has been practiced in ohitainA BILL to authorize the licensing of vessels to be employed  ing the samie, the vessel upon which such alloswance shall
in the mixed fisheries of codfish and mackerel; granting  have been made, if found within the district where it was
allowances to vessels so employed, and to encourage the  paid, shall be forfeited; otherwise the owner or owners
increase of American seamen.                       having practiced such fraud or deceit, shall forfeit and pay
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives  8 a500, to be sued for, recovered, and distributed in the same
of the United States of.merica in Congress assembled, I imanner as forfeitures and penalties are to be sued for, reThat from and after the lst day of January next, it shall be 1 icovered, and distributed for any breach of the act entitled




~__________24
" An act to regulate the collection of duties on imports and  aforesaid, nor the sale of the codfish caught in the green or
tonnage."                                           fresh state, instead of that of a salted and cured state, at
SEC. 7. Aind be it further enacted, That any person who  any time hereafter, be any objection to the payment of the
shall make any false declaration in any oath or affirmation  allowance to the owners of such vessel which is provided
required by this act, being duly convicted thereof in any  by the law to be paid to the owners of vessels employed in
court of the United States having jurisdiction of such of- the Bank and other codfisheries: Provided, Such vessels
fense, shall be deemed guilty of willful perjury, and shall shall, in entire or parts of voyages and fares, be employed
be punished accordingly.                            at sea, in the codfisheries, the whole time which is required
SEC. 8. Adnd be it further enacted, That the vessels duly  to entitle fishing vessels or owners to such allowance, and
licensed betwixt the first day of January, in the year eigh-  shall, in all other respects, comply with the laws relating to
teen hundred and fifty-two, and the first day of January, in  Bank and other codfisheries.
the year eighteen hundred and fifty-three, for the carrying  SEC. 9. iAnd be it further enacted, That the allowance
on of the Bank and other codfisheries, under the provisions  granted by this act to vessels employed in the mixed fishof an act entitled "An act for the enrolling and licensing  eries, for codfish and mackerel, shall be paid, whether the
ships or vessels to be employed in the coasting trade and  codfish and mackerel are disposed of in a fresh, green,
fisheries, and for regulating the same," passed on the eigh-  pickled, or cured state, and whether exported to foreign
teenth day of February, in the year seventeen hundred and  countries or consumed in the United States.
ninety-three, shall not be deemed or taken to be liable to  SEC. 10. sAnd be it further enacted, That all laws giving
the forfeitures imposed by the fifth and thirty-second sec-  a bounty on the exportation of pickled fish, so far as they
tions of said act for being engaged in catching mackerel  are applicable to mackerel and codfish, and all other laws
under such license, neither shall the taking of mackerel as  inconsistent with this act, are hereby repealed.
-.       _I._,    ~      ~.  _-. _. _ I   _I~ —- IiI          -       ~ -   -— ~  -




S PEEC 1I
oo
MR. SOULE, OF LOUISIANA,
ON THE
AMERICAN FISHERIES.
DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, AUGUST 12, 1852.
The Senate having under consideration the message of the President in relation to
the subject of the Fisheries on the coast of North America-Mr. SOULE saidMr. PRESIDENT: In delivering out my sentiments, with reference
to the difficulties which have arisen lately between our fishermen
and Her Majesty's colonial subjects of North America, and in
passing an opinion on the course which it has pleased Her Majesty's ministers to pursue in relation to those difficulties, I shall
endeavor to express myself with the utmost moderation and reserve.
The subject is one of considerable moment and delicacy, involving interests of vast national importance which we can neither barter away nor surrender, and raising questions of momentous bearing, but too well calculated to stimulate and augment the excitement and irritation already produced by the high-handed measures
which have occasioned this debate; and it is not to be supposed
that I am willing to approach the grave questions which it suggests, without keeping in view the high responsibilities under
which I speak. No, sir; I know too well the unhandy materials
with which I have to deal, and you need not apprehend that I will
be for a moment unguarded in the use which I may have to
make of them.
We live in strange times, Mr. President, that we have to witness occurrences like those through which a nation, with whom
we are at peace, and semblingly, at least, on terms of reciprocal
kindness and amity, attempts to signify her disregard of the protest which we have so often and so solemnly entered against her
assuming the rights which she claims to exercise, to the exclusion
of others, over regions of the sea which are of all itations, and
which she can only make hers as long as she is permitted to cover
them, unquestioned and unmolested, with her armed steamers, her
sloops, and her men of-war, and to ride triumphantly upon their
waters in the gorgeous display of her supremacy; and, like that
Van Tromp, of Holland, to whom my honorable friend from Maine
so happily alluded the other day, with a broom at the mast-head
Towers, printer, Washington.




2
of her ships, to sweep away from their approaches whomever she
finds within sight of the shore under colors not her own.
The first notice we have of these unaccountable proceedings
on the part of England, is to'be found in the LETTER-PROCLAMATION issued by our Secretary of State, and officially dated, State
Departmevnt, Waskingtos, July 5th, 1852.
Among other things;copied in that letter, from a circular -communication, addressed on the 1st of May preceding, by Her Majesty's present Colonial Minister to the Governors of the North
American Colonies, I note what follows:
" Her Majestyj? Miuist6ers re desirous of removing all grounds of complaint on the
part of the Colonies in consequence of encroachments of the fishing. vessels of the Unied States upon waters frorn which they are excluded by the terms of the convention of
1818; and they, therefore, intend to despatch, as soon as possible, a SMALL naval force of
uteamers or other small vessels, to- enforce the obseirance of that conivetonf.
We find in the same paper that "in the mean time, and within
ten days of is. date, an American fishing vessel; alled the Coral,'belonging tO, Machias, in Maine, has been seized,in the Bay of'Fundy, nlear the Grand Menan, by the officer commanaing Her' Majesty's Ctter Nettle, already arrived in that bay,for an al-'leged infraction of the fishing convention, and the fishing vessel'has been carried to St. John, New'Brunswick yhprec proceed-'ings have been taken in the admiralty court with a view to her' condemnation and entire forfeiture."
It informs us, also, that'he United States having, by the f;st
article of the convention of 1818,'" renounced forever any liberty'theretofore enjoyed or claimed by their inhabitants, to take, dry,
or cure fish withi three marine miles of any of the coasts, bays,'.creeks, or harbors of His Brit4nnic Majesty's d6minions in North'America," not incliihdd in " tha part of the coast of Newfound-'land which extends from Cape Ray to the Rameo Islands, on the
western and northern coast of the said Newfoundland, from the' said Cape Ray, to the QnirpQn Islands, on the shores of the Magdalen Islands& and also in the coasts, bays, barbors, and creeks,'from Moulnt olly, on the coast of Labrador, to and through the'straits of Belle Isle, and thence northwardly, along the,coast;"
and that "being permitted to enter the bays or harbors" first
named, oly "for the purpose of shelter and of repairing damage'ttherein, and purchasing wood, and obtaining water, it'iould
appear by a strict and rigid ~onstruct'ioi of the article, that fishing
vessels of,th United States apr precluded from: enterinzg into such
bays and harbors of the Britiht Provinces, for any other purpose.
That the'British authorities insist that England bas a right to
draw a lite from' headland to headland, andto capture all Anmerican fishermen who may follow their: pursuit inside of said line.
That the opinion delivered by certain officers of the Crown is
that " by ihe.teris of the c6nvention, Anlerican citizens were
excluded from any right; of fshing within three omiles from the'.Qast of British Aerieca; and'-that the presoribed distance of
thr;ee miles Is to:'be measured from the /hea a dl.  or extreme




3
points next to the sea; and that consequently no right exists, on'the part of American citizens, to enter the Bay of Nova Scotia,'there to take fish, although fishing, being within the bay, may be'at a GREATER DISTANCE THAN THREE MILES, from the shore of the
bay."
Such is the pretension which England sets up, and which she
threatens to enforce with the one hundred and fifty guns which
she carries boastingly, mounted, loaded, and primed, on board the
nineteen vessels now decking the sea at the entrance and in the
environs of the Bays of Chaleurs and Fundy; and we are told, sir,
and told by our Secretary of State, in language most solemn and
impressive, that our fishermen must look out and BE UPON THEIR
GUARD.
Sir, is England right? Are we wrong in all this? And why
is it that from the very outset we look so humble, so dejected, so
submissive, so enduring?
It is not denied, is it, that the liberties which England now attempts thus violently to wrest from us have been practised by
our fishermen from time immemorial? They were liberties acknowledged in the treaty of 1783, as pre-existing to it; liberties
retained against most insidious and daring pretensions at the
peace of Ghent, where they were not even suffered to be drawn
into question; liberties enjoyed before and after the convention
of 1818; liberties allowed,.though under an ungracious, but unadmitted proffer of favor and grace, in 1845; and yet, all at once,
without previous remonstrance, or the least notice, this, our long
possession, this, our solemnly-stipulated right, without whose recognition the peace of 1783 could have never been concluded;
which our negotiations protected against the attaint of a query
or a doubt in 1814; which our envoys thought they had ennerved
and strengthened by the convention of 1818; which Lord Stanly,
through sufferance, at least, consented to let us enjoy after
1845, as we had enjoyed it before, is to be brutally torn away
from us, as usurpation and encroachment upon waters from
which it would seem we are to be excluded; our vessels are
captured, condemned, and sold before an explanation is sought
and obtained, or asked and refused; and all this in the midst of
the most profound peace, and when England is incessantly receiving at the hands of our Government most profuse tokens and
manifestations of condescendence, and is allowed, there, to turn to
her advantage and profit the good will which a sister Republic
bears us, and the influence which that good will enables us to
wield over her affairs —as in the case of Nicaragua, a State all
American in spirit and feelings, unmercifully spoliated to enrich
Costa Rica, but a British Province in all her associations and
tendencies; and here to introduce her bankers in our Treasury,
and give them charge of our concerns, and institute them our
disbursing agents, as in the case of the two last instalments of
the indemnity due to Mexico, that British creditors might get a
chance of paying themselves off doubtful claims; and political




4
marauders in Mexico be enabled to pounce in traviitu upon the
emaciated treasure, and, with its remrnats, to bting about in
that doomed country a crisis and a revolution. Sir, I repeat it
again, these are strange times indeed!
Is England right? If we trust the Secretary of State, in the
view which he takes of her claims, it would seem as; if the terms,
the letter of the treaty, were on her side. This, Mr. Webster
most peremptorily admits, while others but debate it upon mere
technicalities of language.
Mr. Webster says that "it was undoubtedly an oversight in the'convention of 1818 to -make so -large a concession' to England,'since the United States had usually considered that, these vast
inlets or recesses of the ocean ought to be open to American'fishermen, as free as the sea itself, to within throemiles of the'shore." Here the- whole is surrendered; there is no escape from
the admission. IT WAS AN OVERSIGHT TO MAKE SO LARGE A CONCESSION TO ENGLAND-!
The concession was then made, was it not? If so, the dispute
is at an end; and yet, even then, it were, a hard task to justify
the summary process through which England had sought to compel us to compliance with the concession, particularly as she had,
to say the least of it, suffered our fishermen to haunt the Bay of
Fundy, by express allowance, in 1844, and to make their haunting
other bays rightful, by a continuous, open, and public enjoyment
of them, ever since the convention of 1818. But to this I shall
presently revert.
"The precise words of the treaty," says my friend from Maine,
in the remarkable speech he delivered the'other day, "may, at
first view, seem to carry that construction; but he denies immediately that the construction be correct; and' so does the distinguished Senator from Michigan, who has shed so iuach light on
this controversy, tnd handled with so rare a dexterity all the
questions of secohdary right arising under the treaty of 1818.
The honorable Senator from Massachusetts grants, that "by'the terms of the treaty American: fishermen are excluded from'the coasts, bay,,harbors,'and creeks," -&o. " The British Gov-'ernment," says he, "raise a question of construction, na;mely,'that we- cahnot'ffish within.three miles ofi any of these bays;' that we are excluded, to a distance'of three miles, not only from'the coasts, but also from the bays, including in that term the'Bay of Fundy and other larger bays." But with "that peculiar
energy which characterizes his manner of argument, he also denies' that such; be. the term of the exclusion, predicates his own
understanding of the article upon the obvious'meaning which its
whole context;bears, and;strenuously: contends for the Americhn
construction placed upon it.
For my own part; Mr. President, I consider that the terms of
the treaty need, iin no:-wise, be defended upon such collateral issues. Their true import stands on -firmer ground than that of
philological discrimination or inferintial argument. They are




5
most clear and precise; the very terms, the appropriate terms, fo
expressing that which it was intended they should convey. Had
our negotiators spoken of bays and harbors, without specifying
what bays and habors they meant we should remain excluded
from,.there might be room for doubt and for dispute. But they
did not so speak. On the contrary, they distinctly pointed to the
specific places of exclusion; the bays, creeks, and harbors OF HIS
MAJESTY'S DOMINIONS; and the question recurs: which are the
bays over which His Majesty could claim dominion?
This question, though not a novel one, still has its merits and
attractions, and may, perchance, be deemed not altogether unworthy. of notice. I shall proceed briefly to its consideration.
England has, from time out of mind, attempted to arrogate to
herself the sovereignty of the ocean. She once ruled it supreme.
But the; sceptre has fallen from her hands, and the sea has resumed its freedom. It is of all, and belongs to none. Who dares to
claim, at this day, to be the owner of it? Who presumes to command to its waves, and to its currents, and to its storms?
" The earth," says the Psalmist, "was given to the children of
men; but the sea is of God alone." The sea is, from its very nature, unsusceptible of human ownership. The idea of ownership
implies that of exclusive possession; and, of consequence, the
right of using the thing owned at will-and not only that, but the
right of excluding others from its possession, and the necessity of
so excluding them, that the possessor may make HIS all the advantages it can yield.: The sea has none of the characters that
couldconstitute it in ownership of any man or nation. Its immensity, its fluidity, must forever prevent its being subject to possession.. It may be turned'to profit, it is true, but by.each and by
all of the human species, without its enjoyment by some, impairing or diminishing its enjoyment by others. Its capacity is incommensurable. There is no volume that can exhaust it. Thousands of fleets may be sunk in, it to day, and to-morrow it will
again ingulf millions of others, without ever being filled or notably compressed. There are no signs, no marks through which to
attest its occupancy. ~Evew thos frfghtfull, thoutgh majestic, leviathans that now plough it over, in all directions, leave not behind
them' any trace of their passage. The rolling wave paddled back,
as they' move on, wafts away from its surface the last vestiges of
their. march.
To make a thing yours by possession, you must possess in continuity tte same thing. Identity in the thing owned constitutes
one of the main elements of possession. A field, a forest, may be
upturned, and altered, and transformed; they will still be the same
field, the' same forest. Not so with the ocean, so unceasingly
changing in its form, place and surface; now sinking its upper
layers in the uttermost recesses of the deep, and then upheaving
others from'her lowest bed to the surface, as if to spread them to
the light of Heaven in glorious exultancy. Its inexhaustibility
renders its exclusive enjoyment not only useless but impossible.




6
You may take from it for years and ages, with thousands and
millions of men; you may seize upon its pearls, and its corals,
and its salts, and its fishes-you but develop its powers of production and multiply the yieldings of the mine from which you draw.
By the decrees of God, the ocean is of all men. Nations may undertake to explain and interpret those decrees; they cannot abrogate them.
However, sir, nations have claimed ownership over it, or such a
supremacy as seemed to constitute it in a sort of monarchy. They
would have other nations call them the queens of the sea. Yes, sir,
they have claimed to appropriate to themselves the sea and to subject it to their exclusive dominion. The discovery of America, and
the vast development of commerce and navigation incident on it,
gave zest to, and became a powerful stimulus for such assumptions. Thus Venice arrogated to herself the Adriatic; Genoa,
the Ligurian sea; the Portuguese and the Spanish, the sea of
the two Indies; and, in the eighteenth century, England claimed
to be the mistress and sovereign of all the seas in communication
with those surrounding her coast, which, of course, was no less
than to claim sovereignty over all the seas in the world, as they
all communicate with each other. But these arrogant assumptions on the part of powerful States, never were assented to by
those whom they excluded from the common domain. The history
of England furnishes us with a striking example of her own susceptibility, whenever such claims were set up against her. At
a time when, though powerful on the ocean, she could not yet
pretend to rule her rivals out of it, and when Spain, in the
palmiest days of her strength and glory, and aided by the bulls
of the Pope, was claiming titles to all the lands and seas of the
two Americas, this latter nation sent her ambassadors to the English court and loudly complained of the devastations which an
illustrious navigator, Sir Francis Drake, was committing on her
domains. Here is the answer which the supercilious and unbending Elizabeth made to her complaints:
"The use of the sea and of the air is common to all. No people nor private person
can claim any power over the ocean; for neither its nature nor its public usage will
allow its being, occupied."
We find, it is true, in all ages, nations who, being more especially addicted to commerce and navigation, obtained, for a time,
what the writers on the law of nations would call a prepotency
over the sea; but, even under that prepotency, they never pretended to be the sole tenants of it. Tyre, Rhodes, Athens, Lacedeemon, Carthage, and Rome herself never claimed its absolute
and exclusive enjoyment, but suffered other nations to enjoy it
with them. Though it was said of the Carthagenians that they
exercised such a power over the sea as to render its navigation dangerous-adeo potentes mari, ut omnibus mortalibus navigatio periculosa esset-yet they but aimed at a nominal supremacy; and therefore it is that according to Strabo, "they carried'their commercial jealously so far as to interdict the nations who




'contested with her for that supremacy, from landing upon their'coasts, and to sink all vessels with which her own met, directing'their course towards Sardinia, or towards what was called after-'wards Gibraltar."
I read in a most lucid and interesting treatise on the right of
property, by Comte, that the shores of the sea which formed part
of the Roman       Empire were       considered    the  property of the
Roman people; the use of them         was held to be common to all
mankind for fishing and navigation purposes; and though the authority of the Praetor was necessary to warrant the construction
thereon of any buildings, the want of such an authority did not
involve the destruction of the works, if not injurious to fishing
or navigation, or the cause of damage to others; and the sole
object of the authority required seems to have been to ascertain
and establish the sovereignty of the Roman people over coasts
which formed part of their territories.
THE SEA AND ITS SHORES ARE AS COMMON AND FREE TO ALL MEN AS
THE AIR ITSELF, AND NO PERSON CAN BE PROHIBITED FROM FISHING IN IT.
So speaks the Roman law, and therefore the Emperor Antoninus, to whom     remonstrances were made against the inhabitants
of the Cyclades, who interrupted the navigation of their neighbors
appropriately    answered that he was the lord of the land; but
that law alone was sovereign over the sea.
In more modern times, the Dutch gave a remarkable proof of
their pertinacity to resist the claims of England over the immediate seas bordering on her coast.. It is somewhat curious to see
how the records of that struggle speak of the constancy,. valor,
and energy with which they asserted their right to haunt every
part of the ocean, and to fish within the very waters that washed
the proud    island.   I hold in my hand a short extract from             a
musty book, exhibiting, in a striking light, the genius and temerity of that once great nation.
I crave the attention      of the Senate to its contents,         I read
from Selden:
"On the 6th day of May, 1609, James I. wishing to put an end. to the liberties enjoyed
by Holland to fish in the British seas, as they were then called, issued a proclamation
wherein, among other things, is what follows:-' We have resolved first to give notice to all the world that our express pleasure i,that from the beginning of the month of August next coming, no person of what nation'or quality soever, being not our natural-born subject, be permitted to fish upon any of'our Coasts and seas of Great Britain, Ireland, and the rest of the Isles adjacent, where'most usually heretofore anyJfihirg had been, until they have orderly demanded and
obtained licenses from us, or such of our commissioners as we have authorized in that'behalf; which licenses, our intention is sall be yearly demanded for so many vessels'and ships, and the tonnage thereof, as shall intend to fish for that whole year or any
part thereof, upon any of our coasts and seas aforesaid, upon pain of such chastisement
as shall be fit to be inflicted upon such wilful offenders.'
"Nowithstaading this proclamation, the Netherlanders proceeded still in their way ol
encroachment upon the British seas and coasts through the whole reign of King James,
and were at length so bold as to contest with him and endeavor to quarrel his Majesty
out of his rights, pretending. because of the long connivance of himself and Queen
Elizabehh, that they bad a right of their.own by immemorial possession; which some
commissioners of theirs who were sent to London had the confidenceto plead, in-terminia
to the King and his Council, And though the King, out of his tenderness to them,




8
insisted still upon his own right, by his council to those commissioners, and by his anbassador to their superiors, yet they made no other use of his indulgence than to tire out
his whole reign and abuse his patience. by their artificial delays, pretences, shifts, &c.
" In a letter of Secretary Naunton's to the British ambassador, dated Whitehall, December 21st, 1618, M. Naunton says:
"'The States' commissioners and deputies both having attended his Majesty at New' Market, and there presented their letters of credence, returned to London on Saturday'was a sevennight, and upon Tuesday had audience in the council chamber, where,'being required to communicate the points of their commission, they delivered their' meditated answer at lenoth. The Lords, upon perusal of it, appointed my Lord Biling'and me to attend his Majesty for directions, what reply to return to this answer of'theirs, which I presented to their lordships yesterday to this effect:  That his Majesty' found it strange that they, having been so often required by your lordship, his Majesty's' ambassador, &c., to send commissioners fu'lly authorized to treat and conclude not only'of all differences grown between the subjects of both States touching the trade to the' East Indies, but withal to take order for a more indifferent course of determining other
questions growing between our merchants and them about their draperies and the tare,' and more especially to determine his Majesty's right for the sole fishing upon all the' coasts of his three kingdoms, into which they had of late times encroached further than' of right they could; and lastly, for the reglement and reducing of their coin, &c. &c.,
all which they confessed your lordship had instanced them for in his Majesty's name;
that after all this attention on his Majesty's part, and so long deliberation on theirs, they'were come at last with a proposition to speak only to the two first points. They
would decline all debate of the fisheries on his Majesty's coasts. They profess their'loathness to call their right in doubt or question, claiming an immemorial possession,
t SECONDED BY THE LAW OF NATIONS.
"In his answer Lord Ambassador Carlton says:
"'I told the Prince of Orange that howsoever his Majesty, both in honour of his
crown and person and interest of his kingdom, neither could or would any longer de-' sist from having his rights acknowledged.' *  *       *'especially finding the'same openly oppugned both by their statesmen and men-of-war, as the writings of' Grotius and the taking of John Brown, the last year, may testify; yet this acknowledg
ment of right was no exclusion of grace and favor.' *  *     *' and that such' was his Majesty's well-wishing to this State, (the Netherlands) that he presumed of his
permission to suffer them to continue their course of fishing, which they might use' thereby with more freedom and less apprehension of molestation than before, and like-' wise spare the cost of some of their smen-of-war, which they yearly sent out to maintain' that by force which they may have of courtesy.
" The Prince answered that, for himself, at his return from Utrecht, he would do his
best endeavor to procure His Britannic Majesty's contentment."  *  *  *  "And
touching their men-of war, he said they must still be at the same charge with them, because of the pirates.
"By another letter, of January 21st, 1618, from Secretary Naunton to the Lord Ambassador Carlton, the latter wasinstructed to desire the States not to suffer and tolerate the
growing abuses committed on the coasts and seas of Scotland, and to issue a proclamation inhibiting their subjects from fishing within fourteen miles of His Majesty's coast
this year.
" Now, what effect the ambassador's negotiation with the States had, appears by a
letter of his from the "Hague, of February 6th, 1618, to King James himself, where,
among other passages, he has this:
"' 1 find, likewise, in the manner of proceeding, that by treating by way of propsition
b here, nothing can be expected but their wonted dilatory and evasive answers, &c. &c.' The way, therefore, (under correction,) to effect your Majesty's intent, is to begin with' the fishers, themselves, by publishing, against the time of'their going oet, your resolution, at what distance you will permit them to fish, whereby you will force them to' have recourse to their council of fishery, that council to the States of Holland, and those' of Holland to the States-General, who then, in place of being sought'unto, will, for' contentment of their subjects, seek unto your 3I(ajesty.'
"On the 16th of' April,'1635, Secretary John Cook, writing to Sir William  Boswell,
the King's resident then at the Hagne, after remarking that,' Whosoever will encroach
upon the King by sea, will do it by land also, when they see their time'-goes on to
say:'To such presumption mdre liberum gave the first warning voice; which must be'answered with a defence of mare ilausum-'n't so much by discourses as BY THE' LOUDER LANGUAGE OF A PowERFUL NAVY, to be better understood.'




9
"This was followed by the appearance, on the fishing ground, of an imposing naval
force, and by a new proclamation which was issued on the 10th of May of the next year.
1636."
But the Dutch did not desist from their avocation, and stuck to
the British shore, and fished in the British seas, as before.
The treaty of 1654 is sometimes quoted as containing, on the
part of Holland, a full acknowledgment of England's sovereignty
over the sea. How impotent must the teachings of history be
that such errors can obtain credit and be received as truths! Holland had sustained a protracted and most disastrous war against
England, and from impending exhaustion had agreed to the main
conditions of a treaty of peace as early as 1651. The Long Parliament insisted upon an article being inserted in the treaty by which
England's sovereignty should be recognised, and her flag saluted
wherever it might appear on the high seas. This, Holland bravely and peremptorily refused. The war continued three years
longer, and the treaty could not be signed until, in 1654, the obnoxious clause had been stricken out, and another inserted in its
place, granting the salute also, it is true, but as a mere mark of
deference and courtesy alone.
Thus, as it seems, the concurrence of mankind repelled all attempts at transforming the ocean into a thing manageable and
compressible, capable of being reduced to possession, and therefore
susceptible of ownership. I have already said that it defies the
mastery of men, and that being of none, it remains of all and is
common to all.
The use of the ocean belongs to man and nations in so far only
as it is being exercised. It is a right to such alone as exercise it,
for the time they exercise it, and within the space over which it
is exercised. As soon as it is abstained from, the right ceasesit is at an end-gone. Cum igitur nil nisi usus marts et littorum
occupari possit, facile constat jus hoc utendi tantum durare quamndiu
quius utitcr, et quatenus utitur.
The ocean, therefore, is free. Yet will some say: May not its
dominion be conferred from one nation to another —by all men to
one? It is clear that it cannot. Concede this, and what becomes
of its freedom? If its sovereignty can be conferred, it can be
conquered; and if so, it becomes at once the property of the first
occupant or of the strongest. Force, in the one case, will be as
legitimate as injustice in the other. Even its enjoyment could
not be of one man and of one nation, without all other nations and
men renouncing the rights which Nature has given equally to
them all.
But this is no longer insisted upon. It has grown obsolete; it
is not as much as thought of, unless, indeed, it be by some incorrigible tyro of the school of Selden, or some fanatic and blind
admirer of every dictum that ever fell from the fertile pen of Grotius. The difficulty is not there. But some contend that though
the sea-the main, the high sea-be the common thoroughfare of
mankind, there are yet parts of it susceptible of and subject to




10
dominion, which, on that account, may rightfully be claimed as
the propeity of the nation having sovereignty over their immediate coasts.
Armed with these principles, and supported by the opinion of
her Crown officers, England presumes to do away with all restrictions injurious to her in the treaty of 1818, and, placing a
most untenable construction on the limits which th:.tt treaty assigns to her maritime jurisdiction, claims that those Jimits are to
be measured from headland to headland, thus assuming that under
that treaty our vessels are excluded from the Bay of Chaleur,.the
Bay of Miramachi, the Bay of Fundy,.and the straits of Northumberland, within which the greatest quantity of the best mackerel is now taken.
The disasters and loss which such a pretension, if strictly enforced, would entail upon a large portion of the inhabitants of
New England, can hardly be computed, although some idea may
be formed of them from the short memorial that I send to the
Secretary's desk to be read. It was addressed to the lamented
member of the other House, whose untimely and much regretable
loss we had lately to deplore, and has found its way to my hands
through the kind indulgence of a friend. [The Clerk read the
memorial of fishermen, citizens of Massachusetts, stating the damage which they will sustain in consequence of the late measures
adopted by the British cabinet, unless an armed force of the United States is sent to protect them, &c., &c.]
And thus, if I may be allowed to borrow the pithy language of
the Boston Journal, "two thousand vessels and thirty.thousand
men and boys are now exposed to the cannon of a British fleet,
and the cruelties and horrors of British prisons, for doing just
what they have for thirty-four years been accustomed to do without molestation."
But let us see upon what principle this other pretension is
founded. Those who sustain it assert that the rights of the territorial sovereign over the sea extend as far as his power can physically reach; in other words, it is predicated upon a fiction, and
because, since the discovery of fire-arms, that power can be extended froni the coast ftp a given distance upon the sea, so as to
preclude others from approaching it within that distance, the sovereignty reaches thus far. Such is the foundation, and the only
foundation upon which stands that extraordinary right. It is, at
best, as you see, but a oonstructive right; it is powhere held up
as an absolute and original one. Well, be its so. But, then, to
what terms will you reduce it? Undoubtedly to these, and none
other-that, being founded upon the power of the sovereign to
extend his armed hand beyond the shore, it reaches as far only
as that power is felt. ThIe'rule of law is, terra dominium finitur
ubi fin finitur armorum vis-the domain of the land ends where
the force of arms terminates.  And'such seems to be the
universally admitted measure of what, in diplomatic parlance,
and in the books treating of the law of nations, is termed the




11
maritime jurisdiction. And it is reasonable that it be so. After
you have laid down the principle that the ocean is free-that it is
of nobody, and therefore of everybody —the exception, if exception there is, must be kept within the terms of the fictitious right
under which it is claimed-within the point which the more
powerful projector can reach from the shore-within cannon's
shot, in a word; and that is within three marine miles —-Eo POTESTAS
TERR(E EXTENDITUR QUO USQUE, TORMENTA EXPLODUNTUR EATENUS QUIPPE
CUM: IMPERARE TUM POSSIDERE VIDETUR. Galiani, Hubner, Kluber,
Vattel, Azuni, Grotius, all concur in assigning those limits to the
land power over the circumambient sea. They were solemnly
sanctioned by the treaty of 1780, constituting the armed neutrality.
They had been previously acknowledged in the marine regulations adopted by Tuscany in 1778, by Venice in 1779, and are
found reaffirmed in those published by Russia in 1787, and by
Austria in 1803; and, indeed, in every convention which has been
signed since the closing of the last century. If such be the rule
of right, and the measure of supremacy to which a nation may
pretend over a littoral sea, we have a meaning for the words
used in the convention of 1818; we know what constitutes a bay
or a gulf of His MAJESTY'S DOMINION, or a pent-up sea, the true
and only mare clausum. Such bay, says an eminent writer, " must
communicate with the ocean only by a strait so narrow that it
must be reputed as being a part of the maritime domain of the
State to which the coast belongs; so that you cannot enter it
without going through the territorial sea of that State; which
means twice the distance of a gun shot, or six miles. It is required, besides, that all the coasts bordering on such bay be sub.
ject to the State claiming such strait. The two conditions must
unite to give to any part of the ocean the character of an internal
sea, or a mare clausum."
Our envoys, then, committed no oversight, and made no such
concession in the treaty of 1818, as is admitted by Mr. Webster.
How that eminent statesman could so far have misjudged the sagacity, tact, and subtleness of mind of such men as Messrs. Rush
and Gallatin, and the wisdom and forecast of that far-reaching,
astute, alert, and discriminating diplomatist, John Q. Adams, as
to suppose that they had all overlooked the untoward remissness
of language supposed to exist in it, and surrendered everything,
when they thought, that, without endangering any substantial interest, they had secured so much that was valuable and good, I
am at a loss to conceive. A more matured appreciation of that
instrument will reclaim, I have no doubt, Mr. Webster from his
error, and redeem our envoys and their illustrious compeer from
the foul stain which for a time seemed to darken their diplomatic
escutcheon.
The convention of 1818, therefore, excludes us from no part of
the littoral seas washing her Majesty's dominions, without three
marine miles of the coast of such littoral seas, be they bays, gulfs,
or other inlets, unless the coast, bordering the same, be all under




12
her sovereignty, and unless the strait formed by the headlands at
their entrance exceeds six miles in length. The question is here
entirely solved and put at rest. It only remains to be ascertained
how distant be the headlands at the entrance of the Bay of
Fundy, of Chaleurs, and elsewhere. Are they more widely apart
than six miles? Then the bays are as open and free as the main
ocean itself: Are they within the line of the six miles? Then
they are private bays, bays shut up from the commerce of the
rest of mankind, at the will of the riparious sovereign, provided
he be the lord of the whole coast surrounding them, and not
otherwise. Now, we know that such is not the case w'ith the
bays just named. Both have an entrance too wide to be claimed as
private seas; and independent of this, the Bay of Fundy is
bounded in part by the State of Maine-a circumstance which
alone would preclude all pretensions on the part of England to
make it hers. I am done with this part of my subject.
The next question which naturally calls my attention is, what
can have been the object of the British Government in arraying,
within sight of the fishing-grounds, the imposing armaments
whose appearance has created such alarm among our fishermen.
and so much sharpened the susceptibilities of this whole nation'!
We have no reliable data on which to base even an approximation. Many are the surmisers and many the surmises. Some
suppose that the object was to stir up and stimulate the languid
energies of our diplomacy in reference to certain negotiations
about to be reopened with the United States of America, for the
settlement of the principles on which the commerce of the British
North American colony is hereafter to be carried on. I use the
language of Sir John Packington and of the vice admiral commanding the forces now plying within the waters of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, as quoted by Mr. Webster himself. Others
consider the movement as having originated in the arrogant and
inconsiderate policy of her Majesty's Ministers, and in their desire to manifest, through some bold and striking exhibition of zeal
and earnestness, their anxiety to pay a long-arreared debt to the
undeviating toryism of the colonies, by a tender of every protection it may be in the power of the imperial Government to afford.
Others, again, have thought that those demonstrations were made
with a view to strike terror in the minds of the colonists, supposed
to be:disaffected on account of their failing to obtain the privilege, they had asked, to build a railroad from Halifax to Quebec 
and there are those, lastly, who cannot be persuaded that the
whole is not a deeply-laid game to try us in a diplomatic conflict,
and ascertain how far we might feel inclined to surrender this
main dependence of our naval strength, and important element of
our national wealth.
There is that, with nations whose fortune it is to have thrived
and prospered under the assumption and exercise of rights which
were not theirs, that they grow infatuated with their too-easilyearned successes, and become rash, and daring, and reckless




1s
ever ready to jump over abysses of difficulty in pursuit. of a cherished object, and in the extravagant conceit that whatever they
wish to attain it is in their power to grasp, and that whatever
they grasp is legitimately theirs. Such is England. She knows
where lies the secret and the great fountain of your power. She
loathes to see those naval nurseries of yours, almost stuck to her
shore, those hives of whizzing seamen pitched upon the waters
of what she would have you call her seas, and her gulfs, and
her bays, as so many advanced posts watching over the deep, that
none may dare to claim its mastery and hold it in thraldom. She
cannot but look with extreme jealously and concern on the growing prosperity of this country. She may think that it were well
for her, if she could bar its progress, while it has not yet reached
its acme. Who can say that in some of those wild dreams that
come, at times, over the mind and darken the intellect of nations,
she has not conceived that by timely interposing she might perchance slacken our march, arrest the tide of our fortune, and assign limits to our greatness? I will not say that she has. Still,
how are we to conciliate her well-known sagacity with the intention attributed to her of coercing us into a treaty by so insulting a premonition of her purposes and designs? Depend upon it,
Mr. President, she has been emboldened by her late triumphs in
the Nicaragua and Mexican questions; and she may expect to
deter us from holding on to our rights in the fisheries, as we were
deterred, it is said, by ominous warnings, from entertaining the
proffer, lately made to persons in high places, of isles impatient to
throw themselves in our lap.
Sir, what does England mean? What is she after? But,
hush! She is negotiating. So says her admiral; so says Sir
John Packington. She is negotiating? No  she has negotiated,
if we are to believe the semi-official announcement made in a
whig paper of this city, under the caption of ADJUSTMENT OF THE
FISHERY DIFFICULTIES. Here it is:
"We are enabled to announce, upon what we regard as entirely satisfactory authority,
that the subject of the recent excitement in regard to the New England fisheries has
been arranged between Mr. Webster and Mr Crampton in a manner that will prove
wholly satisfactory to the American people"
Mr. SEWARD. Will the honorable Senator allow me to ask him
from what paper he reads?
Mr. SOULE. The Daily Telegraph. The honorable Senator
understands, I imagine, that when I speak of a semi-official announcement I mean not to impart a character to the paper, but
to the announcement alone. The peculiar language in which the
intelligence which it imparts is couched fully justifies the denomination under which I have presented it to the Senate. The honorable Senator, besides, is presumed not to be unfriendly to the paper, and in all probability knows more of its whereabouts than
I do.
I was going to remark, when I was interrupted, that the announcement which I have just now read had scarcely gone out




14
from the press, when the magnetic wires were transmitting to us
another announcement, which I have also here. I read from the
Union of the 7th instant::
Tai FISHE.RBSS liXitnlCLTt.-BOSTOir August. —Infornmtion has been received
in this city that a remonstfanceto the British (overnment against the Americans fishing within three miles of the coast, even if reciprocity be granted, is circulating in
Halifax, and has received a great number of prominent signatures. The Halifax
Acadian and Recorder considers the question fraught with much danger, and that war
between the two nations is not improbable."
And thus, sir, we may, for aught we know, have negotiated
away, by treaty, a branch of our revenue, with the hope that we
would silence the roaring lion; but the lion will still roar, it
seems, and roar until he frightens us out of those haunts the participation in which  e' 6icq(uired by original occVpat.ion, if not
otherwise: which we retained as a constitutive element of our
separate existence as a nation; which war itself could not wrest
from us; which we hold under no grace or favor of any one, but under the sufferance of God alone, and under the highest sanctions of
the laws of nations; for, in the languageof the now redeemed negotiators who signed the convention of 1818, ours is a right which cannot exclusively belong to, or be granted by, any nation. Sir, I ask
it of you, would that be an attitude becoming this great country?
But 1 believe not in these rumors; it cannot have escaped that
wise and clear-sighted person who now holds the seals of the
State, and whnse great mind and exalted patriotism are equal to
any emergencies, that, to negotiate under such circumstances,
and sign a treaty, whatever its merits in other respects might be,
were to sink m the dust what of pride, what of dignity, what of
honor we were grown to, in the rapid race which we have run
since we became a nation.
But, it may be asked, What would you have this Government
to do? Sir, as I cannot suppose that this debate is an idle and
unmeaning ceremony-as 1 know too much of the distinguished
Senator who so creditably occupies the chair in the Committee
on Foreign Relations, to indulge the least thought that he could
have moved in so grave a matter, with no view to some practical
end, to the attainment of some object of public interest, I will
take it for granted that his aim was to provoke an expression
through which the sense of this Senate, and, as far as this Senate
may be a proper organ of the nation, the sense of our people
might become manifest, and be attended to, where, otherwise, it
might have been overlooked and unheeded.
Mr. SEWARD. Will the honorable Senator allow me!o ask him
whether we are to understand him as supposing that it was the
intention of the honorable chairman of the Committee on Foreign
Relations that the sense of the Senate should be taken before
any negotiations were entered into, or before any treaty was
made?
Mr. SOULE. There are two attributes of this body under which
we act in two different capacities. The one connects us with the




15
Executive, and creates duties which we perform in executive session. The other constitutes us a component part of the legislative power of the country, and enables us to address ourselves,
without any reserve, but that which a proper regard for the: interests of the nation may impose, to all questions of public policy,
whether internal or external, and to which it may be our wish to
cal the attention of the country.
Under such promptings, I cannot hesitate to give my humble
judgment; which is, that our Cabinet should follow, to the letter,
the course which the great Chatham, on a memorable occasion,
recommended to ministers ready to surrender, in a disgraceful negotiation, what he considered to be the honor of th- British Crown.
It was on the occasion of the forcible taking by Spain of the
Falkland islands from the possession of a British garrison. Hie
pointed solemnly to the conduct of Lord Granville in a like emergency:
" The French," said he, "had taken a little island from us called Turk's island. The
Minister then at the head of the Treasury, took the business upon himself; but he did not
negotiate. He sent for the French ambassador, and made a peremptory demand. A
courier was despatched to Paris, and returned in a few days with orders for instant restitution, not only of the island, but of every thing that the English subjects had lost."
Such is the spirited conduct he advised the ministers to pursue,
deeply impressed with the conviction, that while a prompt and
warm resentment would infallibly secure peace, tameness and
silence would as inevitably lead to a rupture.
Sir, there is a world of storms in the questions which ihe present difficulty must soon'bring to a definite issue. 1 am fully
aware of the great stake which not only this country but the
whole world has in their speedy atnd amicable adjustment. Yet
we should insist upon having the last word of them. This is no
time for a patched-up accommodation. We owe to ourselveswe owe to all mankind-not to leave undispelled the cloud hanging over our security and peace. We would seek in vain to
avoid the contest.' If it has to be met at all, let it be met now,
and be met fairly, in all its bearings and intricacies. England
has forced it upon us: she must expect that we will face its dangers lik,< men.
Sir, these provincial neighbors of ours constitute no longer a mere
colonial dependency. They have grown to be a nation-a nation
of hardy, industrious, aspiring men, who will have their place, and
claim rank before long, among the independent States of this continent. Whatever be their present views of the relations which
it may suit them to form with us hereafter, their interest is too
closely linked with ours to be dealt with slightly. While I would
wish to see our rights in the fisheries established on a firm and
permanent basis, giving security and quiet to our fishermen, 1 am
also for indulging the colonists in what reasonable concessions
they may expect at our hands. I desire to see them conte;ted,
and would heartily aid in hastening the conclusion of any arrangement that might be satisfactory to them. But until England has




1G
withdrawn her squadron, and given satisfaction for what wrongs
she may have perpetrated on us, let no negotiation be entertained; and if, contrary to my expectations, any was being entertained, let it be dropped at once and abandoned. I shall vote
for the reference of the papers on the table, in the hope thfat they
will be returned to us with a resolution expressive of such sentiments as itbehooves this Senate and this great country to speak
forth in such an emergency.