has been seized for an alleged violation of the fishery treaty and carried into Charlottestown." [SECOND DISPATCH.] "BOSTON, August 2.-The schoonor Coral was sold at St. John's to-day for a breach of the fishing treaty." shore. Such are the accounts of some of the many seizures which have taken place, and they can leave no doubt that they are seized many miles from But I will pass from the consideration of this part of the subject, and will proceed to the examination of the other branch of it. I propose to show the importance of our fisheries, as connected with our commerce and our Navy, and exhibit the amount of means and the number of men her argosies were found in every port along the British coast. Her vessels visited every port of the Mediterranean, and every coast of Europe. Her maritime commerce was probably not much inferior to all the rest of christendom. Such was Venice in the day of her greatest commercial prosperity, and that prosperity was in a great degree attributable to the enterprise of her seamen, who had been trained and educated in the school of her fisheries. They were hardy, industrious, and energetic, and they went wherever commerce could find an avenue. 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 protecting their just rights and sustaining the honor of our country. THURSDAY, August 5, 1852. The President's message, in relation to the North American fisheries, being again under consideration Mr. HAMLIN resumed, and concluded as follows: Mr. PRESIDENT: It will now be my purpose to call, as briefly as I can, the attention of the Senate to the importance of these fisheries in a commercial and maritime point of view, for the purpose of showing that, not only as a matter of right, but as an obligation of duty arising as well from right as from interest, our Government should protect our fishermen in the rights which properly and justly belong to them by the treaty of 1783, by|| the convention of 1818, and by the law of nations. We must have men for our Navy; we must have men for our commercial marine. Those men can only be had who have followed the occupation, and who have become proficient, by a training in the sea service for a series of years. There is no nation that has ever existed which has not reposed with confidence on the fisheries as the great fountain of supply for its commerce and its Navy. Our own Government, from its foundation to the present time, have regarded the fisheries as the great source from whence we are to draw our supply. They are the school in which our seamen are to be trained to fight our battles on the ocean and on the lakes. There is no other school; there is no other training adequate to the purpose. There is no nation now existing that has been distinguished for its commerce or its naval power, which has not had such a body of men as a corps on which it could rely for the purpose to which I have alluded. From the days of the commercial prosperity of Venice down to the present time, every nation which has been distinguished for its commerce and naval power, it will be found, has not only devoted its energies to this branch of industry, but it has relied implicity upon it as a great source from which its navy and its commerce were to be sustained. When Venice was mistress of the Adriatic; when she commanded absolutely the Mediterranean, and almost the whole of Europe; when she was indeed the first commercial Power in all Europe, and it is said by some writers, equal to all Europe, she had a corps of fishermen, with which to supply her commerce and her navy along her coasts and bays. They covered the lagoons, they swarmed the Mediterranean, and men. Indeed, sir, the old Dutch proverb is, that the city of Amsterdam was built upon fishes' bones. When Holland was the mistress of commerce, as she was from the year 1588 to the year 1750, Amsterdam was perhaps the first commercial city of Europe. History informs us that that distinction was obtained by her fisheries and her commerce. Indeed, she had little else. By her fisheries she won this great commercial power, and that commerce was sustained by her fishermen. When Von Tromp swept the British ocean, with a broom at his mast-head, threatening entire destruction to the British navy, and annihilation to the commerce of that nation, his vessels were manned by those hardy and persevering men which were supplied from the fisheries of Holland. These were the men who were in fact a terror to all her adversaries, and by which Holland acquired such renown. Her commercial prosperity and the prosperity of her fishermen were coexistent with each other. The Government itself, in a dispatch on the causes of its commercial prosperity, prepared with great care by the direction of the Stadtholder, places the fisheries in the first class of causes as contributing to the advancement of the Republic in its unexampled prosperity Such was beyond all doubt the fact. France furnishes a most remarkable example, too, of the intimate relation which exists between commerce, the naval power, and the fisheries. While that nation held her eastern colonies, and their fisheries, we all know that she was rapidly equaling Great Britain in her commerce and in her navy; and an examination of the history of these times will show clearly and conclusively that, from the very hour she parted with her fisheries, which had been the nurseries of her seamen and her commerce, her navy began to decline. Under Louis XIV., and under that most remarkable minister, Colbert, we find that her commerce had extended, and had become almost equal to that of England. Her navy was indeed formidable. Allow me to read here from a communication made to the National Assembly of France, at its session in 1851, by M. Ancet, in relation to the fisheries. It has been very kindly furnished me by a friend, and is not only an able, but a most valuable paper. In that review, which the French Government have given to this subject very recently, I find very clear and satisfactory evidence of the value which they place upon their fisheries at this time, and of the extraordinary measures which they are taking, not only to retain their present interest in them, but to extend the same. He says: "It is not, therefore, a commercial law that we have the honor to propose to the Assembly, but rather a maritime law-a law conceived for the advancement of the naval power of this country. "No other school can compare with this in preparing them [seamen] so well, and in numbers so important, for the service of the navy. "It may be said of this fishery that if it prepares fewer men for the sea, it forms better sailors-the élite of the navy. "The preservation of the great fisheries assumes a degree of importance more serious when they are viewed as being in fact the nursery of our military marine." To foster their fishermen they give a bounty of twenty francs on a French quintal of two hundred and twenty and a half pounds avoirdupois nearly equal to two dollars per American quintal of one hundred and twelve pounds; a sum almost equal to what our fishermen obtain for their dried fish when fit for market. This shows the estimate in which the fisheries are held by that Government at this time. Another extract to which I will call the attention of the Senate, is from the same report. In speaking of the character of these fisheries, it shows the estimation in which they were held at the period of time to which I have already alluded-that period when the colonies which now belong to Great Britain were in the possession of France. M. Ancet continues: "In order to preserve them [the fisheries] we must continue the encouragements they have received, even at periods when a commercial and colonial prosperity, infinitely superior to that now existing, multiplied our shipping, and created abundance of seamen. It is on our fisheries that at this day repose all the most serious hopes of our maritime enlistments." In the same connection, allow me to read, for the purpose of showing the estimate placed upon these fisheries, not only by the English, but by the French Government at the period to which I have alluded, before they passed from the French to the English jurisdiction, an extract from a report on commercial tariffs and regulations, made to the British Parliament in 1846, by Mr. Macgregor. In that report he says: "It is very remarkable that, in our treaties with France, the fisheries of North America were made a stipulation of extraordinary importance. The Minister of that Power considered the value of those fisheries, not so much in a commercial point of view, but as essential in providing their navy with that physical strength which would enable them to cope with other nations. "The policy of the French, from their first planting colonies in North America, insists particularly on training seamen by means of these fisheries. In conducting their cod fishery, one third, or at least one quarter, of the men employed in it were green men,' or men who were never at sea before; and by this trade they bred up from four thousand to six thousand seamen annually." I beg leave also to call the attention of the Senate to an extract from the message of Jefferson, in the early history of the country, calling the attention of the Government to the importance of this branch of our industry. I quote from his message of December 15, 1802. He says: "To cultivate peace, and maintain commerce and navigation in all their lawful enterprises; to foster our fisheries and nurseries of navigation, and for the nurture of man; ** are the landmarks by which we are to guide ourselves in all our proceedings." He states very succinctly the importance of the fisheries in a national point of view, as a school in which to train the seamen of our commerce and our Navy. This shows very clearly the importance placed upon these fisheries by France, by England, by all great or commercial nations, and by our own Government. And, sir, that importance is in no way diminished at this period of time. We are to rely upon them now and hereafter to maintain our supremacy upon the ocean. A like lesson could be drawn from the history of Spain, when her commerce and her navy had reached its culminating point. She, too, drew her support from the fisheries in which she then participated, and which she then held. This branch of industry has always been considered by the English Government as one of very great importance; and she owes to it that supremacy which in times past she has exercised upon almost every sea. She owes it to the hardy seamen, that she has educated that her commerce has been found in every quarter of the world. She owes it to this class of men that she has been enabled to maintain a naval superiority over any Power that has ever existed. Such is the importance of our fisheries in a commercial and maritime point of view. They are also important when we examine them in connection with the amount of means, the number of men, and the persons who are engaged in them who are citizens of this Government. The American tonnage employed in these fisheries at the close of the fiscal year 1851, amounts, in the total, to 146,155 84-95 tons, a fleet which, in another age of the world, would have been regarded as adequate to the commercial purpose of a whole nation. This is classified as follows: Amount of Tonnage engaged in Cod Fisheries for the year ending June 30, 1851. 13 The Boston merchants, who are practical men, who are engaged in the business, and are so situated that they can avail themselves of more reliable information than can be by any possibility acquired at this point, have estimated the whole number of vessels employed in this branch of industry at 2,500, and their value at $12,000,000, including the outfit. The value of fish caught by this fleet cannot be estimated with any considerable degree of accuracy. It varies from $3,000,000 to $5,000,000 annually. According to the information which I have been able to acquire, I am inclined to the belief that an estimate varying from $3,000,000 to $4,000,000 annually, will be very near the true point. It is a fluctuating and an uncertain business, and the results of one year cannot form at all a reliable basis for the results of a subsequent year. A trouble which arises, and which prevents the obtaining of such information as is desirable, and as will enable us to state with accuracy what is the annual amount of production of our fisheries, arises from the want of accuracy in the returns, and from the fact that full returns are hardly ever made. There are, however, some returns which may be found at stated periods, and other returns at particular localities, from which we may draw a conclusion that will safely justify us in the opinion that the annual production of our fisheries must be at least from $3,000,000 to $4,000,000. Some years they may exceed that sum. The report of the inspector general of fish, in Massachusetts, gives the quantity and value of the mackerel inspected by him in 1851. He puts down 940 vessels, making 59,417 tons, with 9,998 men. Now, it will be remarked that in our commercial tables the tonnage engaged in the mackerel fisheries is put down only at 50,539 tons, while the inspector general of Massachusetts puts it down at 59,417. The difference between the two may be explained in this manner: By a decision of the late Justice Woodbury, fishermen who were engaged in the codfisheries, and who were compelled to complete their four months between February and the November following, might devote a portion of their time to the mackerel fisheries. A portion of them were engaged in the mackerel fisheries; and by the estimate made by the inspector of Massachusetts, are placed in that column, thus making the aggregate of tonnage engaged in the mackerel fisheries, some 10,000 tons above that which appears in the commercial tables reported at the Treasury Department. The first part of those tables exhibits the number of vessels, the number of tons, and the number of men engaged. The same report also gives us information as to the localities in which the mackerel were caught. I find that 140,906 barrels were caught in the Bay of Chaleur, and other large bays on the coasts of the Provinces from which we are to be excluded, under a line drawn from headland to headland, and that 188,336 barrels were caught in all other waters. Therefore, we learn from the report of the inspector general that if we are excluded from those large bays by drawing a line from headland to headland, we are excluded from waters in which very nearly one half the mackerel caught in the year 1851 were taken. The value of these, according to the estimate placed upon them by the inspector general of Massachusetts, was $2,315,576. This is only the amount of mackerel caught in 1851, and inspected within Massachusetts alone. It embraces the whole amount caught and inspected there, and it gives to us the localities in which they were caught. The quantity of cod, or the value of the same, taken by Massachusetts vessels, or inspected in that State, for the year 1851, I cannot obtain. If the quantity and value of all descriptions of fish could all be ascertained from one State, it might furnish a rule upon which estimates for all could be based. I find from Macgregor's report, to which I have already alluded, that he has given to us the result of his investigations in relation to the fisheries of Massachusetts alone in 1837. His is not an authority which would be likely to over-estimate the quantity of fish taken, or the importance of those fisheries. According to his estimate, in 1837, we have the following in regard to the fisheries in Massachusetts: Number of vessels employed in the cod and mackerel fishery...... Tonnage of the same.. Number of quintals of cod fish caught................ Number of barrels of mackerel caught.. Total value of cod and mackerel......... 12,290 76,089 510,554 .$1,569,517 234,059 .$1,639,049 11,146 .$3,208,866 The number of seamen estimated there, as being engaged in that year, is placed at 11,146. That is the number of seamen actually engaged upon the ocean. There is another class of men, very numerous, which serves to increase the number a very considerable per cent., who are left upon the shore for the purpose of curing, preserving, and taking care of the fish; and who alternate with those who do the fishing; consequently the number of fishermen who are returned as actually employed in the business, is not the actual number. of those who devote their lives to that occupation. And the number of seamen who are engaged at different times in the fisheries cannot be accurately ascertained; but it is at least fifty per cent. above the number of those who are employed at any given time in fishing. I have, Mr. President, some other tables to which I wish to call the attention of the Senate. They are as follows. They are not as full and complete as I could desire, but they are the best which can be obtained, and are sufficient to show that our fishing interest is a great and important *The returns for 1843 were but for nine months. This exhibits that while we have lost the market of the Mediterranean for our fish, and much of the market of Cuba, and other West India islands, yet, from our fisheries we exported, for that period of time, about three fourths of a million annually. The next table which I present, is for the purpose of showing the hazard and loss of life which is incurred by the fishermen who follow this pur suit. It is a table which exhibits Number and value of American Fishing Vessels, and number of lives lost in 1851. Portland.. 7 369.54 5,600 66 Barnstable.. 10 Portsmouth. 563.50 24,100 43 Passamaquoddy.. Total.... 063 49 2,730.53 47 14 commercial and naval prosperity, and the great fountain and source of the commercial and naval prosperity of every maritime nation that has existed. Thus hastily have I presented, as far as I have been able, the amount, the value of our fisheries, the number of men employed, and the productions of these fisheries-all showing their importance, and imposing upon us the obligation to maintain the just rights of our fishermen, and to sustain them in what properly belongs to them. A few words more, sir, and I shall have done; and in these few words I shall invite the attention of the Senate to the character of the men whom we are called upon to protect-whose interests are involved, whose rights are invaded, and who come here to call upon us to stand by them, as they have stood by the flag of their country in the day and hour of trial and peril. These men come here and claim of us the protection which we, as a nation, owe to them; and it is a protection that we must give to them, or we shall be faithless to the trust reposed in us. We have induced them to embark their all upon this perilous enterprise. We have induced them, by bounties, and encouraged them for commercial and maritime purposes, to pass their lives upon the stormy ocean; and there, sir, it is, in sunshine and in storm, that they are following that vocation which fits them for, or makes them the best seamen the world can produce. Our Government has given to them a just right to protection by insisting, from the treaty of 1783, and from the treaty of 1818, and by the principles of international law, that they have a right to fish within those waters. But it is said that they are now to seized-if they are to be excluded from those be prohibited; and, sir, if their vessels are to be this immense amount of property, thus invested, waters-if their vessels are to be confiscated, then beggary, or in prison in foreign jails. will become useless, and leave them in want and in the enterprise. In the great majority of cases Many of them, indeed, have embarked their all these fisheries are conducted by men who own the vessels in small shares, who have not even the ability to own the whole vessel. Few instances can be found where a single fishing vessel is owned by a single individual. They are divided into very small fractions. They are built, they are sailed, they are conducted by the men who own them in fractional parts. We shall need these men hereafter; we shall 16,200 need them, as we have needed them, to fight our 3,600 battles upon the ocean and upon the lakes. God $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 constant scene of disaster and danger. More severe toil is endured by none. He labors harder and obtains a smaller return than is afforded in any other branch of industry. I have thus briefly, Mr. President, called the attention of the Senate to the importance of these fisheries, as the great source and fountain of our was the fishermen from Marblehead, and all along our coast, who rallied with patriotic hearts and with ready hands to sustain the stars and stripes of our country. And it was by their prowess that Great Britain was made to feel the force of a freeman's arm whenever wielded in a holy cause. Whenever the cross of St. George came down to the stars and stripes we were indebted mainly to them for that victory. We shall be faithless to the trust that has been reposed in us if we do not sustain and stand by what are their legal, their international, and their treaty rights. Why, sir, in that war of 1812 we captured from the British more than 2,300 sail of vessels, mounting more than 8,000 guns; we captured 56 men-of-war, mounting 886 cannon; and took in all about 30,000 prisoners of war. 15 naval battles proper fought mainly by your fishermen, but the greater portion of the commercial vessels of Great Britain was captured by these very men. We do not desire to train every seaman for naval purposes in the Navy; that would require thousands of dollars, while training in the fisheries would cost not a single dollar. It is for these reasons, in addition to the duty of our Government to protect the rights of every citizen everywhere, and at all times, that we are to sustain them and protect them in their rights. If we do our duty faithfully by them, we shall find them when the calls of a common country are made upon them, rallying to support that flag to which they now look for support. I cannot doubt that they are to be protected, nor can I doubt that any 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, that I 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. |