The exports of domestic growth, produce, and manufacture, bave been distinguished at the Treasury, into those which are-- 1st. The produce of the Sea. 4th. Manufactures, and those which are uncertain. This division of the exports of domestic produce, has been made, and the value of the articles exported, under each division, has been ascertained at the Treasury, and exhibited in the annual account of exports, since the year 1802. It presents a useful and important view of the different pursuits and employments of the citizens of the United States, inhabiting, as they do, an extensive country, differing in climate, as well as soil; and indicates the various sources of the wealth of the nation. Each of these will be considered in their order : 1st. THE PRODUCTS OF THE SEA. These are derived from the cod and whale fisheries, and from the river fisheries, such as herring, shad, salmon, mackarel, &c. The cod fishery has been an object of the first importance to the states of Massachusetts and New-Hampshire, from their first settlement. It has furnished a lucrative employment to the inhabitants of these states, situated as they are, in the neighbourhood of the fishery. It has given employment to the ship-builder, and has always been considered, as the best nursery for seamen. The vast quantity of fish, which, after the discovery of NorthAmerica, were found along the banks of New-Foundland, soon attracted the attention of the Europeans. The inhabitants of Biscay in Spain, and of Britanny in France, are said to have first engaged in this fishery. The English and French afterwards claimed the exclusive right to it, in consequence of their possessing the adjacent coasts. While we were Colonies, we had the right of fishing there, as being a part of the British empire; and by the 3d article of the treaty of peace, between Great-Britain and the United States, in 1783, "It is agreed that the people of the United States shall continue to enjoy unmolested the right to take fish of every kind, on the grand bank, and on all other banks of New-Foundland; also, in the gulph of St. Lawrence, and at all other places in the sea, where the inhabitants of both countries used at any time to fish; that the inhabitants of the United States shall have liberty to take fish of every kind on such part of the coast of New-Foundland, as British fishermen shall use (but not to dry or cure the same on the island ;) and also on the coasts, bays, and creeks of all other his Britannic Majesty's dominions in America; and that the American fishermen shall have liberty to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, harbours, and creeks of Nova-Scotia, Magdalen islands, and Labrador, so long as the same shall remain unsettled: but so soon as the same or either of them shall be settled, it shall not be lawful for the said fishermen to dry or cure fish at such settlement, without a previous agreement for that purpose with the inhabitants, proprietors, or possessors of the ground." The cod fishery previous to the American revolution, in Massachusetts alone, gave employment annually to about four thousand seamen, and about twenty-eight thousand tons of shipping, and produced about three hundred and fifty thousand quintals of fish, which, at the place of exportation, were valued at more than one million of dollars. Tables Nos. V. and VI. shew the state of the fishery in Massachusetts, from 1765 to 1775; and also from 1786 to 1790,* containing the average * See the representation of the Legislature of Massachusetts to Congress in 1790, on the subject of their fisheries, and report of the secretary of state on the subject of their fisheries in 1791. number of vessels annually employed, their tonnage, number of seamen, and also the quantity of fish exported during those two periods, with the produce of the cod fishery, from August 20th, 1789, to September 30th, 1790, and the countries to which exported. From these it will be seen, that up to the year 1790, the cod fishery had not recovered from the effects of the revolutionary war. From 1765 to 1775, the average number of vessels annually employed was six hundred and sixty-five, their tonnage twenty-five thousand six hundred and thirty, seamen four thousand four hundred and five, and fish exported amounted to three hundred and fifty-one thousand three hundred quintals; and from 1786 to 1790, the average number of vessels annually employed was only five hundred and thirty-nine, tonnage nineteen thousand one hundred and eighty-five, seamen three thousand two hundred and eighty-seven, and fish exported only two hundred and fifty thousand six hundred and fifty quintals. In consequence of a representation made to Congress, by the Legislature of Massachusetts, in the year 1790, of the low and embarrassed state of the fisheries, and a report made thereon by the secretary of state, a bounty was given, on the exportation of salted fish, by way of draw-back of the duty on imported salt, and afterwards an allowance in money was made to vessels employed for a certain number of months in the cod fishery. In consequence of this encouragement, and the happy effects upon trade and commerce, produced by the establishment of the general government, the cod fishery increased until the commencement of the embargo and restrictive system. The quantity of dried or smoked fish, and of pickled fish, exported from 1791 to 1816, was as follows, viz. : The vessels employed in the cod fishery were owned in the states of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode-Island, Connecticut, and New-York, except sixty-six tons in Virginia in 1796, and forty-eight tons in New-Jersey, in 1803, but principally in Massachusetts. The greatest amount of tonnage ever employed from the United States in the cod fishery was in the year 1807, being seventy thousand three hundred and six tons. Of this, Massachusetts owned sixty-two thousand two hundred and thirteen tons. The number of seamen employed in this fishery, on an average of ten years, from 1791 to 1800, has been estimated at five thousand, and the average tonnage, for the same period, at thirty-three thousand. From 1801 to 1807, the annual average amount of tonnage employed was about forty-four thousand, and the number of seamen, according to the above proportion, about seven thousand annually. The value of the dried fish, and pickled fish, exported since the year 1802, has been as follows : • See letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, to the House of Repre sentatives, July 29th, 1803. |