quintals, valued at $865,349; and 19,330 barrels, 1,228 kegs of pickled, valued at $91,445-together, $456,794.

All these exports of fish, let it be remembered, were made, and those now going on are still made, in our own bottoms exclusively; so that beside the real productive profit of the fisheries, and their value in the maintenance and extension of our Commerce, they, more than almost any other item of that Commerce, devote their influence to the exclusive encouragement of our own shipbuilders, and the other classes connected with our general trade. It is true, the fact is nearly the same with regard to most other articles sent to the places to which the fish are exported, so far as these places alone are concerned in the Commerce of those articles; but this has no material bearing on the fact. If our fish are adapted to those markets, in the carrying to and from which we have least competition, the advantage is none the less real from the circumstance that other articles, whose general profits are less exclusive to us, participate with this in what is to them the instance, but is the general field of the other.

We annex a table of the average price of American codfish since the year 1765. The prices down to 1830, are those at which our fish sold in foreign ports, from that time; the rates given are those of the City of New York, as gathered from the reports of the mercantile journals :

The cessation of the extraordinary advantages which our fishermen enjoyed at the commencement of the century, resulting from the general political condition of the world, accounts perfectly well for some considerable part of the abatement in question; and other causes, as we have already instanced, are found in the subsequent course of political affairs, from which, however, mixed results have been experienced. But that which of late years, and just at this time, is most prominent, is the rise and rapid progress of the competition, also alluded to, which has not only encountered them in their foreign markets, but has recently, to their serious inconvenience, invaded them at home, carrying the war into Africa, and threatening nothing less than the total extinction of our fisheries. The progress of the encroachments of the British Americans up on our market will be seen in the following table of imports since the year 1820-1:

An idea of the quantities represented in these values, may be formed from stating the quantities for a single year. Thus, the imports of the year 1847-8, were 51,816 cwt. of codfish, and 122,594 bbls. of mackerel.

During the same period, there has been also a very large increase in the imports of other kinds of fish, some of which were scarcely at all imported in the early part of the period, which has tended to aggravate the evil with regard to cod and mackerel. The following are the imports of the various kinds for the several years stated :—

The places from which these fish were principally brought, is seen in the following statement for the last three years :—

Under a double invasion so strong, as that we have set forth, undeniably facilitated by the late revision of the tariff, reducing materially the duties on foreign fish, the interests of our fishermen could not possibly be maintained unimpaired. That the effects have not been far worse, is due to the unflinching energy and tireless perseverance of the fishermen themselves. To display another result connected with this matter, and more directly affecting another party-the effect in regard to our shipping-we present the following statement of the character of the vessels in which these foreign fish were brought :

It will be seen that a fair part, and generally the greater part, of the foreign fish brought in, came in American bottoms up to 1843. Since that time, our scale is not merely up, but "kicks the beam." The amount of fish brought in foreign bottoms in 1847-8, exceeded by 200 per cent the highest of any year previous, and was, even in 1850, 200 per cent higher than in any year before 1845, while that brought in American bottoms has been at no time since as high as in 1840 and 1843, and ranges at less than one-fourth of that in foreign vessels.

CHAPTER IX.

STATISTICS OF BRITISH AMERICAN FISHERY-REASONS OF THEIR PRESENT EFFICIENT COMPETITION -PROPINQUITY TO GROUNDS-CHEAPNESS OF VESSELS-OF WAGES--OF LIVING-CHEAPER MODE OF CURING-FAULTS OF AMERICAN FISHERMEN-OVER-SALTING-ABUSES OF THE MASSACHUSETTS INSPECTORSHIP, ETC.

The British colonies are by their position the natural rival of the United

States in the fisheries, and whatever effective and permanent competition should at any time arise, was to be expected from that quarter.

According to the statistics we have before given, the number of vessels and men employed by the British colonies on the Labrador coast in 1829, with those from England, and their catch, compared as follows with those of

the United States:

M'Gregor estimates the total value of the fishery of the British colonies on an average of five years, to 1832, at £857,000 per annum. In 1837, the value of the exports of New Brunswick in fish and oils, was £68,000.

The result of the fisheries of the island of Nova Scotia for the year 1850, according to the statements of the Halifax Sun, were as follows:

Allowing for the small quantities shipped from other ports in the island, and the home consumption, the value of the fisheries of Nova Scotia, at the present time, cannot be set down at less then £300,000 yearly, equivalent to nearly a million and a half of dollars.

These few statistics will give some idea of the extent and value of the fisheries of these colonies, whose large and growing rivalry with the United States we are about to consider.

The circumstances that afford the British colonies the superiority to us in a fair field, either in our own or a foreign market, are these:—

1. Their propinquity to the grounds. The distance of these places from us makes a long voyage, and requires an expensive outfit. In an expedition so far, and necessarily so protracted, the comfort of our crews requires an extent, variety, and cost of preparation, that the colonist could neither provide nor find of service. It would, in fact, be only a burden to him, if provided gratuitously.

2. Vessels are much cheaper in the colonies; but for the law of the United States denying registry to foreign-built vessels, British American builders would draw a large patronage from the United States, to the great detriment of our own builders. If our fisherman, therefore, sails in a vessel of equal quality with that of the colonist, it costs the former much more than the latter. But the fact is, there is a great difference in the quality of the craft used. Our fishermen must have much the better one. The colonist uses almost any sort of a hulk that can be kept afloat, with little regard to size, shape, rig, sailing qualities, or value. His bark is cheap itself, as well as being cheaply fitted. In fact much the larger proportion of the colonial fishery is carried on in small open boats. The New England fisherman must regard safety: he must have a vessel in which he can, without

temerity, intrust his life; he is particular in the choice of form and size, to adapt his vessel to its purpose; the power of speed is not an object of indifference; his pride further requires that in all these respects, as well in the state of her spars, rigging, sails, and even her paint, his vessel shall be cred

itable to him.

3. Wages are lower in the colonies than in the United States. The American fisherman can work at a trade at home, and as there is generally a sufficiency of employment in these trades, his wages at sea must be graduated by those he receives ashore. His sea wages are further sustained by the demands of the merchant, the whaling, and the naval service, for seamen. In the colonies, except in a few towns of the larger provinces, there is but little business of any kind other than the fishing, and this one having thus nearly the monopoly of labor, wages are low. But the disparity is made yet greater from the fact that the American fisherman expects something better than he would make at home, as a compensation for his long absence, and the deprivations and dangers of his sea life.

4. The standard of living is much lower in the colonies, and the comparative cost of outfit, &c., is therefore much less than in the United States; that is, if the voyages were of equal distance and duration, the British fishermen would accomplish it at far less expense. For the same reason a smaller compensation is of equal benefit to him, and he is as content with his employment and its results as his nominally better paid rival.

The care

5. The fish are more cheaply cured in the provinces. necessary in the case of those intended for drying, to preserve them for the long time before they can be put in the hands of the curer, is almost wholly saved. The fish are put on shore at short intervals, spread on the rocks, and tended by the women and small children, while the men and boys are catching more. Those taken by the American must be carefully salted and packed down; and on the arrival home, must be carefully washed, boated, or hauled, usually both, to the yard where they are to be dried. Here not a little work is to be done in the way of green-piling, flaking, drypiling, re-flaking, re-piling, carting, and packing, of which instead of being done "all in the family," must be paid for out of the cured fish, the present rate being one quintal in twelve for the curer.

The provincialists have now obtained a due sense of their superior advantages, and like all other men, will not merely be unlikely to yield what they have gained, but will struggle for more. What hightens something their chances of success, is the fact that they are gradually imbibing our own political principles and sympathies. They are, if not rapidly, yet surely acquiring an idea that their existence is no longer dependent on the protective power of the empire that claims their allegiance, and that they could manage to take care of themselves tolerably well were all connection with the British government cut off. In the national feeling thus growing up, and the selfreliance which lies at its basis, is involved the stimulus to a broader and deeper enterprise. They will be more awake than in times past, more sensible of what is going on, more appreciative of their capacities, and will offer what we must accept, a hard struggle-a struggle not to regain what we have lost, or to keep exactly what we have, but to save what we can.

But there is a balance of the injury, not due to the colonists, but to the faults of our own fishermen. They have, of late years, become too careless. The object of the skipper is to get a load and get home as quick as possible -if he is an owner, it is for his immediate benefit to do so; if he is only an

employee, (seldom the case,) he secures the reputation of a successful or a lucky captain. He has a certain amount of salt, and when this is used, he is considered loaded. The more liberally the salt is put on, the faster the fish piles rise, and the quicker the salt is gone, the quicker is the fare "made out." Besides this, the skipper-owner remembers that the more salt the fish are made to receive, the heavier they will weigh when dried. Salt is therefore thrown in with a generous hand, and the fish lying thus, the first caught four, and the last one month, a mean of two months, are thoroughly impregnated with the saline virtue. The vitality, so to speak, of the meat, its strength and flavor, is completely destroyed; and the fish on being taken out, are found to be of a dead ashy color; instead of the bright, wholesome hue good fish should have, they are flaccid, so brittle as scarcely to bear handling, and with hardly any smell, or taste, except that imparted by salt. The slight washing that takes place preparatory to drying, removes, of course, only the grosser part of the salt adhering to the outside; if the fish are water-horsed, that is, piled green, a little more is extracted from them by pressure. In this state they are put on the flakes, when if the weather is hot, it is impossible to prevent them from burning and curing unevenly. They immediately curl up stiff and horny, and so rough as to cut and tear the hands of the men at work on them; the outside being overdone before the inside is fairly warmed. They must finally be taken off for cured, when not properly more than half-cured, and at that, salt-cured, instead of weathercured. They will never spoil, it is true-and it is almost as likely they will never be eaten. A good codfish, properly dressed, salted, and cured, and well treated throughout, is an article of decided luxury to eat, either raw or cooked-but such as these cannot but be miserably poor in any condition. A more uninviting article of food, in a raw state, could hardly be set before one, and such would be the thought of almost any one, whose hunger was not excited to the actual starvation point. By soaking, pounding, and boiling, a considerable part of the salt may be extracted, and a tenderness restored to them-but the lost flavor-the departed vitality-can never be restored.

We do not mean to say that is exactly the case with all the fish brought into the United States by our fishermen. There are exceptions. Some skippers take as good care of their fish as need be, and are rewarded with a palatable and saleable article, when dried. Nor do all who oversalt them, gauge their hand to the exact degree of spoliation we have just described. That, we admit, is an extreme case, but it is a very common extreme. Some there are, who salt very judiciously-it may be said, just enough; others do only a little more, a little too much; others a little more, which is an unqualified too much; the next degree is a good deal too much, and then is the spoilt degree, which, only that it is the extreme, and cannot be exceeded, would be supposed several degrees beyond, by those who now simply murder their fish with the class last spoken of. To classify the processes generally, we need but say simply-oversalting is the rule, proper salting the exception.

The injury resulting from the cause alluded to, has been long felt in the trade of the article-but coming on gradually has been only partially appreciated. It has, doubtless, caused our fish, wherever they have been sent, to be lowered in estimation, and to be dropped by one after another of those who had used them, causing buyers, the while, gradually to curtail their