In the other British North American colonies fisheries are established, and the produce enters more or less into their foreign commerce. The fisheries on Lake Huron have lately been prosecuted, and promise to become of considerable im portance. The kinds of fish exported are chiefly cod, herrings, salmon, and mackerel. The actual value of these ex ports from each colony, in the years 1832 and 1837, was as follows: 1832. 1837.
Eastern (Lower) Canada . £6,475 £6,149 New Brunswick 31,885 30,550 Nova Scotia 155,189 181,961 Prince Edward's Island 65 5,341 Cape Breton . 10,383 11,738 Total . £203,997 £235,739 The bay Des Chaleurs in the St. Lawrence is considered the best fishing station on the continent of America. It is said that there are from 3000 to 5000 United States schooners fishing every summer in this bay. They cure cod to the extent of 1,800,000 quintals, while the British colonists up to a recent period did not in this fishery cure more than 300,000 quintals. In 1844 an act was passed in the Imperial Parliament for incorporating a company under the title of the Gaspe Fishing and Mining Company.
The whale fishery was carried on suc cessfully during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries by the Biscayans. The whales taken by them in the bay of Biscay appear to have been of a smaller species than those since found in more northern latitudes. The Biscayan fishery has long ceased, owing probably to the great destruction of the animals. It is to the voyagers who, near the end of the sixteenth century, attempted to find a pas sage through the northern ocean to India, that we owe the discovery which led to the establishment of the fishery in the seas of Greenland and Spitsbergen. The English and the Dutch were the first to embark in this adventure ; but the French, Danes, Hamburgers, and others were not slow to follow their example. At first the whales were so numerous that the fishing was comparatively easy, and was so successfully pursued, that in addition to the ships actually engaged in the fish ery, many other vessels were sent in ballast to the shores of Spitzbergen, and the whole returned home with full car goes of oil and whalebone. It was then the practice to boil the blubber on the spot, and bring home the oil in casks. In the progress of the fishery the whales became less numerous, and, when found, more difficult to take. It therefore be
came necessary to pursue them farther to the open sea, and at length it was found more economical to bring the blubber home in order to its being boiled, and the settlements before used for that purpose were abandoned. The whale fishery was for a long period sustained by bounties. In 1732 the bounty was 208. a-ton on every ship of more than 200 tons ; in 1740 it was increased to 408. ; in 1777 it was reduced to 308., and in five years the num ber of -vessels employed fell from 105 to 39; and in 1781 the former rate of bounty (40s.) was restored. In 1787 the bounty was again reduced to 30s.; in 1792, to 258.; in 1795. to 20s. ; and in 1824 it ceased.
That part of the Arctic Sea which lies between Spitzbergen and Greenland, and which was formerly frequented by the whale-ships, is now almost wholly aban doned because of the scarcity of the fish, and the northern whale-fishery is now chiefly pursued in Davis's Straits. The change here noticed has occurred within the last thirty years. In 1816 and 1820, above 100 ships were engaged in the Greenland fishery, and in 1833 and 1834 only 3 and 7; but the number employed in the Straits fishery had increased from 45 in 1816 to 91 in 1830. In the twenty years from 1815 to 1834 inclusive, the average annual results of the Greenland and Davis's Straits fishery were as fol lows : Number of ships returned to Great Britain . . 1152 Tonnage of ditto . . 37,013 Number of ships lost . 5 Tuns of train oil . . 11,313 Tons of whalebone . . 591f Number of whales taken . 1,024 Tuns of oil yielded by each whale . . 1 le Tuns of oil procured by each ship . . . 101f The average prices during these twenty years were—of oil, 28/. 15s. per tun, and of whalebone, 163/. per ton ; it follows therefore that the annual average pro duce of the fishery amounted to 421,704/.
In 1842 the number of British ships engaged in the northern whale-fishery was only 18 (14 to Greenland, and 4 to Davis's Straits); the number of whales taken was 54, which yielded 668 tuns of oil. In 1840 the quantity of oil was only 412 tuns. Hull, which was once the great port for the northern whale fishery, has in two years recently only sent out two vessels, instead of 60 or 70, and none have gone out from London. One-half of the ships are now sent out from Peterhead.