time you went on the delegation?-A. In a very small minority. We were mostly cod-fishers.

Q. Now, during the Reciprocity Treaty ?-A. I was going to say one word. In 1866, that was when the Reciprocity Treaty was abrogated, and that was the very year we had the biggest fleet of cod-fishing vessels that we ever had. So that our mackerel fleet was comparatively small. Q. How many had you mackerel fishing in the bay?-A. I don't know. I could tell you, probably, if I was home.

Q. You knew you were going to be a witness?-A. Yes; but I did know what you were going to ask me.

Q. Why did you take pains to show that in '66 you had ninety-one vessels in the cod fishery, and keep us in the dark as to how many mackerellers you had ?—A. I didn't know but they would ask me something about the codfish, as it was an old cod-fishing town.

Q. But didn't it strike you that they might put a number of questions about the mackerel, too?-A. I supposed I should take my own local statistics from '70 down to the present time, and let the Cape Ann folks answer questions as to their own fisheries. We didn't have much to do with it. It is a secondary thing with us, fishing for mackerel in the bay.

Q. Then, at that time it is obvious, is it not, that those who were practically engaged in the mackerel fishery-you yourself were not one of those engaged or having any personal interest-but those who were personally interested in it were willing at all hazards and were desirous of getting the liberty of fishing within three miles?-A. O, I think it was desirable to a certain portion of the mackerel fishers. Don't you see, if the mackerel fisherman could fish inshore it was an advantage to him, and if the cod-fishermen had to pay for it that was nothing to him. We are made of such material.

Q. The mackerelmen are of the opinion that it is a great advantage?— A. I didn't say a "great advantage." They would like to fish inshore. Q. Didn't they think it was a great advantage?-A. I do not know. We didn't have anything much to do with them. I think those that went before the Committee of Congress thought it was a great advan tage; but I don't know.

Q. Didn't they put it themselves that they couldn't successfully carry on the fishery in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the mackerel fishery, unless they had that right?—A. I do not know what they did.

Q. You were there before the committee?-A. I was. At the same time, I am here before the Commission; but when they were before the committee, I was not there.

Q. Didn't you know what they stated?-A. No. I have heard, by the way, that they said that.

Q. You have heard that they said they could not prosecute it successfully-A. I heard by the way it was so.

Q. You heard they said that they could not prosecute it successfully? -A. I heard that they said they would be willing to have the codfish

in free.

Q. Didn't they say they couldn't carry on the mackerel fishery suc cessfully?-A. No, sir; not to my knowledge.

Q. You did not hear that said at all?—A. No.

Q. They never put that forward?-A. Never to my knowledge.
Q. You never heard anything of that kind?—A. No, sir.

Q. Did they really think it was any great practical use at all?-A. I suppose they thought it was of use.

Q. Did they think it was much use?-A. I could not say for that.

One other thing I will say. It was asked of me by that committee. Mr. Morrill, of Vermont, inquired, "Would your people be satisfied if they would allow you to fish where you have a mind to and have a license?" I said that would depend a great deal upon the cost of the license. "Well," he said, "fifty cents a ton." I said I believed they would be satisfied to pay fifty cents a ton for a license to fish. On a vessel of 70 or 80 tons that would not amount to a great deal. Well, he did not tell me such would be brought about, but it finally was, and our vessels went down and paid fifty cents. But that charge was increased in after years, and it got so big it seemed to take too much money.

Q. Then they trespassed?-A. I suppose they trespassed after that. Q. Well, these mackerel people went down to induce the legislature to continue the Reciprocity Treaty. You didn't want that, but you wanted a duty on codfish?-A. Yes; I own up to that. I gave my reasons before that committee.

By Mr. Whiteway:

Q. I think you said you were engaged in fishing on the Labrador. How many years were you there ?-A. I was there in 1820, 1821, 1823. That was all that I was in Labrador really fishing. I went in 1849 and 50 down there. I went in '49 and took three gentlemen with me in pursuit of objects of natural history, and I manufactured cod liver oil.

Q. I think you said you went down in a schooner, that the schooner went into harbor, and the small boats fished outside close to the shore? -A. Yes; during the caplin season they made something like four or five trips a day. When I first went down there I was a small boy 12 years old. I went as cook and cooked for ten men. We arrived in the harbor before the caplin. We lay in Wood Harbor, and before the caplin came to our place, we sent down southward along the coast and got what caplin we could before they reached us. After the caplin reached us we could catch them anywhere in the little coves and arms and estuaries.

Q. The caplin were then as plentiful as on the coast of Newfoundland-A. They were immensely plentiful. I have seen them come in as thickly as you could draw fish in a seine. Then the boats went out with two men; our boats were not very large; they would carry about 500 Labrador fish. We would go out before breakfast and get a big load before breakfast-time. Those that had the best luck would get the first cut at breakfast. Then they would go again and expect to be in before dinner, then again in the afternoon, and perhaps they would go the fourth time, and so take three or four boat-loads and part of another. That is the way we carried on the fishing while the caplin lasted. They passed by us and went north. After the caplin deposited their spawn they became unfit to use.

Q. Well, that lasted about five weeks?-A. No, sir; my experience was, in all those years, the height of the caplin only lasted a little over three weeks.

Q. That was during your experience of three years?-A. Yes.

Q. Beyond the years that you have mentioned here that you were in the gulf or at the Banks you have had no practical experience?—A. I have on our own coasts. On the Grand Bank I have been four voyages. Three codfish voyages at Labrador, three codfish voyages in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and six mackerel voyages in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. That is all I have been in these waters. The rest is domestic fishing off the coasts of Maine and Massachusetts.

Q. Then, I understand you made your last voyage, with the exception of your own immediate locality, in 1851?—A. I have never been in the waters east of Cape Sable since that. I lost my vessel then, and we went home and built a new vessel, in which I took part and went halibut fishing in the spring, and for mackerel in the first summer. Next season we went for halibut we were all the spring and all the summer on the Nantucket Shoals and George's, and one time we came down and fished off Seal Island ground, just westward of Seal Island, and got two trips, that we carried to New York. On that occasion we saw the tower of the light-house of Seal Island, but, if I remember right, I could not see the light when it was lit. Then I went on our own coast ever since.

Q. All I want to know is this, whether you had any practical expe rience or knowledge in reference to the fisheries, except in your imme diate neighborhood, since 1851; that is a simple question. In other words, have you carried on fishing yourself personally since 1851, except in the immediate neighborhood of your own residence?-A. Well, never, except in those two trips to Seal Island. The rest I have been on the coast of Massachusetts. For ten years, from 1856 to 1866, I had a little smack with a well in her, and my boys made a crew, and we fished around Cape Cod and my own home. I have fished and bought fish.

Q. Then all the evidence you have been giving relative to the codfishery and the mackerel since 1851 has been simply what you have heard from others?-A. What I have heard and known from others. Q. What you have heard from others; that is the case, is it not?A. Well, when I relate anything

Q. I certainly wish you to answer yes or no.-A. Well, we say we 'don't know anything unless we see it. Is that so?

Q. I should say.-A. You say so. If you mean to take it in that light you understand that I don't know that the royal mail-steamers go to England. I have never been there; but I have a desire to go, and I hope I may, for I want to see the Eastern World. But I consider I know just about as much of what I have stated about the Grand Bank fishery here as I know about the royal mail.

Q. I have no doubt you believe what you have stated?—A. I do; and I have been trying in my own humble way to do something in the interest of the fisheries in the lectures I have given from time to time. I have collected statistics, and got a good deal together that I consider perfectly reliable.

Q. You have perfect confidence in what has been told you?-A. When I see a vessel fit out with 200 hogsheads of salt and everything necessary to prosecute a cod-fishing voyage, and she comes home with fish instead of salt, I believe she has been on the Grand Banks, and I state that such a vessel went to the Grand Banks.

Q. Well, in your day, when you went to the Banks, there was nothing but salt clam bait used ?—A. That is all.

Q. Well, is salt clam bait used now, or is it frozen bait ?—A. Salt bait is still used.

Q. Do you know no bait except that used by your fishermen ?—A. They use squid when they go into Newfoundland.

Q. Have you been informed of any other bait they use?—A. They use all the birds they can get, and Bank clams taken from the stomach of fish.

Q. Clams, birds, and squid. Is there any other bait ?-A. Well, I feel confident our fishermen don't use any other. When I went to the Bank the Marblehead fishermen (that was the great fishing port then),

they told me they carried fat mackerel No. 1 for bait; but we didn't carry that. I don't think there is any mackerel now used for bait.

Q. You confidently believe there is no other bait used by your fishermen except birds, squid, and clams?-A. That is all I ever knew, and I believe there is no other.

Q. Have you heard of large quantities of frozen herring being obtained on the coast of Newfoundland brought to American ports and used in the spring? A. Yes; I know just about as much about that as about our own vessels.

Q. Do you know this frozen herring was used?-A. Just the same as I know our vessels go to the Banks since 1851, although I didn't go myself. I know the Gloucester people buy them by tous and carry them to the Grand Bank.

Q. Why didn't you remember that these herring were used?—A. I knew they were used by the Gloucester vessels. If you had asked me generally about our vessels, I would have mentioned that. I am not ignorant that they are used to an enormous extent.

Q. These herring are taken out, I believe, in the frozen state and used fresh. They are not salted?-A. No; they are frozen. In answering you a while ago that I didn't know of any other baits being used but those you had mentioned, I referred entirely to Provincetown, because I am not ignorant of the bait they use in Gloucester. But there is enough about Provincetown to take me a considerable time to tell, and I thought I would not take in the whole. I did not prepare for it.

Q. Now you say, I think, that about six years ago you were told that there were plenty of squid upon the Bauks, the Grand Banks rather?— A. Yes; somewhere about six years ago.

Q. The next year your people took less salt clams, and they found squid on the Bauks?-A. Yes.

Q. The following year they took no salt clams and they found no squid there. Can you account for that?-A. I can, in the same way that I account for the increase and diminution of any kind of fish. The squid sometimes increase and sometimes decrease. Sometimes they are in the neighborhood of the Grand Bank, and don't come on for some cause.

Q. Then four years ago you say was the first year when your Grandbankers went into Newfoundland?—A. I think about that.

Q. They have continued to go there ever since?-A. They have continued and have increased.

Q. Did it ever strike you as being very strange that the squid have disappeared from the Banks at exactly the same time that the Washington Treaty came into operation?-A. No; I never thought of it. In fact, I don't know that the squid knew anything about the Washington Treaty.

Q. They happened to go at that time?-A. Other things transpired at the same time as the Washington Treaty.

Q. You don't think they came in upon the coast from the Banks in consequence of the Washington Treaty?-A. I don't think they were posted about that.

Q. Well, they have been there upon the Newfoundland coast ever since four years ago?-A. They have been, more or less, ever since; I think more this year than any previous years.

Q. And more last year than the next preceding?—A. I don't want to positively state so. I think likely.

Q. And more that year than at first?-A. I think so.

Q. As a matter of fact they have been increasing in numbers?—A. think they have. This year there is an immense number.

Q. Did you see a paragraph in the paper that the American fleet was blocking up St. John Harbor?-A. I didn't see it.

Q. They want considerable bait?-A. Our vessels have clams and do not want anything from Newfoundland.

Q. The Grand Bank is a very short distance, I think, about 35 miles; is it not a very great convenience for them to run into Newfoundland and get this bait?—A. Well, if they didn't have to lose too much time. I know there is an inducement where a vessel is out on the Banks, exposed to the buffeting of the storms, to go into a snug harbor. I know it is very comfortable. Then again they all find things on shore that they don't carry in their vessels. They have all kinds of men in our vessels; they are not all temperate men, though some of them are very good men.

Q. Do you mean to say that the captains of all your vessels are dishonest men; that they would leave their lawful vocations and go into harbor in the way you speak of?—A. No, sir; but their auxiliaries. There are a good many things that influence them. Where you have a vessel out on the Banks, exposed to fogs and storms, it is a great rest to them to come in. They can come ashore and go around.

Q. Well, I put the question to you straightly on your oath.
Mr. DANA remarks that the last expression is uncalled for.

Mr. WHITEWAY. I put the question to you straightly. Is it not a very great advantage for these vessels to get their bait upon the coast of Newfoundland, the Grand Banks being in such close proximity?—A. I think these vessels, if they took the other mode, would do better on the whole than now. I think they have learned a lesson by which you will have less vessels in there in future than you have now.

Q. You mean that it is more advantageous for a vessel to go from the Grand Banks to the coast of the United States than to go to the coast of Newfoundland?-A. No; by no means. I mean to say that they will carry bait with them sufficient to catch their cargo without going in anywhere.

Q. You think it would be better for them to take all the bait they require?—A. Yes.

Q. To make their voyage and return ?—A. Our vessels prove to have done best that have done so.

Q. That would be salted bait?-A. Salted clams. In going in they lose their time, whereas the other way they get fish all the time.

Q. Then you think the salt bait is preferable?—A. No.

Q. You think the fresh is best ?-A. I think the fresh squid is best, but they lose a great deal of time going in.

Q. Notwithstanding that the fresh bait is best, you think it would be far better for them to use salt clams?-A. I think if they would use the salt bait, and stay there and fish every day that the weather permitsand it permits most every day-it would be better.

Q. But if they were fishing with fresh bait, as that is better than the salt bait, could not they make more trips during the season? They would catch fish quicker?—A. Our folks only go for one trip.

Q. Your vessels only make one trip?-A. Only one.

Q. Have you ever heard of none that go a second time?—A. I bave known them going, but make a failure. The first vessel that comes back this season is laid alongside of the wharf and not sent back. I have known them go twice and make a good fair voyage on the second trip, but I have known a good many bad voyages.

Q. Have you ever known of three trips -A. I have never known a third trip to be made since I arrived at manhood.