APPENDIX L. [Continued.] No. 32. MICHAEL MACAULAY, of Gloucester, Mass., fisherman and master mariner, called on behalf of the Government of the United States, Sworn and examined. By Mr. Foster: Question. You are skipper of a schooner out of Gloucester ?-Answer. Yes. Q. What is the name ?-A. The Noonday. Q. Where were you born?-A. In Prince Edward Island. Q. How many years have you been fishing?-A. About twelve years. Q. The first part of the time for mackerel and at present for cod?— A. Yes. Q. How do you happen in here?-A. I came in here with a sick man from the Grand Banks. Q. And you have been in command of this vessel two years?—A. Yes; about that. Q. Before that you were fishing as a sharesman?-A. Yes. Q. How many years were you cod fishing?-A. Seven years, I guess. Q. Where?-A. On the Grand Bank. Q. Now, when you began to go cod fishing to the Grand Bank, how did you supply yourselves with bait?-A. We took it from home." We used to get some on the Banks in the summer time. Q. What did you take with you?-A. Salt bait, pogy slivers. Q. Slivers are pogies and menhaden cut off the bones?-A. Fish cut off the bone each side. Q. What else?-A. We used to put that on, and what we used to pick up on the Bank; small halibut and other small fish. Q. How long is it since you began to go to Newfoundland for bait?— A. Well, it is about four years since I have first been there for herring. I guess we were there as soon as any of them. Q. When you go to Newfoundland for herring, how do you get it ?— A. We take it out of the seines. Q. How do you pay for it?-A. We pay so much. Q. How much, usually ?-A. Well, there are certain times they charge pretty high. At other times they don't charge so high. We paid as high as $25 this summer, and took as much as we wanted. Q. How many times have you been in this summer for bait?-A. I have been in for herring twice. Q. What else have you been for?-A. Squid, twice. Q. How did you get squid?-A. Well, they caught them; jigged and took them alongside the first time, and we bought them salted the second time. Q. Who jigged them the first time?-A. The natives. Q. How much did you pay for them?-A. Two dollars a barrel. Q. The salt squid did you get last time?-A. Yes. Q. Does this answer for bait ?-A. It is not so good; but we could not get anything else. Q. How many times have you been to Newfoundland for bait ?-A. Since I have been skipper? Q. Yes.-A. Well, I have been about six times in two years. Q. And how many times did you go before that, while you were sharesman?-A. I have been back and forward for the last four years. I have been there as much as, I suppose, ten or twelve times before I went skipper. Q. Now, won't you tell the Commissioners what is the longest and what is the shortest time that it has ever taken to go from the Bank into Newfoundland to get bait and return to the fishing ground ?—A. The shortest time I have been would be about nine days. Q. What is the longest?—A. I have been four weeks. Q. How did that happen?-A. I could not get it. I was hunting it up, trying to get it. Q. Now, you have fished with salt bait taken from home, not going near Newfoundland, and you have gone in as a skipper half a dozen times, and as sharesman ten or twelve times to buy bait?—A. Yes. Q. I want you to state whether in your opinion the advantages of going to Newfoundland to procure bait are worth anything.-A. Well, when we used to carry bait from home, we used to catch some fish, but since we went to run fresh bait we didn't catch half the quantity we used to catch, I don't think, when we used to take bait from home, because we lose half our time and more looking for fresh bait. Q. You lose half your time?—A. Yes. Q. You don't consider it an advantage?-A. No; I don't consider it an advantage at all. Q. Have you ever got caplin there for bait?-A. No; I never took any caplin. I have never been in a vessel that had any. Q. Now, before you were cod-fishing you made some mackerel voyages, I think?-A. Yes; I have been four or five years for mackerel before I went for cod. Q. What vessels were you in? Begin with the earliest mackerel schooner you were in.-A. I have been in the Moonlight. That was the first vessel, John Spriggan, captain. Q. What year?-A. About 1865, I guess. Q. How many barrels of mackerel did you take that year?-A. Well, I took off and on about 150 barrels, I guess. Q. Where did you take them?-A. Most of them around the Magdalens. Q. What was the next schooner you were in ?-A. The Easterwood, Captain Galasky. Q. How many barrels of mackerel did you take in her ?—A. Well, between 180 and 190. I could not be certain; off and on, about that. Q. Where were they taken?-A. We caught them between the North Cape and around the Magdalens; up between the Magdaleus and North Cape. We used to fish in different places, but the most part was taken around the Magdalens. Q. What was the third schooner you were in ?-A. The Charles P. Thompson. No, I was mistaken. The second schooner I was in was the James Bliss.. Q. Who was the captain ?-A. James Walsh. Q. How many barrels did you take in her ?-A. Two hundred and forty. Q. Where were they taken ?-A. Part of them to the northward of North Cape, what we call Bradley Bank, and abroad off North Cape. Q. Were any of those taken within three miles?-A. No, we didn't catch any. I don't know but we tried and got a few there, but not anything over a dozen or so. Q. Where was that?-A. It was to the westward of North Capewhat they call Tignish. Q. You think you caught a dozen barrels inshore ?-A. No, not a dozen; we might have caught a dozen or twenty mackerel to a man. Q. What was the fourth vessel you were in mackereling ?—A. The Charles P. Thompson was the fourth. Q. What year was that, do you remember?-A. Well, it was about 1869, I guess. Q. Who was her captain ?-A. Edward Cash. Q. How many barrels of mackerel did you take in her?-A. About 95 barrels; between that and 100. We caught them up northward. Q. Was she a new vessel ?-A. No. The James Bliss was a new ves sel. Q. Now I would ask you, so far as your observation goes, what is the principal fishing-ground for mackerel-schooners in the Gulf of St. Lawrence?-A. Where I have principally fished in my time was around the Magdalens. That was the principal ground in my going to fish. Q. Did you ever fish much off the Bight of Prince Edward Island?— A. No, I never did. Q. Have you been there?-A. Yes; I have been there working up and down shore, but I never fished any there. I might have tried abroad off East Point, or abroad off the North Cape; but I have never been in a vessel that fished in the bend of the island, because it is a place where they don't want to fish very often. Q. Why not?-A. Because they don't like the ground. They don't like to fish. They don't call it a very safe place to fish. Q. Is it a place that is avoided by A. Fishermen? Yes. Q. Why? A. Because it is a place where, if they are caught with the wind easterly or northeasterly, we can't get out. Q. You lived at Prince Edward Island 20 years?-A. Yes; I was born there and lived there until I came to Gloucester. Q. Do you ever fish there from the shore ?-A. Well, I have gone fishing there from the shore. What part of the island did you live at ?— A. At St. Peter's, right in the bend. Q. Did you ever see boats fishing on the island?-A. Yes. Q. I would like to know how far from the shore these fishing boats around Prince Edward Island go out for mackerel, or used to when you were there?—A. I would judge in my way that they would go from three to five miles. Q. One question more; as you have been sailing out of Gloucester now for some years, what is the principal fishing business of Glouces ter?-A. I should think codfish and halibut the principal. By Mr. Davies: Q. You lived at St. Peter's?-A. Yes. Q. How long since you lived on the island ?—A. Twelve years. Q. That was when you first went in the Moonlight ?-A. Yes. Q. You have never been on the island since you left there ?-A. No. Q. How old are you now?-A. About 33. Q. You left the island when you were about 21?-A. Yes. Q. Are your people engaged much in St. Peter's in the fisheries?— A. They do go fishing a good deal. They catch fish enough for themselves any way. Q. That is just what I want to know. I never understood that you engaged in the fisheries largely ?-A. Well, they catch always enough for themselves. I don't know that they catch any more. That is all, I guess. Q. There are no fishing-stages there?-A. No, they can't keep fishing. stages there. Q. It is a very exposed place?-A. To my recollection that is so. Q. Then you never were at any of the fishing-stages fishing on the island?-A. No. Q. You never were to Rustico, New London, Cascumpec, or Tignish? -A. No. Q. You never saw them fishing there ?-A. I have seen the boats fishing there. Q. Will you venture the assertion that those boats fishing off those places fish farther than three miles?-A. I should think off Rustico they fish as much as ten miles. Q. As a general rule, you think that?-Yes, because it is a place with shoal water, and they have to go quite a piece off. Q. Do you give that as your actual opinion or mere supposition ?-A. My opinion is that I have seen them ages outside of ten miles. Q. Where?-A. Where I have been fishing up and down in those vessels. Q. But you have said you never fished around Prince Edward Island? —A. Well, I said I have made passages up and down the island. Q. What year was that you made passages?-A. Well, probably I have been-I don't know--but I have been every year I have been in the bay. Probably we might work up from the northward up as far as East Point. Q. Now, every man who was brought here from Rustico, and every man at Rustico who has made an affidavit, has stated that threefourths to nine-tenths of the fish caught in that harbor are caught within three miles of land. Mr. FOSTER objects to this question, for which, after a short argument, the following question was substituted. By Mr. Davies: Q. Here is a deponent, Alexander McNeil, who says: I would think the number of fishing-boats at Rustico harbors would number about one hundred and fifty. My twenty years' experience has proved to me that the best mackerel-fishing around our coast is about a mile from the shore, in from 7 to 10 fathoms of water. All the fish caught by the boats are taken within a mile of the coast, many of them within half a mile, during the months of July and August, but during the months of September and October the boats take their catch farther out, say two miles or two and a half. It is a very rare occasion that they go out three miles or beyond it. Of the total catch in the boats, over nine-tenths is caught well within the three-mile limit. |