Alexandria Gazette & Daily Advertiser

Gill Nets! Gill Nets!

To the Citizens of Washington, Frederick, and Montgomery counties.

As the General Assembly of Maryland will sit in the course of a few weeks, I take the liberty of calling the attention of the people of the upper counties to the subject of Gill Nets; that all those who may agree with me in opinion, may unite in petitions to the Legislature to pass such laws as may effectually prevent the use of them hereafter in the Potomac.

Since the introduction of these Nets into our waters, the people of the upper counties have experienced the most pernicious effects of this practice. It is a fact well known, that many persons at the last season, after leaving their homes, with their teams, at the most busy season of the year, and travelling, perhaps, from 50 to 100 miles to reach the nearest landings, and after being detained there a considerable time, exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, and often without any shelter but what was afforded to them by the coverings of their waggons, while their crops too were suffering greatly at home, were obliged at last to return without any fish. Some procured their Herrings, but not one in ten could get the Shad they wanted for their families. These Gill Nets, it is said, are fished almost exclusively by persons from the Eastward -- a covetous people they must be: -- they would take the bread from our mouths if they could do it -- and they certainly will the fish if left to themselves. It is stated they had 500 vessels engaged in this business during the last season; such a number of Nets will form such an obstruction in the river as to keep back the Shad altogether, and by breaking the schools of Herrings will render even the catching of them uncertain. And what adds to our grievance, the fish that are caught in this manner are not disposed of to our citizens, but are cured on board the vessels that take them, and carried as an article of traffic to some other portions of the Union, or, perhaps, to foreign parts.

The people of the upper counties are peculiarly situated; living remote from any of the Rivers, with which nature has so bountifully watered our state, they have only an opportunity afforded to them once a year of procuring fish of any kind for their families; and it rests with the Legislature to determine whether they shall be deprived of this right, attended as it is too, with great sacrifice, expense and trouble; and it must be known too to the members that may compose that body, that fish, from long use and custom, have become indispensably necessary to our families.

If any doubt should exist as to the facts herein stated, I have only to observe that they will be entirely removed by referring to any one from either of the upper counties, who attended at the landings either of the two last seasons, particularly the last.

Having said much more than I intended, I have only to call upon all those who feel an interest in this business, to lose no time in getting signatures to such a petition as I have recommended, -- and also to see and converse upon the subject with such persons as they may think proper to send as delegates to the next General Assembly; and I have also to request the favor of the editors of the Fredericktown papers, to give these remarks a place in their respective papers, that the subject may be fully brought before the people of the upper counties.

ONE OF THE PEOPLE.

November 14