FISHERIES.

We propose in the present article to take a general and extended view of this important branch of employment, and at the same time to give a sketch of the present state both of the home and foreign fisheries.

HOME FISHERIES.

The alleged neglect of the fisheries, on the part of Great Britaiu, has been the subject of unqualified censure from a very early period of her naval and maritime history; and reproaches have been dealt out with no sparing hand, not only for having disregarded those advantages so liberally bestowed by nature along the extensive coasts of her seagirt islands, in supplying a wholesome and nutritious article of food for the sustenance of an abundant population, but also for suffering the nations of the Continent to resort to her very bays and harbours without molestation, and even purchasing from them that very property which she was either too ignorant or too indolent to procure by her own sagacity or industry, though neither of these required to be exerted in any extraordinary degree in the pursuit of this occupation. “The fishery,” says Sir William Monson, “needs no discovery; the experience of our neighbours having found it out, and practised it since the year 1307, to their immeasurable wealth and our shame.”

Thus also Sir John Boroughs complains in his Sovereignty of the British Seas, that “it maketh much to the ignominy and shame of our English nation, that God and nature offering us so great a treasure, even at our own doors, we do, notwithstanding, neglect the benefit thereof, and, by paying money to strangers for fish of our own seas, impoverish ourselves to make them rich ;” and as a contrast to our supposed indolence and indifference, he draws a lively picture of the bustle and activity which the herring fishery of Holland communicated to the various tradesmen and artificers, labourers, salters, packers, and others, and of the multitude of poor women and children to whom it afforded employment. In a little pamphlet entitled England’s Path to Wealth and Honour, the whole alphabet in regular order is ingeniously brought to bear, in the shape of a dialogue between an Englishman and a Dutchman, on the trades and occupations connected with the herring fishery of Holland. The importance, indeed, of this branch of national industry in that country is pretty obvious from the following abstract of the population of the States-General taken in 1669?
[table]

From which it appears that the pensionary De Witt did not exaggerate when he stated that every fifth man earned his subsistence by the sea fishery; that Holland derived her main support from it; and that the herring fishery ought to be considered as the right arm of the republic. It is further asserted that, when in the zenith of her prosperity, not less than 3000 boats, of various kinds, were employed in the bays and islets of her own coasts; and that, in those of Great Britain, they had 800 vessels, from sixty to a hundred and fifty tons burden, occupied generally in the cod and ling fishery, besides others employed in carrying out salt to them, and returning with cured fish; that from Buchan-ness to the mouth of the Thames they had a fleet of 1600 busses actively engaged in the herring fishery, each of which might be said to give employment to three others in the importation of foreign salt, in carrying the salt to fishing ships and returning with cured fish, and in the exportation of that fish to a foreign market; thus making the total number of shipping engaged in and connected with the herring fishery alone to amount to 6400 vessels, calculated to give employment to 112,000 mariners and fishermen. By the same authority we are told that Holland, at that time, could boast of 10,000 sail of shipping and 168,000 mariners; “although the country itself affords them neither materials, nor victual, nor merchandise, to be accounted of towards their setting forth.” Indeed the Dutch themselves made no scruple of avowing that the wealth, strength, and prosperity of the United Provinces were derived from the herring fishery; the importance of which was strongly marked by an observation in common use among them, that “the foundation of Amsterdam was laid on herring-bones.”

No wonder, then, that the example of the Dutch should be held forth as a reproach to England; and we find, accordingly, that it was so considered by some of the ablest writers of former times, as Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir William Monson, Sir William Petty, Sir Roger L’Estrange, and others. It would seem, however, to have altogether escaped these writers, that the situation and circumstances of the Dutch were entirely different from those in which the people of the British islands were placed. The provinces of Holland where the fisheries flourished had few or no resources but those which the w^aters afforded them, they grew no corn, they had no superabundance of food for the rearing of cattle, they had few or no manufactures; whereas Great Britain had all these, and abounded in most of them. The Dutch having, therefore, neither food nor raiment but what they must purchase from foreign nations, and the only article they had to offer in return being the products of the seas, it was necessary for them to expend their whole industry in availing themselves of those products, in order to exchange them for others of the land. It was not therefore from choice, but absolute necessity, that the Hollanders braved the dangers and submitted to the fatigues of the deep-sea fishery. It was their whole resource, and afforded them the only scope for turning their industry to profit; and it must be allowed that, by an extraordinary degree of patience and perseverance, and by long practice, they succeeded in bringing to a state of unrivalled perfection the mode of catching and the method of cure, which other nations, less experienced and less interested, had not arrived at; though it is now known and admitted that there is no great art or mystery in the craft, nothing that British fishermen could not then have, and, in point of taÇ, nothing which they have not of late years accomplished m as perfect a manner as the Dutch. . .

But the case was different with regard to Great Britain· That country laboured under none of the disadvantage-’
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and felt none of the necessities, which pressed upon Holland. Her capital was employed in foreign commerce, in the improvement of her agriculture, and in the introduction of some and the perfection of other branches of manufacture. The complaints, therefore, of the indolence of the British, of their buying fish from the Dutch rather than choosing to undergo the risk and fatigue of catching them, even on their own shores, will not perhaps, on due consideration, appear to be well founded. Their conduct may be ascribed rather to the very natural result of being able to employ their capital in more lucrative, more pleasing, and less precarious investments. It would be too much to expect that he who can buy a fish for half the money required to catch one, will quit his present employment and turn fisherman; or that he who can make a greater and more certain profit in commerce, agriculture, or manufactures, than by fishing, will divert his capital from the former to embark in the latter. The government had repeatedly held out encouragement for the pursuit of the fisheries, and aided the efforts of individuals in various ways to promote the success of a branch of national industry of so much importance to the national wealth and strength. Liberal subscriptions for this purpose have, at various times, been set on foot; privileges and immunities have been granted; villages have been built at the public expense, and ships and boats with all the necessary articles and tackle supplied; premiums have been conferred, bounties granted, duties exempted; the fishermen have been protected from the impress, and those who may have followed the occupation for seven years allowed to set up, and freely exercise any trade or profession in any town or place of Great Britain.

The failure, therefore, could not always have been owing to want of protection and encouragement, though it may, in some measure, be owing to the want of knowledge or circumspection in the way of administering it. Neither could it be ascribed to the want of funds. In 1580 a plan was matured for raising L.80,000 for establishing the British fishery. In 1615 the same sum was raised by a joint-stock company. In 1632 a royal fishing company was established by the sanction of King Charles I., who, in order to increase the demand, prohibited the importation of foreign fish, directed a supply to be furnished for his fleet, and ordered lent to be more strictly observed. In 1660 parliament granted a remission of the salt duties, and freed all the materials employed in the fisheries from customs and excise. In 1661 the national fishery met with very great encouragement under the auspices of Charles II. In 1677 this monarch incorporated the Duke of York and others into “The Company of the Royal Fishery of England ;” but on this occasion the miserable capital was exhausted in the purchase and fitting out of a few busses, built in Holland, and manned with Dutchmen, which were seized by the French on the breaking out of the war. In 1713 it was proposed to raise L. 180,000 on annuities, for the purpose of establishing a fishing company. In 1749, by the recommendation of George II. in his opening speech to parliament, and in consequence of a report of a committee of the House of Commons, the sum of L.500,000 ’ ' as subscribed for carrying on the fisheries, under a corporation, by the name of “The Society of the Free British Fishery,” of which the Prince of Wales was chosen governor. This society, patronized by men of the first rank in the kingdom, promised fair for a little time, but soon began to languish; nor was the large bounty of 56s. a t° n able to prevent its total failure. The attention of parliament was again called to this great national object in 1786, when a new corporation was formed, under the name of “The British Society for Extending the Fisheries and Improving the Sea Coasts of the Kingdom,” which has con-tmued, with various modifications, to the present time; and, as we shall presently see, has of late years been in a flourishing and progressive state of improvement.

Thus, then, it is evident that we must seek for the real grounds of the general languishing state of the British fisheries in other causes than those which have usually been assigned by our ancestors; and though the complaint m modern times may have some foundation, which is almost exclusively levelled against the salt duties, and, after these were wholly removed, against the numerous checks and excise regulations, which are stated to be as grievous and discouraging as were the duties themselves; yet the impediments which these are alleged to throw in the way of the improving state of the fisheries have probably been much exaggerated. There can be no doubt that much benefit would be derived from a total repeal of all the acts relating to the duties and the regulations of salt; and yet, when the old writers stated their grievances, the article of salt is never once mentioned. In fact there were then neither duties nor restrictions on this article of universal use; and yet the fisheries did not flourish under the free and unlimited use of it.

The salt laws were supposed to operate strongly against the prosecution of the fisheries, and this was stated as one of the reasons which produced their repeal; but they scarcely affected those fisheries which were established and conducted on a grand scale. What then, it may be asked, is the real cause of our fisheries not being carried on to a greater extent, at a time when population is so rapidly increasing, and work not to be found for multitudes of the labouring classes of the community? It certainly is not that the government is indifferent or insensible to the political importance of the fisheries. It has not only at different times held out such encouragements as were deemed conducive to the end in view, but shown itself so jealous of the interference of our neighbours as to attempt to establish an appropriate and exclusive fishery in all the seas surrounding our coasts. Thus James I. in 1600 issued a proclamation prohibiting all persons, of what nation or quality soever, not being natural born subjects, from fishing upon any of the coasts and seas of Great Britain and Ireland, and the isles adjacent, without first obtaining licenses from the king. But this, as well as the repetition of the prohibition by Charles I. in 1636, was utterly disregarded by the continental powers. To enforce this measure, the Duke of Northumberland, as admiral of the fleet, was sent into the North Sea to compel the Dutch fishermen to take licenses, and pay for the same; but the ambassador of the States-General in England remonstrated against so unprecedented a proceeding, and disavowed the acts of their fishermen.

The attempt to set up a limited fishery, and to prescribe boundaries to the prohibited grounds, met with no better success; but they showed at least a desire to prevent the advantages derivable from this element from falling into the hands of others. It is probable, however, that these claims were set up with the view rather of maintaining the title of the sovereignty of the seas, than from any contemplation of the national advantages derivable from the encouragement of the fisheries; and more especially for the purpose of preventing any encroachments on the part of the Dutch and French.

This, however, has been found to be impossible. The Dutch continue to fish even into the mouths of the Thames, and the French insist on their right to fish within a mile of the English coast, whilst they also claim the right of excluding our fishermen within a league of their own shores, and in some places three leagues; and it is contended by jurists, that as the fisheries on the sea are common to all mankind, no fixed laws can be made by any nation to the exclusion of any other, and that whatever rights or restrictions[7:9:592] now exist, arc sanctioned by prescriptive usage, and can only be altered by treaties or conventions between the parties who may mutually agree to a change.

; The simple fact we take to be this; that the success of •the fisheries, like that of every other speculation, must depend mainly on the two great hinges on which all commercial enterprises turn, viz. supply and demand; where these exist to any great extent, and without any material fluctuation, the success of a fishery establishment cannot be doubtful. If, however, the supply be not equal to the •demand, the article will be in danger of falling into the hands of monopolists, whose common practice is to add to the scarcity in order to enhance the price. By thus contracting the supply within its natural limits, they not only raise the price, but reduce the demand. On the contrary, where the supply exceeds the demand, the market becomes glutted, the prices are too low to afford a suitable return for the expenditure, and the adventurers withdraw their capital, and turn it into some more profitable channel. Buta certain and steady demand creates competition, and regulates the supply according to the wants of the consumer, at a fair and reasonable price.

It is the want, we conceive, of this steady and constant demand, and not of supply, which has at all times operated to the discouragement of the British fisheries. That the supply of fish is most abundant, and indeed inexhaustible, on the coasts of Great Britain, has never been called in question. “The coasts of Great Britain,” says Sir John Boroughs, “doe yield such a continued sea-harvest of gain and benefit to all those that with diligence doe labour in the same, that no time or season in the yeare passeth away without some apparent meanes of profitable employment, especially to such as apply themselves to fishing; which from the beginning of the yeare unto the latter end, continueth upon some part or other upon our coastes, and these in such infinite shoales and multitudes of fishes are offered to the takers, as may justly move admiration, not only to strangers, but to those that daily bee employed amongst them.” That this harvest, ripe for gathering at all seasons of the year, without the labour of tillage, without expense of seed or manure, without the payment of rent or taxes, is inexhaustible, the extraordinary fecundity of the most valuable species of fish would alone afford abundant proof. To enumerate the thousands and even millions of eggs which are impregnated in the herring, the cod, the ling, and indeed in almost the whole of the esculent fish, would give but an inadequate idea of the prodigious multitudes in which they flock to our shores; the shoals themselves must be seen, to convey to the mind any just notion of their aggregate mass. The herring, for instance, makes its appearance in shoals, the dimensions of which are measured by leagues and miles, moving steadily along in∙close array, and in columns of such depth from the surface downwards, as to have obtained the name amongst the northern nations of herring mountains. These columns advance yearly from the northern seas, early in the spring, with undiminished numbers, though preyed upon by a multitude of enemies, as well from the shore, as in their native element and in the air. Wherever their vast columns proceed, if unmolested by man, they have to sustain constantly the attacks of the grampus, the porpoise, the shark, cod-fish, and even haddocks; and if they approach the surface, they are seized by the innumerable flocks of sea-gulls, gannets, and other aquatic fowls, which hover along their line of march. Where the spawn of the herring is usually deposited, naturalists do not seem to be agreed; but as young herring have not been caught, either with the old ones, or within the limits of the fishery, and as the shoals invariably proceed from the northward, making their first appearance about the Zetland Islands m the month of April, it has generally been thought that their winter habitation is within the Arctic circle, under those vast fields of ice which cover the Northern Ocean, where they fatten on the swarms of shrimps and other marine insects which abound in those seas, and which afford also the principal food of the whale. Here it is supposed they deposit their spawn and, on the return of the sun toward the northern hemisphere, again rush forth in those multitudinous hosts which exceed the power of the imagination to conceive.

The pilchard, which is a species of the same genus as the herring, is also a migratory fish, but makes its appearance from the southward, in vast shoals, inferior only to those of the herring; which is also the case with the mackerel, both being of equal or greater fecundity with the herring, and liable to the attacks of the same enemy. The salmon is equally irregular in its visits to the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland, and approaches the mouths of our rivers in shoals, which they ascend to considerable distances, surmounting every obstacle in order to find a safe and convenient spot where to deposit their innumerable eggs. The various kinds of white fish, as turbot, sole, plaice, whitings, and haddocks, are plentifully dispersed throughout various parts of the British seas, affording an inexhaustible supply of fresh fish for home consumption during the whole year, without the least apprehension of such supply being exhausted or diminished. On the eastern shores of Great Britain, and on the rocky coasts of the Orkney and Zetland Islands, are plenty of lobsters, which would more than supply the market of the metropolis with this article of luxury, as the south-eastern and southern coasts do the oyster with its nutritious food for eight months in the year.

In spite, however, of this abundant supply of wholesome, palatable, and nutritious food, yielded by the surrounding seas of Great Britain, every acre of which is infinitely more productive than the same quantity of the richest land; notwithstanding that these salt water fields are perpetually “white to harvest,” it is a remarkable fact, that in the inland and middle counties of England, the labouring classes scarcely know the taste of fish, which, of late years, has become a scarce article, even in most of the maritime counties. Formerly salmon, whilst in season, was the common food of all ranks in the northern counties bordering on the sea, and in most parts of Wales, and what could not be used fresh was salted for winter consumption; there was scarcely a family in the neighbourhood of a sea-port or salmon fishery that did not lay up a supply of pickled salmon for the winter. In the progress of luxury, well-boats were invented to convey the fish fresh to the London market, yet these were not sufficiently numerous to carry off the whole supply. The next contrivance was that of packing them up in ice, by which they could be kept fresh for a length of time, and conveyed either by land or water to the metropolis; since which the local markets have nearly been left without a supply, even for the few families who can afford to pay an extravagant price for the article. That price in London was for a long time greatly enhanced, by the trade being almost exclusively'· in the hands of monopolists, who had it at all times in their power to create an uncertainty in the supply, an consequently a fluctuation in the price, both of which are detrimental to an augmented demand; but that mollopo y has been recently broken down.

That a narrow confined corner, at the very extremity of the metropolis, should have been allowed for such a length of time to exercise the privilege of absorbing a the fish brought within the radius of seven miles round ı s vortex, but ill accorded with the boasted good sense o these enlightened times. It needs scarcely be mentione [7:9:593]that Billingsgate was this favoured spot; holding by charter an injurious and hateful privilege, which, as Sir Thomas Bernard justly observes, “in the greatest and most populous city in the world, restricts the sale of an article of life to a small and inconvenient market, and has exclusively placed the monopoly of fish in the hands of a few interested salesmen.” The establishment of that splendid and most commodious market, the Hungerford, has put an end to that injurious monopoly, and consequently reduced the prices and increased the quantity of this species of food for the use of the metropolis.

The encouragement given by the government in the shape of bounties appears to have contributed but little to the success of the fisheries. If a branch of trade once fairly established will not support itself without being bolstered up by bounties, it never can be worth carrying on. Bounties should only be continued for a definite time, and decreased gradually. Those on the fisheries should be given on the quantity procured, and the quality of those cured, and not on the instrument of their production; on the fish, and not on the vessel. It was proved by a committee of the House of Commons, in 1785, that the herring fishery absolutely cost little short of L.20,000 annually, which, on an average of ten years, was equal to L.75 per cent, on the value of all the fish that had been taken by the vessels on which it was paid. Adam Smith has justly observed, that a tonnage-bounty proportioned to the burden of the ship, and not to her diligence and success in the fishery, is not the best stimulus to exertion; it was an encouragement for fitting out ships to catch, not the fish, but the bounty; or to induce rash adventurers to engage in concerns which they did not understand, and cause them to lose, by their ignorance, more than was gained by the liberality of government. The carelessness of such persons, and the ignorance of those employed by them in curing and packing the fish, not only robbed the public purse, but destroyed the character of the article in the foreign market; where, if saleable at all, it fetched only an inferior price, whilst the skill and attention of the Dutch secured for their fish that preference to which they were justly entitled. The change of the bounty, however, from the tonnage to the quantity and the quality of the fish caught and cured, with the regulations adopted by the acts of 48th and 55th Geo. III. have had the good effect of raising the character, and consequently increasing the demand, for British fish in the foreign markets, where the herrings in particular are now held in equal estimation with those of the Dutch. The bounty, granted by the act 48 Geo. III. c. 110, is 2s. per barrel on all herrings branded by the proper officers, and 4s. a barrel granted by the act ðű Geo. III. c. 94, and is so considerable that at this time it amounts to a sum not less than L.30,000 a year.

It would appear, however, that all which is now wanting for the encouragement and extension of the British fisheries, is a constant, steady, and increased demand in the home and foreign markets. An experiment made by Mr Hale, one of the members of the committee for the relief of the manufacturing poor, proves decisively how easy it would be to introduce the general use of fish in the metropolis. He agreed with some fishermen to take from ten to twenty thousand mackerel a day, at a price not exceeding 10s. the hundred of six score, or at a penny a piece, a price at which the fishermen said they could afford to supply the London market to any extent, provided they were sure of a regular sale. On the 15th of June 1812, upwards of 17,000 mackerel were sent to Spitalfields, and sold at the original cost of a penny a piece, to which place women were employed to carry them from Billingsgate until eleven o’clock at night. They were purchased with great avidity, and vast numbers continued to nour into Billinersgate. They were sent to other parts of the town, and sold to the poor at t e same rate; and it is stated that “the supply increased to so great a degree that 500,000 mackerel arrived and were sold in one day.” The whole cost of this experiment, for the distribution of fresh and sweet mackerel at a penny a piece, was L.55. 10s. expended chiefly in the carriage from Billingsgate. In like manner, it is estimated that herrings might be supplied in any quantity at one halfpenny a piece, and cod, haddocks, whitings, flounders, &c. proportionally cheap, provided a steady demand was creatcd, as it is presumed there would be, by the establishment of several regular markets in different parts of the metropolis.

Another experiment of the committee shows how easily a demand for salted or corned fish might be created in the inland counties. They contracted for 200 tons of corned cod, caught and cured on our own coast, and also for 400,000 corned herrings. The former was supplied to the distressed manufacturers of Sheffield at twopence halfpenny a pound, and the latter at the rate of two for three halfpence. Here, as well as in other parts of the country, the poor, it is stated, received the fish distributed among them at low prices with the liveliest gratitude; and one gentleman in Worcestershire states that “the herrings, in particular, have proved a bonus to the poor of the most essential benefit. We sold them,” he says, “ at a very lo wand reasonable rate, on account of the extreme indigence of the purchasers; and they have produced L.40 (profit), which, after the expense of carriage is paid, will be laid out in employing the poor in repairing the roads.”

It deserves to be mentioned, as an instance of the certainty of a supply to answer the demand, that, when the Association was formed in 1812, the North Sea and Iceland fishery had for some time entirely ceased; but, on the committee offering the fishermen L.18 a ton for all the fish they should catch and cure, they supplied, in the first instance, 100 tons of dry-salted, and fifty tons of fresh cod; in the second, 200 tons of dry-salted, and 400 tons of fresh; in the third, 600 tons of dry-salted, and 300 tons of fresh; in all 1350 tons of fish were taken and brought to market in consequence of this offer, not a fish of which would otherwise have been caught.

The obvious policy, then, to be pursued for extending the British fisheries, is by creating an extended and constant demand. In the foreign markets this can only be done by the care and attention bestowed in curing the fish, so that, in point of quality, it may compete with those of the Dutch and other nations of the continent; a point which we have just now happily attained; but in the supply for home consumption every thing almost yet remains to be done. The Fish Association have, however, clearly shown the way of proceeding to obtain this desirable end ;. they have proved that, not only in the metropolis, but in the interior of the country, the poor have none of those prejudices which were ascribed to them, against the use of fish, when it is fresh and sweet, and when they are able to procure it at a moderate price. A free circulation, by means of markets established in the metropolis and at all the fishing ports, might effect this to a certain degree; but, in addition to these, some artificial expedients might be advisable, for a time at least, to raise and keep steady the demand. It is much to be regretted that Queen Elizabeth, who was well aware of the importance of the fisheries in a political as well as economical point of view, did not, in regulating the church ritual, ordain two days in every week to be set apart by Protestants as fish days, which would have created a steady and permanent demand for fresh and salted fish in every part of the United Kingdom. Such an ordinance might, in her reign, have been enfoι-ced, and long habit would have reconciled people to the observance of those days in our times; but it would be in [7:9:594]vain to attempt the introduction of any such custom in the present refractory generation. There seems, however, to be no good grounds of objection to those who are maintained at the public expense being fed twice a week with a wholesome meal of fish. It is neither just nor politic that, whilst the poor labouring man, after toiling the whole week, can scarcely procure a little brown bread and a few potatoes for his wife and children, the indolent pauper should feed on the best white bread and choice butchers’ meat. Supposing the number of paupers receiving parish relief, of convicts in the hulks, criminals in the jails, and, in short, all those who are fed at the public expense, to amount only to 1,000,000; and that to each was served out, twice a week, a sufficient allowance of good fresh fish, corned cod, or salted herrings, according to the season of the year and the situation of the parties, which could be amply provided for the value of three pence a head, the annual demand for fish, from this source alone, would amount to the sum of L.1,300,000. The voluntary consumption of the labouring poor would be at least equal, could an adequate supply be obtained at a cheap rate; and that it might will readily be inferred, when it is stated that, in the herring season, these fish may, on an average, be purchased at the stations for sixpence a hundred, whilst the salt required to cure them costs about one penny. Supposing the whole expense of a hundred to be one shilling, and one shilling more for land carriage to the farthest point in the interior, and allowing the retailer a profit of 100 per cent., a good salted herring might still be purchased for one halfpenny, and two herrings, with a few potatoes, would furnish a wholesome palatable meal. Salted or corned cod would be supplied at an almost equally cheap rate; and thus the quantity of food for the subsistence of man would be greatly increased, the fisheries encouraged, the consumption of butchers’ meat lessened, and more pasturage converted into corn-lands, by which the enormous sums of money which are annually sent out of the country for the purchase of foreign corn would be employed at home. At present we have to trust for a supply of this “staff of life” to a miraculous plenty or a ruinous importation.

It would be superfluous to dwell on the political, economical, and commercial importance of encouraging and improving the fisheries, to an insular empire like ours. We shall only observe, that, by their augmenting the quantity of food, there would necessarily result a reduction in the prices of all the necessaries of life; the condition of the labouring poor, the artificers, and trades-people, would as necessarily be improved; they would not only be the means of rearing and supporting a bold and hardy race of men for the defence of the sea-coast, but also of creating a nursery of excellent seamen for the navy in time of war, and of giving them employment when peace may render their further services unnecessary. If the fisheries flourished to that extent to which they appear to be capable, every seaport, town, and little village on the coasts, or on the banks of the creeks and inlets, would become a nursery of seamen. It was thus in Holland, where the national and natural advantages were very inferior to those of Great Britain; for it is well observed, in the Report of the Downs Society, that Holland produces neither timber, nor iron, nor salt, all of which are essential to fisheries, and all the natural produce of Great Britain; that Holland has no herrings upon her own coast, whilst the coasts of our island abound with them and other fish, at different if notat all seasons of the year, so that there are few if any months in which shoals of this fish in particular are not found on some part of our shores; and lastly, that her population is under 3,000,000, whilst ours amounts to about 18,000,000, giving to our fishermen six times the consumption of a home market that the Dutch can command.

Though the occupation of a fisherman is dangerous, laborious, and precarious, yet it does not appear that the want of sufficient hands has at any time retarded the progress of the fisheries. At this moment about 20,000 seamen, receiving pensions of from L.7 to L.20 and upwards, according to their wounds, infirmities, and length of service, are located for the most part along the sea-coasts of the united empire, all of whom, not otherwise employed in the coal and coasting trade, would readily add to the little pittance they receive from a grateful public, by being employed on an element so congenial to their habits.

The report of the committee which sat in the year 1833 to inquire into the present state of the Channel fisheries, ascribes the decline of these fisheries to other causes than the want of demand. They report that they find the British Channel fisheries to be generally in a very depressed and declining state; that they appear to have been gradually sinking since the peace in 1815, and more rapidly during the last eight or ten years; that the capital employed does not yield a profitable return; and that the number of vessels and boats, as well as of men and boys employed, is much diminished: and they ascribe the principal causes that have tended to produce this depression, first, to the extensive interference and aggressions of the French fishermen on the coasts of Kent and Sussex; secondly, to the large quantity of foreign-caught fish illegally imported and sold in the London market; and, thirdly, to the great decrease and comparative scarcity of fish in the Channel.

1. With regard to the interference of the French fishermen, they have undoubtedly, as we have observed, an advantage over ours, by fishing within half a league of the shores of Kent and Sussex, and frequently much nearer; but if it be true, as is stated, that they have now between 200 and 300 sail out of Boulogne alone, being more numerous and larger than those of our countrymen, manned with ►double or treble the number of men, and carrying nets and fishing-gear of a much larger and heavier description, what can possibly occasion this great difference in favour of the French over us, but the very great demand for fish in the one country and the want of it in the other. It is the great demand alone that affords them capital to send out more boats, and of a larger size, with more men in them, than our fishermen, for want of demand, can afford to do. In fact, fish in a fresh, or salted or dried state, may be said to be in universal demand throughout France, whilst in England the supply is almost wholly limited to the capital, and a few large towns at no great distance from the sea-coast. The middling and lower orders in England, generally speaking, have no great relish for fish; they give the preference ten times over to bacon, and every species of butchers’ meat. The herring and mackerel fisheries are stated to have been nearly abandoned, whilst the French continue on our coasts during the whole of the season of these fisheries, making a constant practice of selling their cargoes of fish at sea, and shipping them into carrier boats from the Thames and other ports, and into boats which board them in the bay of Dover, for the supply of the London market. T his practice requires but small capital and little outlay. Such an intercourse may also have for its object the more profitable occupation of smuggling, as well as trafficking for fish. A further grievance, and one that certainly ought to be prevented, is, that at other seasons of the year the Frenc come every morning from Boulogne and other places, into the English bays, and there drag with nets for bait m the shallow waters, close upon the shore, taking and destroying, in immense quantities, the young and unsizeable fish, a this is done at those periods of the year when they are not permitted to fish in the bays upon their own coasts, practice which tends materially to diminish the quanti y ο grown fish on our coasts.
[7:9:595]

The suggestion of the committee, that, in order to remedy the grievances at present sustained by the English fishermen, foreigners should be prevented, at all seasons of the year, from fishing within one league, or such other distance, of the English coast, as by the law or usage of nations is considered to belong exclusively to this country—this would undoubtedly be most desirable if it could be effected; but we have conceded this point, and ancient usage is unfortunately against us, and the law cannot remedy it; the grievance can only be removed by mutual agreement. Measures, however, it is presumed, might be taken for the better preservation of the spawn and brood of fish in the bays and shallow waters upon our coast, which is of the utmost importance.

2. The importation of foreign-caught fish is prohibited by various acts of parliament, under heavy penalties and forfeiture, imposed on the parties, both foreigners and British subjects, who may be implicated in such a transaction. The kinds of fish exempted from prohibition are, turbots and lobsters, eels, stock-fish, anchovies, sturgeon, botargo, and cavear; these may all be, and are, legally imported, —turbots and eels generally by the Dutch, and almost all the lobsters from the coast of Norway. The committee however report, that, notwithstanding the prohibition and penalties, it appears in evidence that about one third of the fish supplied to the London market is procured from foreigners, including, however, in that estimate, the turbots, eels, and lobsters. It is further stated that the violation of the acts of parliament has of late years been practised openly, and without interruption on the part of the government or officers of his majesty’s customs, arising probably, as the committee think, from some misapprehension of the provisions of the statutes. The practice, it appears, prevails chiefly off the mouth of the Thames, and upon the coasts of Kent and Sussex, and it operates most injuriously during the mackerel and herring seasons.

Our fishermen complain that they are much injured by the continued permission given to foreigners to import turbots free of duty; and it is stated in evidence, that if relief were afforded in this respect to the English fishermen, the markets of this country would still be adequately supplied with this valued species of fish, without increased prices; and that the alteration of the law, in this respect, would tend very materially to revive the fisheries connected with the coasts of Norfolk and Essex, and also with those of Kent and Sussex, and be of great value to our fisheries in general. There do not seem to be any political grounds for opposing such an enactment, as the English fishermen are not allowed to import any description of fish into France or Holland. Why should not our fishermen, when driven by stress of weather or for repairs into a French or Dutch port, be permitted to sell a sufficient portion of their fish to provide themselves with necessaries for their support, whilst this indulgence is granted to those of France and Holland in the ports of England?

3. The scarcity of fish in the Channel, with the exception of mackerel and herring, which are fish of passage, is said to have increased during the last fifteen or twenty years, occasioned by the great destruction of the spawn and brood of fish consequent on the non-observance of the laws which at present exist for their preservation. By the statute 3 James I. “for the better preservation of sea-fish,” it is enacted, that “every person who shall fish in any haven, harbour, or creek, or within five miles of the mouth of any haven, harbour, or creek, with any draw-net or drag-net under three inches mesh, or with any net with canvass or other engine or device, by which the spawn, fry, or brood °f sea-fish may be destroyed, shall forfeit such net, and also ten shillings.” By 14 Charles II. “for regulating the pilchard fishery,” from the 1st June to 30th November no person shall take fish in the high sea, or in any bay, port, cree ’, or coast of Cornwall or Devon, with any drift-net, trammel, or stYeam-net, or other nets of that sort, unless at the distance of one league and a half from the shore,” under penalty of forfeiting the nets or value, and one month s imprisonment of the offender. The 1st Geo. I. en-

that the meshes of nets used at sea upon the coast of England shall not be less than three inches and a half from knot to knot,” under penalty of forfeiture of nets, and of L.20, with power of imprisoning the offender. The 33d Geo. II. provides “that no person shall kill or destroy, or knowingly have in his or her possession, either on the water or on shore, or shall bring to shore, or offer for sale or exchange, any spawn, fry, or brood of fish, or any unsizeable fish, or fish out of season,” under the penalty of twenty shillings, and forfeiture of the baskets or other packages containing them.

Ί hese salutary statutes seem to have been neglected, and, in the opinion of the committee, ought to be revised, and the provisions extended; and that conservators or overseers should be appointed for the purpose of enforcing the act. The French take care to protect their bays and breedinggrounds from the 15th April to the 1st September, the intermediate months being the spawning or breeding season of the fish, when the young brood have not become of a sufficient size or strength to take refuge in deeper waters. It is stated in evidence, that in the year 1816 the Trowl fishermen on the coast of Devon, acting under the advice of the present Lord Vernon, tried the experiment by mutual consent, of preserving their breeding-grounds undisturbed from the 1st of July to the 20th of September in that year, the consequence of which was a greater abundance of fish in the ensuing season than had ever before been known upon that coast; and the fishermen were desirous that the restraint which they had thus voluntarily imposed upon their fishing should in future be enforced by law. Accordingly, in 1819 a bill was brought into the house, “to prevent the destruction of the brood and spawn of fish,” which, however, was thrown out on the third reading; but in the year 1822 the same bill was again brought in and passed the Commons, but was lost in the Lords; since which no further attention appears to have been paid to the subject, and thus the evils complained of have continued unredressed, and, as it appears, are increasing.

The stow-boat fishery, or catching of sprats for manure, which prevails principally upon the Kentish, Norfolk, and Essex coasts, is highly injurious to the spawn and brood of fish, the nets used being so very fine as to enclose not only sprats, but the spawn and young breed of all other kinds of fish. The demand for this species of manure is said to be so extensive, that there are at this time from 400 to 500 boats engaged in stow-boating on the Kentish coast only, each remaining out till it has obtained a full cargo of dead fish for the purpose of manuring the land. The legislature ought certainly to put a stop to this most injurious practice, or at least confine it within specific limits both as to time and space.

It is stated that the herring and pilchard fisheries have declined considerably, not so much from the competition of French fishermen, as from the heavy duty levied at Naples of sixteen shillings a barrel, which amounts nearly to a prohibition; the pilchard fishery also suffers from the same cause. It appears also that the clergyman demands tithe to the amount of between two and three pounds per annum for each herring or mackerel boat, which appears not to be more than about one-eightieth part, after deducting the boat’s expenses.

It is suggested that it would afford some small encouragement to the fisheries, by increasing the inland consumption, if the fish-carts were allowed to pass the turnpike gates [7:9:596]free of tolls. This exemption, if granted, would particularly relieve the fisheries at Yarmouth, Harwich, Dover, Folkestone, and Hastings, and increase their supply of fresh fish, particularly of mackerel, to the London market. London, however, is the best supplied market for fish, perhaps, in the kingdom, and it does not appear that any monopoly or injurious regulations now exist, either in the mode of supplying the market or in the sale of fish.

It may be curious to see the weekly supply of different kinds of fresh fish for the London market, that is to say, for six days from the 19th to the 24th of June inclusive :—
[table]

Besides fresh cod-fish, skate, haddock, and other fish in smaller quantities.

With all the impediments to an extended use of fish in ? the home market, and notwithstanding the established character which the Dutch fish have always borne among foreign nations, it is consoling to find that the herring fishery generally has been in a progressive state of improvement. Since the act of 48 Geo. III. appointing commissioners, separate and distinct from the customs and excise, to superintend the distribution of bounties, stationing of officers versed in the trade of the herring fishery, persons who had experimentally and practically followed that fishery as a trade, but who are excluded from all interest or participation in the trade, the herring fishery has become with us, as it was with the Dutch, an object of national concern; the good effects of which are most sensibly felt in every part of the coast where it has regularly been established, by the labour it provides, the demand it creates for a variety of articles required by it, and the money it throws into circulation. By this act, an annual report by the commissioners, of their proceedings, ending the 5th April, is required to be presented to parliament each session; containing the details of the fishery of the preceding year, together with such observations and suggestions as may have occurred, or been communicated, to the commissioners, in the interval between the reports. In the report of the year ending 1814, they had stated, “that the superior value of herrings branded by the officers of the fishery, in point of quality, weight, and measure, was becoming every year more generally acknowledged, even in markets where till of late gutted herrings were not much prized; and this they ascribe to their refusal of every application for allowing bounty on barrels out of the full size of thirty-two gallons, and to their having directed prosecutions against the proprietors of such herrings as had been seized, for being presented for bounty in undersized barrels; and that, with • other precautions respecting the proper cure of the herrings, the desired effect had been produced, of raising the character of British herrings in the foreign market.” In their report of 1816, they state that they have had their attention turned to different matters calculated to improve the cure of herrings, and to raise the character of the British fishery in foreign parts; that a communication, made to them by a mercantile house of respectability, on the subject of increasing the exportation of herrings to the Continent of Europe, had been printed, and distributed among the curers throughout the kingdom; that regulations had been adopted for improving the construction of barrels intended for bounty; that the boats of the fishermen had .been properly fitted up for the reception of herrings; that bounty had been refused on all barrels not full of pickle· and that the strictest orders had been given to the officers of the fishery, to apply the official brand in no case, unless both herrings and casks were in every respect such as would do credit to the establishment. In the year 1817 the commissioners point out in their report the great increase which had taken place in the exportation of British herrings to the Continent of Europe, in consequence of the communication made to and the regulations adopted by them, as contained in the preceding report; and, in the year 1818, they observe that they had received a memorial on the subject from Hamburg, signed by a number of herring merchants of that port, bearing testimony to the improvement which had taken place in the quality of British herrings, and pointing out the means of raising their character still higher. This memorial the commissioners likewise caused to be printed and distributed amongst the curers, which they accompanied with such additional observations as they conceived to be necessary, and which they state to have produced the most salutary effects. They conclude their statement with the gratifying intelligence, that the character of the British fishery is rising both at home and abroad; for that, whilst the quantity of herrings cured gutted is annually increasing, the quantity cured ungutted is every year diminishing; that, great as the amount of the fishery had been in the course of that year, the demand had fully kept pace with it; and that, at the end of the season, few herrings remained unsold in the hands of the curers. They further report, that whilst the exportation to the Continent of Europe had nearly equalled that of the preceding year, and the exportation to the West Indiesand Ireland had increased, a new market had opened in the East Indies, to which different shipments of herrings had been made, by way of experiment, both from Greenock and London; that, from the former of these places, upwards of 1300 firkins were exported to Calcutta, all of which, they understood, were purchased by Europeans there at 20s. to 25s. per firkin; and that it was the intention of the exporter, in consequence of this encouragement, to ship a larger quantity next season; so that the commissioners trust that India will soon become a permanent and valuable market for the consumption of British herrings. The report thus concludes: “It is impossible to state, within the compass of this report, the advantages resulting to the community from the prosperity of the herring fishery; but the commissioners think it their duty briefly to mention that the effects thereof are felt in almost every part of the kingdom. The fishermen have, in many cases, been enabled, by the produce of their industry, to replace the small boats formerly used, by new boats of much larger dimensions, and to provide themselves with fishing materials of superior value. The number of boats and of fishermen has been greatly increased; while, by the general introduction of the practice of gutting, a valuable source of employment has been opened to thousands of poor people, who now annually resort to the coast during the continuance of the fishing season, and there earn a decent livelihood in the operations of gutting and packing. New dwelling-houses and buildings, on a superior construction, for the curing and storing of the herrings, are erecting at almost every station along the coast; whi¢ the demand for home wood for the manufacture of barre S affords a source of profit and employment to numbers people in the most inland parts of the country.” ļöļ n

The following report for the year ending 5th April I > exhibits at one view the then state of the herring ∏s er J r at the different stations in Great Britain, under the su P1 intendence and control of the commissioners, and the o cers appointed by them.
[7:9:597]

No. I.

An Account of the Total Number of Barrels of White Herrings which h α ve been landed from th e Fishery or cured o η Shore, in the Year ended 5th April 1819; in as far as the game h α s come under th e cognizance of the Officers of the Fishery· '
[table]
[7:9:598]

No. II.

An Account of the Total Number of Barrels of White Herrings which have been branded for th£ Bounty of 4s. and of 3s. 9√. per Barrel, in the Year ended 5th April 1819.
[table]
[7:9:599]

No. III.
[table]

An Account of the Total Number of Barrels of White Pf p τrir>∩< i r , „ Year ended åŭ April 1819, in as far as Ae sa m e have ee, m e under AE ⅛i⅛ ŽZŴŵíSĴ

This rapid progress shows that there is no art or mystery in the catching and curing of herrings that the English cannot attain as well as the Dutch; and the same thing is further proved by the successful experiment made by the Downs Society of Fishermen, in the report of whose proceedings it is stated that herrings had been taken within the Cinque Ports of a quality so nearly resembling the deep-sea fish, that they were cured and sold as the best Dutch herrings. It will also be seen by Table I. that the progressive increase of the herring fishery is confined to Scotland; and that the quantity brought under the inspection of the officers in England amounts not to one twenty-second part of the whole; whilst the flourishing little town θι Wick alone furnishes nearly one fifth. But the most extraordinary increase is that which has taken place in the ^bouring county of Sutherland. Formerly the people 0 this county were contented to hire themselves as fishermen to the adventurers of Wick. In 1814 they attempt-θ a fishery on their own account, and the mouth of the elmsdale river was fixed upon as the station. A storehouse and curing-house were here erected; and the boats were manned by the people brought from the mountains and the interior of the country. Every thing was new to them in the employ they were about to engage in. The fishing commenced on the 20th July, and ended on the 3d September 1814; and the produce of four boats was respectively L.105. 3s., L.83. 8s., L.96. 8s., and L.148. 3s. They were manned by four men each, so that they made, on an average, rather more than L.27 a man. In 1815 the number of boats employed amounted to fifty, almost entirely manned by Sutherland men; and the number of barrels caught and repacked exceeded 4000, chiefly gutted. In 1817 this fishery gave employment to about 200 tenants, seventeen coopers, and 130 women; in 1818 to seventy coopers, 520 women, 700 men, 140 boats; and, in the year 1819, the quantity caught and cured at Helmsdale, as appears by the table, amounted to no less than 22,876 barrels, besides upwards of 100,000 cod and ling. Whilst the herring fishery was making these rapid strides in the Highlands of Scotland, the ancient town of North [7:9:600] Yarmouth, which owes its existence to the herring fishery, and in the time of Edward III. had an act, usually called “the statute of herrings,” passed in its favour, for the regulation of its herring-fair, exhibited only the small number of 1039 barrels.

And not only does North Britain take the lead in the herring-fishery, but it has also availed itself of its favourable situation for carrying on that branch which may be reckoned next perhaps in importance, namely, the cod and ling fishery. The whole extent of sea, from the neighbourhood of the Orkney and Zetland Islands, to Iceland on the one hand, and to the coast of Norway on the other, and along the eastern and western shores of Scotland, to the Flemish banks on the east and the coast of Ireland on the west, may be considered as one great fishing domain, over which the different species of the cod genus are most plentifully dispersed; as are also turbot, skate, soles, haddocks, and whitings. These fish, which constitute collectively what is usually called the τvhite fishery, surround as it were the whole of North Britain, and give to that portion of the united kingdom advantages which its southern neighbours cannot boast of.

The only fishery perhaps which neither the Scotch nor the English follow up with the same success as the Dutch, is that of the turbot, the finest of which are supposed to be taken upon the Flemish banks. The turbot fishery begins about the end of March, when the Dutch fishermen assemble a few leagues to the south of Scheveling. As the warm weather approaches, the fish gradually advance to the northward, and, during the months of April and May, they are found in great shoals on the banks called the Broad Forties. Early in June they have proceeded to the banks which surround the small island of Heligoland, off the mouth of the Elbe, where the fishery continues till the middle of August, when it terminates for the year. The mode of taking turbot is as follows: At the beginning of the season the drag-net is used, which, being drawn along the banks, brings up various kinds of flat fish, as soles, plaice, thornbacks, and turbots; but when the warm weather has driven the fish into deeper water, and upon banks of a rougher surface, where the drag-net is no longer practicable, the fishermen have then recourse to the hook and line. Each line extends from one to nearly three miles in length, and is armed with six, seven, or eight hundred hooks, fixed to it at the distance of several yards from each other. To keep these long lines properly stretched, and prevent their being carried away by the tide, heavy masses of lead in some places, and small anchors in others, are attached to them. The hooks are baited with the common smelt, and a small fish resembling an eel, called the gorebill. Though very considerable quantities of this fish are now taken on various parts of our own coasts, from the Orkneys to the Land’s End, yet a preference is given in the London market to those caught by the Dutch, who are supposed to have drawn not less than L.80,000 a year for the supply of this market alone; and the Danes from L.12,000 to L.15,000 a year for sauce to this luxury of the table, extracted from about one million of lobsters, taken on the rocky shores of Norway, though our own shores are in many parts plentifully supplied with this marine insect, equal in goodness to those of Norway.

Scotland has very decidedly the advantage over England in the salmon fishery, which, if not of superior value, may be allowed to rank next in importance to the cod fishery. This fish being rarely caught except in estuaries or rivers, may be considered as in a great degree private property; and it may therefore be presumed that the fishery is conducted to the greatest possible extent and advantage. From the extremity of the Highlands, and from the Orkney and Zetland Islands, these fish are sent to the London market, as before mentioned, in ice; and when the season is at its height, and they catch more than can be taken off hand fresh, they are then salted, pickled, or dried, for winter consumption at home, and for the foreign markets. Perhaps the fishery of the Tweed is the first in point of the quantity caught, which is sometimes quite astonishing, several hundreds being taken at a single draught of the net. It is here where the kitted salmon is principally prepared for the London market, being first boiled and then pickled with vinegar.

The decrease of salmon in the English and Scotch rivers particularly of late years, is a fact as to which there can be no manner of doubt. Much unsatisfactory discussion has taken place as to its causes, which are probably of a very diversified character. A good deal has been ascribed to the increase of water machinery on the banks of the different rivers; but we hardly think that this could have much influence, except perhaps in the case of the smaller class of rivers. Weirs or salmon traps have also been much objected to; though, as we have been assured, with still less reason. On the whole, we are inclined to think that the falling off in the supply of this valuable fish is principally to be ascribed to the temptation to over-fish the rivers, caused by the extraordinary rise in the price of salmon; to the prevalence of poaching; and, more than all, to the too limited duration of the close time. In 1828, after a great deal of discussion and inquiry, an act was passed (9 Geo. IV. c. 39), which' has done a good deal to remedy these defects, in as far at least as respects the Scotch fisheries. The rivers are to be shut from the 14th of September to the 1st of February; and every person catching or attempting to catch fish during that period is to forfeit not less than L.l and not more than L.10 for every offence, besides the fish, if he have caught any, and such boats, nets, or other implements as he may have made use of. Pecuniary penalties are also inflicted upon poachers and trespassers; and provision is made for the watching of the rivers. We understand that this act has upon the whole had a very good effect; though it is believed that it would be better were the close time extended from the 1st of September to the middle of February.

The late Sir Humphry Davy delivered into the hands of the committee a paper on the natural history of the salmon, which he concludes with the following observations. “There is a general complaint,” he says, “of the diminution of salmon in fisheries. In the Thames it can scarcely be said to exist; and even in the Avon, the Severn, and the Trent, it is becoming comparatively a scarce fish. The great northern fisheries, and the Irish fisheries, are much less productive than formerly.” The simple remedies for this national evil he states to be, 1. to suffer more fish to spawn, and fish of all ages and sizes; 2. to prevent any fish from being killed in rivers after spawning; and, 3∙ to prevent the young salmon or salmon fry from being killed.

He is of opinion that each variety of salmon or salmon trout affects a particular river, and always returns to it; that therefore all stake fishings should be abolished, as they enable persons having no interest in the river to cut on almost entirely the supply of fish, for salmon do not go ≡ out into the sea, and always return along the coast, scenting out, as it were, their own river; and that a strong net pot across an estuary might destroy in one year the whole fishery of a river. He recommends that no close wears shoul( be allowed, but that there should be always a free passage for fish, so that early fish may go up as well as late ns > that no machinery should be allowed in a river, by )' 1 } 10 spawning fish may be killed; that nets should be hmι e( to a certain size, so as to render it impossible to sweep river; and that no angling should be allowed in salmon n vers till May, nor after October.
[7:9:601]

The annual value of the Scotch and English fisheries, and the number of persons and craft employed on them, are but vaguely stated in the statistical reports of the several maritime counties of Great Britain; and in some of them the subject, important as it certainly must be considered in our economical system, and as connected intimately with the subsistence and employment of the labouring poor, is altogether omitted. This defect is more particularly to be regretted at this moment, when inquiries are anxiously making, not only how to employ a superabundant population, but to ascertain to what extent the powers of the country are capable of supplying the means for its subsistence. Indeed we conceive that a statistical survey of the British fisheries, as far as it could be made out, would afford a most valuable document in aid of a more complété investigation of that branch of political economy which relates to the employment and the feeding of the people. The following brief account must, therefore, be considered as very imperfect. It is to be understood that the returns of the herring fishery, as given in the preceding table, are not taken into the account.

Sutherland. The waters in which the salmon fishery is chiefly carried on in this county are those of Naver, Helmsdale, and Brora, and the rent of these fisheries is about L.1700 a year; the produce L∙6800. In one year, from December to March inclusive, were caught between Bighouse Bay, on the north coast, and Rou-stoir in Assynt, on the west coast, 30,000 lobsters, which at three pence a piece, the price paid to the fishermen, amounted to L.375. They were carried in smacks to the London market, where at that season of the year their value was estimated at about L.7000. It is estimated that each of the thirty-seven boats on the coast of Assynt might produce L.100 a year. Three boats at Golspie are stated to make about L.150 a year by haddocks alone, which are consumed by the country people. Of the quantity of cod and ling exported no account is given, but these valuable fish are taken in great abundance on every part of the coast. Whatever opinions may exist with respect to the policy of the measures which have recently been adopted regarding the tenantry of this county, there can be but one in considering the late Duke of Sutherland as a great promoter of the fisheries, and a benefactor to all who are concerned in them.

Caithness. It is asserted, with every probability of truth, that there is no district in Europe better calculated for carrying on the fisheries, either in point of profit, variety, or extent, than Caithness. In the fresh waters of the county, and the seas by which it is surrounded, there are enumerated forty-five different kinds of esculent fish. Next to the herring, the cod fishery, near Thurso, may be reckoned as the most important. Indeed the whole coast of W ick and Latheron, and every part of the Pentland Frith, abounds with this valuable species of fish, as well as all the )ther kinds usually distinguished by the name of white fish. The herring fishery, as will be seen in the preceding table, holds a high place among the established fishing stations; and, in fact, the whole county feels the beneficial effects of an active prosecution of the fisheries, out of which has of late years risen a new town, near Wick, named Pulteney Town; and all the villages on the coast are in a progressive state of enlargement and improvement from the same Source.

Poss and Cromarty. In the report of the agriculture of these counties, by Sir George Mackenzie, there are some Excellent observations respecting the herring fishery, the decline of which, previous to the late act, he ascribes to the circumstance of salt being delivered to the fishers free of duty; which made the fishermen rely on the greater part of their expenses, and some part of their profits, being paid by the fraudulent practice of smuggling the salt for sale; and to such an extent was this practice carried, that it is broadly asserted “there is not a farmer in the Highlands who uses any other than fishery salt for butter, cheese, and other provisions; there is no other salt used in private families.

The cod fishery of Gairloch is the most productive of any upon the coast of Scotland. The fishing is from January to April. The fish are small in size, but rich, averaging about five pounds each when cleaned for salting. They are mostly pickled, and also dried, and sent to Ireland, Liverpool, and London. The average annual produce is about 20,000 cod, taken by twenty boats, each having about 400 hooks; which number, it is stated, might easily be doubled. For the success of this fishery, those who followed it were greatly indebted to the bounty and judicious assistance of Sir Hector Mackenzie.

Nairn and Moray. The principal fishery of this part of North Britain is that of salmon, chiefly in the rivers Nairn, Findhorn, and Spey, the whole of which, supposed to amount yearly to about L.25,000, is exported to the London market in smacks of eighty or a hundred tons burden, packed to the number of three or five in a box with pounded ice. These smacks keep the sea in all kinds of weather, and generally reach their destination from the fifth to the ninth day. When salmon begins to be too plentiful in the market, it is then boiled and sent up in kits. The price is so high where caught, that salmon is considered as a luxury, and is exhibited only at a feast.

Aberdeen. The salmon fishery is the most considerable in this county, and most productive on the Dec and the Don. The usual practice, formerly, was to salt the fish, pack them in barrels of about four hundredweight each, and export them to the south of Europe. In 1798 the quantity caught on the Dee was equal to 1890 of these barrels, and on the Don 1667 barrels. At present they are sent up fresh to the London market; and it is stated that the price, since 1768, has increased in a five-fold proportion, and that not more than one pound of salmon is consumed in the county for forty that are exported. The fishings on the Ugie, the Ythan, and the coast near these rivers, vary from 200 to 600 barrels. The ordinary sea fishing for haddocks, cod, ling, skate, turbot, halibut, &c. is stated to employ a number of fishermen, who carry on their occupation chiefly in small creeks, and that it brings in yearly from L.15,000 to L.30,000, the greater part of which is consumed within the county; excepting about 500 barrels of cod, and a considerable quantity of ling, exported from Peterhead; from which place also, and Aberdeen, the Greenland whale fishery has been carried on with great success. The whole of the fisheries connected with the county yield from L.80,000 to L.100,000 annually.

Kincardine. The sea fishing, or white fishery as it is usually called, is stated to have greatly fallen off in this county. In upwards of thirty miles of sea-coast, the annual value of the white fish caught, and chiefly consumed in the county, does not exceed L.6000, giving employment to about 303 fishermen, or 200 families, consisting of 900 souls. The number of boats is about forty-three, and of yawls twenty-seven. The salmon fishery is of more importance; that in the North Esk is farmed at upwards of L.2400 a year. This, however, is the principal fishery, all the other waters in the county not producing a rental of more than L.300 a year.

The Lothians. Excepting a limited herring fishery at Dunbar, and a local fishery for the scanty supply of the neighbouring towns, the only other fishery deserving of notice, as a branch of trade, in East Lothian, is the oyster fishery at Prestonpans. From this place there have been sent to fatten, in bays near the mouths of the Ί hames and Medway, thirty cargoes in one season, eacl· cargo consisting of 32 [7:9:602]barrels, and each barrel containing 1200 saleable oysters, which brought about L.2500; but the quantity consumed near the spot, and in Edinburgh, brought somewhat more, and this branch of trade gave occasional employment to about forty boats. In that part of the Frith of Forth which washes the coast of West Lothian, besides a herring fishery on a limited scale, a scanty supply of cod, haddocks, whitings, skate, flounders, crabs, lobsters, and oysters, is taken for the use of the neighbouring towns. Dumfries. The only fishery of any importance in this county is the salmon fishery in the Solway Frith, and the rivers, chiefly the Annan, falling into it, the rents of which do not exceed L.1400 a year, and are supposed to be too high; the fishing having greatly decreased in consequence of the destructive engines made use of by the renters. It is stated by one gentleman, that the number of salmon taken is not equal to one in a hundred of those caught some forty years ago. Inverness. The salmon fisheries in the lochs and rivers of this county are those of most importance, and let for about L.3000 a year. Those on Loch Beauly and Loch Ness arc the most valuable. A singular method of taking salmon is described near Invermoriston, where the river flows in a narrow chasm between two projecting rocks: “The fisherman seats himself on a cleft of this rock, right over the cascade, with a spear in his hand, which has a line fixed to the upper end of the shaft, similar to the practice of fishing for whales with harpoons. Whenever the salmon makes a spring to gain the ascent over the cataract, the spearman strikes the fish and lets the shaft go, holding only by the line until the fish has exhausted his strength; then the spear and fish are thrown ashore by the stream, and taken out at the lower side of the pool.” Argyle. The whole of this county is so intersected with sounds, straits, lochs, and rivers, that the fisheries might be carried on within them to almost any extent; and fishing is accordingly the occupation of a great number of its inhabitants, there being in the whole about 1500 fishing-boats employed, of which Lochfine alone employs 600. The value of the fish caught is stated to be from L.40,000 to L.50,000 annually. The Hebrides. The following is the whole account of the fisheries of these numerous islands, contained in the Agricultural Survey : “These fisheries,” says Mr Macdonald, “do not belong to an agricultural survey; but they are of very essential importance to the Hebrides, and therefore merit notice in this place. They bring into those isles L.200,000a year, at an expense perhaps of L.120,000, that is, they yield a clear profit in money and sustenance of L.80,000 to the natives. They occupy, together with the kelp manufacture, 2562 boats and vessels of every description, and for some months in the year 10,500 sailors. The fencible men, or those between the age of sixteen and twenty, being one fourth of the population, are 22,762; so that nearly one half of the effective male population is connected with the fishery. The principal fishing ports are Rothesay in Bute, Stornoway in Lewis, Tobermory in Mull, and Portnahaven in Islay; but the districts of Harris, Barray, South Uist, Skye, and various other islands, fit out a number of boats annually, or supply the Clyde busses with excellent mariners and fishermen.” Berwick. London, it has been already observed, receives a very considerable portion of its fresh salmon from the fishery on the Tweed, that on the English side of the river alone giving employment to seventy small boats and about 300 fishermen. The value is not mentioned, but it is stated, in the Survey of Durham, that the rents amount to L. 15,766 annually, and that, so far back as 1807, the number of boxes sent to London was 8445, of eight stone each, or 67,560 stone, which, at 16s. a stone, is L.54,000; besides what is killed for exportation, and what is solo fresh in the neighbourhood. The salmon, as they are caught, are packed in ice and sent away in the vessels well known under the name of Berwick smacks. Formerly it was all pickled and kitted, after being boiled, and sent to London under the name of Newcastle salmon; but the present mode has so raised the value of the fish, as nearly to banish this article of food from use among the inhabitants in the environs of the fishery, excepting as an expensive luxury. Within memory, salted salmon formed a material article of economy in all the farm-houses of the vale of Tweed, insomuch that in-door servants often bargained that they should not be obliged to take more than two weekly meals of salmon. It could then be bought fresh at 2s. the stone, of nineteen pounds weight; it is now never below 12s., often 36s., and sometimes two guineas, the stone.

The coast fishery is not of very material importance. It gives employment to upwards of 100 fishermen, at eight small fishing stations, with about twenty boats. The fishearriers, under the name of cadgers, purchase and distribute the white fish, codlings, haddock, whitings, skate, halibut, and flounders, with a very few turbot, into the inland country, and often as far as Edinburgh. Cod and ling are generally contracted for, by the season, at a fixed price, by the fish-curers, who either salt and dry them, or barrel them, as the weather may serve. The fisheries on the coasts of Cumberland, Northumberland, Yorkshire, and Lancashire, are not once adverted to in the agricultural surveys of these counties.

Durham. The salmon fisheries in the Tyne, the Wear, and the Tees, are stated to have declined very much of late years, in consequence, it is supposed, of dams being thrown across these rivers, which prevent the fish from getting up to spawn.

Lincolnshire. On the coast of this county the fisheries appear to be almost wholly neglected. There is a little fish, however, in the east and west fens, called a stickleback, so numerous, that a man may make 4s. a day by selling them at a halfpenny a bushel. They also come from the sea into Boston Haven, where they are purchased for manure, being more powerful than any other kind known, even that of the whale refuse. It is almost unnecessary to state that, in this fenny county, pike, carp, perch, and tench, are most abundant.

Norfolk. The Norfolk surveys take little notice of the fisheries. It appears that the sticklebacks are caught in immense quantities in the Lynn river, about once in seven years, and are purchased for manure at the rate of sixpence or eightpence a bushel. It is mentioned, however, in Kent’s Norfolk, that herrings to the amount of L.50,000 are annually exported, but that fish for the use of the inhabitants are neither regularly supplied nor cheap; that the best fish are lobsters, soles, and cod; that the whitings are small, and the oysters very large.

Suffolk. Besides the herring fishery carried on from Lowestoffe, by forty or fifty boats of forty tons each, the mackerel fishery is pursued during the season with great vigour. The value of this fish, caught in the course of six weeks, is stated to exceed L∙10,000, independently of the usual kinds of white fish for the supply of the neighbourhood and the London market, the total value of the ns - ings being not less than L.30,000 a year. Most of the herrings caught here are dried and sent to the ports of t e Mediterranean.

Essex. The oyster fishery is of all others the most ım portant to this county. The principal station of the dre g ing-boats is at Mersea in Blackwater, which, with e Crouch and the Coln, are the most extensive bree mg rivers in Essex. The oysters are brought from the coas s of Hampshire, Dorset, and other maritime counties, eve [7:9:603]as far as Scotland, and laid in the beds or layings i∏ the creeks adjoining those rivers. The number of vessels immediately employed in the dredging for oysters is about 200, from twelve to forty or fifty tons burden each, employing from 400 to 500 men and boys. The quantity of oysters bred and taken in this county and consumed annually, mostly in London, is supposed to amount to 14,000 or 15,000 bushels. All the other fisheries connected with this part of the coast are stated to employ a capital supposed to amount to from L.60,000 to L.80,000.

Middlesex. This county, having no fishery of its own, but the very trifling one afforded by the Thames, is infinitely the greatest consumer of fish, and demands a larger supply than all the rest of the empire together. By a return of the cargoes of fish brought by water to the Billingsgate market, it appears that, on an average of six years ending 1785, the number of cargoes amounted to 1569, and of four years ending with 1803, the average was 2428; the average tonnage being about fifty, and the general average of fish in each about forty tons, which will give nearly 100,000 tons of fish. Supposing the quantity brought by land carriage to be one fifth of the other, the whole weight of fish brought to the London market would amount to the enormous quantity of 120,000 tons a year, which, supposing the capital and its environs to contain 1,200,000 inhabitants, would allow 200 pounds of fish annually to each individual; and, of course, a very considerable quantity must be dried or salted fish for exportation, if the returns be at all correct.

Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, and Dorset. In the Agricultural Surveys of these counties, little notice is taken of the fisheries; in the first they are not even mentioned. In Sussex, the produce of the ponds in carp, tench, and perch only are noticed; and even these, it would seem, are monopolized by a London fish-dealer. In the rivers of Hampshire the salmon fishery is carried on, but to no great extent. The little town of Hamble, situated on the shore of the Southampton water, has about twenty sail of well and other boats constantly employed in fishing, and which go as far as the Scilly Islands and the Land’s End for lobsters, crabs, and craw-fish in the season. In the winter they dredge for oysters, and for about a month catch vast quantities of herrings round the Isle of Wight, the waters of which also afford employment in the whitings, plaice, prawns, shrimps, lobsters, and crabs, with which they abound. Southampton market is generally well supplied with all kinds of fish, and Portsmouth pretty well, but not equally so with the former place. The town of Poole in Dorset is deeply engaged in the Newfoundland fishery. Along the sea coast of all these counties, the mackerel fishery during the season, and the taking of the various kinds of white fish, especially soles and whitings for the London market, and the supply of the neighbouring towns, occupy a very considerable portion of the inhabitants of the former place.

Devonshire. The supply of salmon in the waters of Devon was formerly so abundant, that here too the farm servants found it necessary to stipulate that they should not be obliged to eat salmon more than twice a week; but he case of late years is widely altered, the fishery having allen off so as to be of little or no importance. This is stated to be owing to a wasteful and improvident destruction of the species, by taking the young fish on their return seaward towards the end of the year; no less than a thousand having been taken in one week at Brightley on the river Taw, where, and at Umberleigh, it has been usual for the young salmon fry, or gravellers, to be given to the pigs.

The sea-fishery is conducted with a considerable degree °f activity in this county, Brixham alone having no less than 100 sail of vessels employed in the fisheries. Soles, whitings, flounders, gurnet, john dories, and the red mulet, are caught in great abundance and of the finest qua-hty, and sent < to London, Bath, and Bristol, also to Plymouth, Exeter, and the neighbouring towns; and when, in the summer season, the quantity taken is greater than can be disposed of, the fish are well cleaned, salted, and dried in the sun: thus prepared, they take the name of buck-horn, and are esteemed an excellent relish, much sought after in the navy, and also along the French coast. & Cornwall. In addition to the different kinds of fish which are taken off the coast of Devon, Cornwall has the advantage of an annual visit of vast shoals of pilchards, equally abundant, for the space they cover, with the shoals of herrings. The four principal ports from which the pilchard fishery is carried on are, Fowey, Falmouth, Penzance, and St Ives. At Polperro, which is perhaps the smallest establishment, upwards of forty boats and nearly 200 fishermen are engaged in the hook and line fishery; and the aggregate value of the fish taken is supposed to amount to L.5000 annually, most of which is distributed all over the country to the distance of thirty miles, by men and women carriers. The markets of Exeter and Bath, Plymouth, Liskeard, Tavistock, and other places, receive supplies from hence; and lobsters are delivered to the Southampton well-boats for London. The neighbouring poor are supplied almost all the year round with fresh and salted pilchards. Indeed the multitudes of these fish taken on the coast of Devonshire, as well as Cornwall, are enormous between the months of July and September inclusive, when the whole line of coast presents a scene of bustle and activity. The fish for foreign export and winter consumption are laid up on shore in large stacks or piles, with layers of salt between each row; here they are suffered to lie for twenty or thirty days, during which time a vast discharge of pickle mixed with blood and oil takes place, all of which is carefully caught in pits, and preserved for manure, which is eagerly purchased by the farmer and carried away in casks. It is said that every pilchard will dress and richly manure one square foot of ground. The fish are then carefully washed with sea-water, dried and packed in hogsheads, in which state they are sent abroad. The average value of pilchards taken in one year in Cornwall is supposed to be from L.50,000 to L.60,000.

The pilchard fishery has indeed been long of great importance to the inhabitants of the coast of Cornwall, the quantity taken by seine nets in some years having amounted to the enormous extent of 50,000 hogsheads; but it has not, on an average of the last fifteen years, exceeded half of that quantity. This, as before stated, is very much owing to the heavy duties imposed by the government of Naples; but the practice of driving the fish, and taking them by what are called drift nets, is considered as most injurious to the more important fishery by the seine.

The pilchard is supposed not to be a fish of passage, but to remain off the coast, in deep water, when not frequenting the bays. At such times they move about in large .bodies of separate and distinct shoals, each shoal having, it is supposed, leading fish to direct them; indeed they are known to have a lively instinct of danger, and to leave the shore on the least interruption and noise. A few years ago, when an experimental squadron was manoeuvring in the Channel, on exercising the great guns, the inhabitants of Cornwall complained that the pilchards had wholly disappeared, and requested that the practice of firing might be discontinued. It is this sensitiveness of the fish that makes the drift nets so particularly objectionable, the drivers following the shoals, and constantly interrupting their progress, diverting and dispersing the shoals, and preventing them from coming into shallow water.
[7:9:604]

The principal fishing station between Plymouth and Falmouth is Mevagissey, whence in the year 1818 about forty seines were sent out, which have since been reduced to about twenty, employing not more than about 330 men and 40 boys; but the employment given on shore to men, women, and children, is said to comprehend, directly and indirectly, nearly the whole population of the place. The original cost of each seine or concern is about L.1000 a float, and the capital on shore about L.500; so that the total outlay of the twenty seines will amount to L.30 s 000. Formerly these twenty seines would land in favourable seasons 10,000 hogsheads, which are said of late years scarcely to exceed 1000 hogsheads. The driving boats are stated to be about twenty-three, having two men, and in some instances two men and a boy, in each boat. The cost of a boat and nets may be from L.50 to L.100. The fish they catch are conveyed chiefly to the home market. Yet, insignificant as it appears to be, it is stated that the important branch of the fishery with the seine is fast sinking under the lawless proceedings of the drivers, which in the end must be its total ruin, unless it be protected by the government, or some more effective legislation. Why do none of the Cornish members take some steps to remedy this crying evil? Here there are no foreign competitors, but this valuable branch of the fisheries is impaired and threatened with destruction by the conflicting interests of our own countrymen.

Somerset. The salmon and herring fisheries of Porlock, Minehead, Watchet, and other places on the shores of the Bristol Channel, are stated to have been carried on to a considerable extent since the duty on salt used for curing fish for home consumption was removed; and the increase of the latter fishery has been the means, not only of furnishing employment during the winter for the seamen, who are engaged in the lime, stone, and eulm trade during the summer, but of providing a cheap and wholesome food for the labouring class of inhabitants.

The great extent of coast, washed by the sea, and the numerous fine streams and navigable rivers by which it is intersected, give to the principality of Wales the advantages of fisheries little if at all inferior to those in Scotland. In South Wales, Milford Haven, and its tributary streams, the Towy and its branches, the Laughor, the Teivy, and the Dovy, all navigable, abound with the finest salmon, sewin, trout, samlets, &c.; and the same kind of fish are equally plentiful in the twenty-two inferior streams, which fall into the sea on the coasts of the four maritime counties of Glamorgan, Caermarthen, Pembroke, and Cardigan. The value of the salmon sent to Bath and Bristol from Monmouth alone, the produce of the Wye, Usk, and Rum-ncy, is said to exceed L.4000 annually, exclusively of what is consumed in the county. The sea affords them annual shoals of herrings, which, with potatoes, is one of the chief articles of sustenance for the poor. They first appear in the bay of Cardigan towards the middle of September, just as the harvest is finished. The other sea fish are eod, haddocks, whitings, skate, ray, turbot, plaice, flounders, soles, mullets, gurnards, mackerel, dories, shad, &c. Shell-fish of all kinds are most abundant, and in various paŗts of Milford Haven there are inexhaustible beds of oysters of superior excellence. Those of Tenby and other parts of the coast arc of enormous size, but of inferior quality to those taken in Milford Haven.

It is worthy of remark, that the sewin is a fish peculiar to South Wales, and is not found in any river east of the Wye, or north of the Teivy, but frequents all the intermediate rivers, which they visit annually about the beginning of June, and continue in season till the end of August, weighing from one and a half to four or five pounds each. The samlet is a small fish about nine inches long, frequenting all the rivers in which salmon and trout are found; and it has been concluded, from the circumstance of a female samlet being utterly unknown, that they are the hybrid offspring of the female salmon and the male trout. As an article of food, they are excellent when fried, potted, or pickled.

In North Wales the sea fish are of the same description as those of the southern coast; and the herring fishery in the bay of Caernarvon is, perhaps, the most flourishing in all Wales; but the badness of the roads, and the distance by sea from any great market, check the demand for fish, and discourage the people from following the occupation. A good road from Caernarvon into Shropshire, to open a direct and speedy conveyance to the heart of England, where sea fish is scarcely known to nine tenths of the community, would be the means of increasing the demand for this palatable and wholesome food, of which the supply along the extensive coast of North Wales is inexhaustible.

The sea coasts of Ireland are as abundant as, and perhaps] more so, in every valuable species of fish, than those of Create Britain. Its numerous bays, creeks, inlets, lakes, and rivers, swarm with them. It is visited annually by vast shoals of herrings; and the banks near its shores are well stored with excellent eod, hake, and ling, equal in all respects to those caught upon the banks of Newfoundland. With the westerly winds, which may be reckoned to blow for nine months in the year, the produce of these fisheries might always be sent to ready markets at Bath, Bristol, Liverpool, and other great towns on the western and southern coasts of England; yet, either from indolence, want of inclination, or, which is more probable, want of capital, and most of all from want of proper regulations, the Irish have hitherto done little more than procure from their fisheries a scanty supply for the chief towns, and the fiιmilies of those who are resident near the coast. It would seem, indeed, that the Irish have not much taste for a seafaring life, few of their young men volunteering for the navy, whilst they go in shoals into the army; and those few who follow the occupation of fishermen are so much prejudiced in favour of their own clumsy methods of proceeding, as to resist all attempts at improvement. It is stated by Mr Whately, in his Hints for the Improvement of the Irish Fishery, that, when the trammel net was attempted to be introduced, by which, in a couple of hours, more fish might be taken than with their hookers in a whole night, such was the prejudice against this new mode of fishing, that the crews of the hookers, alarmed at the supposed diminution of their profit by the increased supply, combined together along the whole coast, and destroyed the trammel nets wherever they were discovered. There is, however, a species of trail, not commonly made use of, which, according to the opinion of Mr Mitehell, is highly injurious to the Irish fisheries.

“The common method of fishing in this manner on the coast,” says this author, “is with what they call a beamtrail, or trall, which consists of a large beam or pole, generally between twenty and thirty feet long, headed at both ends with large flat pieces of timber, which resemble the wheels of a common eart; except that, instead of being round, like them, they are rather semicircular, or resembling a heart cut in two, lengthways. They are shod, like the wheels of a eart, with iron. To this beam the trail net oı bag is fixed, and at each end ropes are fastened, by the help of which the ground is entirely swept so clean, that have been assured a fisherman will venture to throw n*s knife or any such small matter overboard, in thirty or forty fathom water, and readily take it up again .; and t us the ground is swept clean for a considerable tract, a every put, as they call it, the boat commonly sailing a [7:9:605]mile, or perhaps a league, before the bag and beam are hauled up.

“It has great inconveniences; for, Isŕ, it sweeps and tears away all the sea plants, moss, herring-grass, &c. which some fish feed on, making those species to seek elsewhere for food; 2√Zy, it disturbs and affrights the larger kinds of fish, as cod, ling, &c. in the same manner as if pursued by larger fish of prcy; and, 3dly, which is worse than all, these beam nets, and others of the kind which are dragged along the ground, tear away, disturb, and blend up the spawn of many kinds of profitable fish, in a terrible manner; and often many hogsheads of their spawn are drawn up in the trail bags, in which may be distinctly seen sevcral thousand embryos of young fish.”

Under proper regulations, the Irish herring fishery would no doubt equal, if not exceed, that of North Britain. At present no pains are bestowed in the salting and gutting of the fish. In some parts of the coast they are thrown into holes dug in the earth, and there salted, whence they are sent in bulk to Cork and other places, to be put into barrels. Loch Swilly is one of the principal bays for the herring fishery. The salmon fisheries in the north of Ireland might be rendered very valuable. That of Coleraine is, perhaps, the most productive; from five hundred to nearly a thousand fish being sometimes taken at a single draught. They are mostly pickled for exportation.

If the information be correct which is stated by Mr Fra- ser, in A Letter to the Eight Honourable Charles Abbot, nothing can more strongly exemplify the beneficial effects, arising from the free use of salt without being subject to bonds, pains, or penalties, than those derived from the privilege granted by parliament to the inhabitants of the Isle of Man, to import salt from England duty free, not only for curing fish, but for all other domestic purposes. “In the year 1784,” says Mr Fraser, “I had the honour to be appointed by the Treasury to make an inquiry into the state of the revenue and fisheries of that island. I found that, at that period, without bounties on their boats, or the tonnage of their fishing smacks, or any premiums other than the free use of salt, they carried on a most extensive fishery, which employed 2500 seamen. In the absence of the herrings, the fishermen supplied the consumption of the island in great abundance with white fish; the agriculture was greatly increased, and the population consisted of 30,000 souls, having nearly doubled the number of its inhabitants in fifteen years.” It further appears, from the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons for the Fisheries in 1798, that their boats had increased, both in number and size; that from a burden of ten or twelve tons, they had now advanced from sixteen to twenty-two tons, of which the number exceeded 350, each employing seven or eight men; that they had, besides, from forty to fifty fishing smacks from twenty to forty tons each, the whole employing upwards of 3000 seamen, which were then equal to the number of men and boys employed in the whole of the buss fishery of Scotland, supported by bounties to the extent of L.20,000 a year.

The fish which we have said to be next in importance to the herring in point of value, is perhaps not inferior to it in point of numbers. Like it, too, the cod is supposed to be migratory, though confined chiefly within the limits of 44° or 45°, and 68° or 70° of latitude, and is found generally on banks covered with a considerable depth of water; and the deeper the water the better is the quality of the Hsh. It is for this reason that the great Banks of Newfoundland, those near Ireland, the coast of Norway, the Orkney and the Zetland Islands, and other banks in the North Sea, the principal of which are the Wellbank, the Dogger bank, and the Broad Forties, are resorted to as the most favourable spots for the cod fishery. Of all these, however, the Banks of Newfoundland are most esteemed, and are, in consequence, the general fishing grounds of all European nations, more especially the English and French. ’ oιmcuy the Portuguese were the great fishers on these banks, and had their establishments on shore; but their fishery, like their commerce, fell with the decline of their naval power, and they are now content to buy their fish in their own ports, brought thither by ships belonging to foreigners.

'he Dutch have also for many years abandoned a fishery which they found less profitable than that nearer home. Indeed, so jealous were we once of the Dutch fishing on the Banks of Newfoundland, that Sir William Menson, in his treatise of the fishery, cautions the government to beware of letting them in; “for,” says he, “they are like a serpent that never stings so deadly as when it bites without hissing.” The French, by the treaty of 1763 with Great Britain, were limited in their fisheries to the neighbourhood of the small islands of St Pierre and Miquelon; and the Spaniards, by the same treaty, consented to abandon the Newfoundland fisheries altogether.

Since that time, however, a more formidable rival to the British fishery has started up in that of the Americans, who have latterly prosecuted the cod fishery with great vigour, and with advantages which the English, even with the possession of Newfoundland, are unable to command; owing, in a great degree, to the regulations by which this ancient possession of the British empire has till very lately been governed.

In a pamphlet entitled Considerations on the Expediency of Adopting Certain Measures for the Encouragement or Extension of the Newfoundland Fishery, supposed to have been written by the Secretary of Lord Gambier, when governor of that island, it is stated, that in the year 1805, the number of vessels employed in the American fishery amounted to about 1500, carrying about 10,000 men, and that the quantity of fish caught by them amounted to 800,000 or 900,000 quintals; whilst the whole produce of the British Newfoundland fishery of that year did not exceed 500,000 quintals, and that the number of vessels and men employed did not amount to one half of that employed by the Americans.

The causes assigned for this increasing success on the one hand, and falling off on the other, are as follow: The New England fishery, in all its branches, is carried on by shares, each man having a proportion of his own catch, and few or none being hired as servants on wages. By this mode the fisherman’s interest being proportioned to his industry, he is prompted to labour by the most powerful incentive. The American fishermen are remarkable for their activity and enterprise, and not less so tor their sobriety and frugality; and, in order to be as independent as possible of the owner of the vessel, each fisherman victuals himself, and the crew take it in turns to manage and cater for the rest. It is hardly necessary to add, that men, provisions, and every other article of outfit, are procured upon much better terms in the United States than in Great Britain. But the English fishermen must not only lay in a large stock of provisions out and home at a dear rate, but must also carry out with them a number of persons to assist in the fishery, who, consequently, eat the bread of idleness on the passage out end home; for the laws by which the colony was held were such as almost to forbid residency, and those who did reside had no power of internal legislation; they were restrained from erecting the necessary dwellings for themselves and their servants; they were prohibited from enclosing and cultivating the land, beyond the planting of a few potatoes; and from the importation of provisions from the United States, excepting only on such conditions as were not calculated to afford the residents much relief. “From a system,” says the author of. the pamphlet above mentioned, “the first object of which is to [7:9:606]withhold that principle of internal legislation, which is acknowledged to be indispensable to the good government of every community, which restrains the building of comfortable dwellings in a climate exposed to the most inclement winter, which prohibits the cultivation of the soil for food, and restricts the importation of it from the only market to which the inhabitants have the power to go,—from such a system it is not surprising that the inhabitants of Newfoundland are not able to maintain a competition against the American fishermen.”

During the late war, however, when France was completely driven out of her fisheries in the Gulf of St Lawrence, and the islands of St Pierre and Miquelon, the British and the resident fisheries about equalled, in the amount of fish taken, that of the Americans in the same quarter, who employed, in the year 1812, about 1500 vessels carrying each ten men, making, in the aggregate, the enormous number of 15,000 men employed in this branch of trade alone. The English merchants of London and Poole complain, and not without apparent good grounds, of the extraordinary privileges which America enjoyed at Newfoundland, in being permitted to cure and dry her fish on shore; which privileges, granted no doubt on an expectation that such a liberal proceeding would have paved the way to a reciprocal friendly conduct on her part, became a source of gross abuses and of unwarrantable claims. By the assembling together of numerous fleets, they interrupted the occupations of our residents; they destroyed their nets, enticed away their servants, smuggled into the colony coffee, tea, spirits, tobacco, India goods, and other articles of contraband, undersold the inhabitants in stores and provisions, and added insulting and abusive language to their manifold injuries.

Since the conclusion of the war, the United States have been re-admitted, by a convention, to all their former privileges of curing and drying their fish on the unsettled bays, harbours, and creeks of Nova Scotia, Labrador, and Newfoundland; but under certain modifications, which it is hoped will prevent those abuses that existed in a flagrant degree previously to the war. The Great Bank, owing to its distance from the shores of Newfoundland, is of course free to all the world; but the fishery can only be successfully carried on by a constant and uninterrupted communication with the shore, and the nearer to the shore that the fish are taken, the more advantageous is it to the fishermen. The Americans, being restrained from fishing within certain limits, and having the privilege of curing and drying their fish only at certain spots on the shore, labour under a comparative disadvantage with us in this respect, which serves to balance the advantage they possess over us in others. Under this convention, the fishermen of the United States are at liberty to take fish, in common with the subjects of his Britannic Majesty, on that part of the southern coast of Newfoundland which extends from Cape Ray to the Rameau Islands, from Cape Ray to the Q,uirpon Islands, on the shores of the Magdalen Islands, and also on the coasts, bays, harbours, and creeks, from Mount Joly, on the southern coast of Labrador, to and through the strait of Bellisle, and thence northerly indefinitely along the coast; and they are at liberty also to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, harbours, and creeks of the southern part of the coast of Newfoundland, and of the coast of Labrador; but as soon as the same, or any portion thereof, shall be settled, they are no longer at liberty to dry and cure fish at such portion, without a previous agreement with the inhabitants or proprietors; and, in consideration of these privileges, the United States renounce, on their part, any liberty heretofore enjoyed or claimed by their subjects, to take, dry, or cure fish, on or within three marine miles of any of the coasts, bays, creeks, or harbours of his Britannic Majesty’s dominions in America, not included within the above-mentioned limits; but they may be admitted to such bays and harbours, for the purpose of wooding, watering, or repairing damages only. The merchants of Poole, and others concerned in the fishery, complain of this treaty; but it appears to be well calculated to prevent those disputes and abuses which before existed, and which would probably have interrupted the harmony so desirable to be preserved between the two nations.

The importance of the fisheries on the Banks of Newfoundland, on the coast of Labrador, in the Gulf of St Lawrence, and the neighbouring islands, may be conceived, from a memorial of the committee of merchants trading to Newfoundland, addressed, in 1814, to Lord Liverpool, in which it is stated that the catch of the French was generally estimated, at the least, at 300,000 quintals; that the Americans had reached, in 1811, nearly 1,000,000 quintals, besides fish-oil and other articles, the produce of the sea; and that the English fishery, during the American war, had increased to a degree equal to the most sanguine expectations; the export of dried cod alone, for the year 1813, having amounted to 946,102 quintals, which exceeded the shipment of the preceding year by nearly 300,000 quintals, or one third of the catch of the whole fishery, with a proportionate increase in cod-oil, seal-skins, seal-oil, salmon, &c. amounting in value to above L.1,500,000 sterling; employing in its transport to different markets at least 75,000 tons of British shipping, and 5000 seamen, independently of the persons actually employed in catching and curing the fish; and returning to England upwards of L.2,000,000 sterling.

These advantages, however, can scarcely be supposed to continue since the re-admission of the French and Americans, both of whom, it is to be feared, will be able to undersell our fishermen in the foreign markets; the former from a considerable bounty being given by government on the fish caught and cured on the Banks of Newfoundland, and the latter from their nearness to the fishing grounds, and cheapness of the outfit. It has indeed been questioned by political economists, whether it would not be more advantageous to the national interests, if the capital employed in the distant possession of Newfoundland, and the fisheries contiguous to it, were engaged wholly in the fishery on the banks of our own seas, and those of Iceland and the coast of Norway, which are so much nearer home. Newfoundland, however, in spite of all the restrictions imposed upon it, has risen into a colony of too much importance to be abandoned; and its growing prosperity depends so much (it may be said indeed solely) on the fishery, that the residents, with the assistance of America, will always be able to carry it on independently ofEngland. Much of late has in fact been done to improve the condition of the colonists, and more will be required. Among other things, a resident governor has been appointed, so that the inhabitants are not left for a great portion of the year, as heretofore, to administer justice among themselves, which was usually done in his absence by a surrogate, with a salary of L.60 a year, and magistrates, whose occupations are in some way or other connected with the fishery.

The nature and value of the exports from Newfoundland will be seen by the following table: [7:9:607]ļ nate of the Value of the Exports from Newfoundland between the 1 ∖ th of October 1801 and th i > 1 ∩∕A n r n t r 1 qλo ,. . ⅛<, A' Countries to which Ou y were sent, and Ae rewittanL^Ìnft^efi^ '
[table]

But the following statement, taken from official documents, as the returns of the two years ending the 10th October 1814 and 1815, will show the advanced and advancing state of the fisheries of Newfoundland and of the colony.
[table]

The price of cod fish is, per quintal, from 15s. to 25s.; of salmon, from 65s. to 80s. the tierce; of train oil, from L26 to L.34 the tun, and seal oil generally about L.36the fi uι ∙ In 1814 the number of passengers who went over lRv E n gh an d, Ireland, and Jersey, amounted to 2800; in 1 °15 they were 6735. In 1814 the population of residents amounted to 35,952, and in 1815 to 40,568. In 1814 the summer inhabitants were 45,718, and in 1815 they were j284. The number of houses on the whole island was about 5000, and the number of acres under cultivation about 6000. . .

If we are to credit the information which Alfred is said to have received from Octer, the Norwegians were engaged in the whale fishery as early as the year 890. The story, however, is not very probable. The first people known to have carried it on as a regular occupation were the Biscayans, who, when the English first embarked in this fishery, towards the end of the sixteenth or beginning of the [7:9:608]seventeenth century, were always engaged as part of the crew. It continued to be carried on by the Russian and the East India Company for some years, but with no great success, though sufficient to induce the Dutch to attempt it. After them came the Danes, the Hamburgers, and the French, all of whom were finally driven out, or nearly so, by the Dutch. At this time the whales were so plentiful in all the bays of Spitzbergen, that the practice then was to boil the oil on shore; but when, in process of time, these large fish became more scarce, or were scared from the shore, the fishery was carried on at a distance from the land, when it was found necessary to bring home the solid blubber in casks. This circumstance was . a further discouragement to the English merchants, who, for moιe than a century, relinquished the whale fishery altogether. The South Sea Company, however, revived it in the early part of the eighteenth century, when parliament granted a bounty of 20s. per ton on all British ships of 200 tons and upwards, which was afterwards increased to 40s. per ton. This, however, by the 26th Geo. III. was again reduced to 30s.; but several encouragements were added for the prosecution of the whale fishery by able and expert seamen. The harpooners, the line-managers, and the boat-steerers, were not only protected from impress during the voyage, but were allowed to engage in the coal and coasting trade unmolested in the winter months, with other privileges granted by that and subsequent acts.

The decline of the Dutch whale fishery kept pace with the decline of their herring fishery, and, from the same cause, the decline of their maritime power, which had reciprocally supported each other. The English now began to carry on the fishery with great vigour on both sides of Greenland, so as to make it an objector great national importance, both as a nursery for excellent seamen, and as a source of public wealth. Upon the termination of the late war, the owners of ships employed in the northern whale fishery, alarmed by the apprehension of the Dutch and French reviving the fishery, but more so at the opening of the ports on the Continent, put forth a statement of the amount and extent of the fishery, from which it would appear that 7500 men and boys are employed in it as sailors; that, by act of parliament, the owners are required to take six apprentices for each ship of 300 tons, by which about 900 youths are constantly training for the future service of the country, and that about 200 of them complete the term of their servitude every year, when such as are not boat-steerers, harpooncrs, or line-managers, become liable to serve in the navy; that not less than 300 men are also taken annually from employments on land, or from the river trade, most of whom, after two years, are competent to serve in his majesty’s navy; who, with the apprentices and unprotected seamen employed, make a total of 4000 effective men subject to impressment.

It is further stated by the owners, that at the termination of the war, no less than 148 valuable ships, comprising 50,000 tons, and engaging a capital of L.2,000,000, were employed in the Greenland and Davis’ Straits fishery; that the provisions for the voyage amount to about L.600 foi each ship, forming a total of L.90,000, wholly furnished from our own markets, affording encouragement to agriculture, as well as to the various descriptions of tradesmen through whose hands the provisions are supplied; that the whole produce, therefore, of the fishery may be considered as gain to the country.

As, however, foreign ships may be sent to the fishery or more moderate terms than the English can supply theirs, and as the king of the Netherlands has offered considerable bounties to ships proceeding to the northern fisheries, all hope appears to be cut off that Englishmen will ever be again permitted to contribute to the supply of foreign markets with whale oil, but must in future look to the consumption of Great Britain alone. It is therefore suggested by the shipowners as some relief, that the enormous quantity of foreign rape-seed, which has recently been imported into this country nearly duty-free, should be checked; and that, by laying a sufficient duty on the importation of this article, the protection of government would be beneficially extended at once to the encouragement of the British agriculturist and the relief of the Greenland trader. No reasonable objection, it is stated, can be made to such a measure, unless from a mistaken apprehension with regard to its effects on the price of woollen cloths, which is so inconsiderable that a duty of L.12 per last on foreign rape-seed would not occasion an advance of more than about one farthing and a half per yard on narrow cloths; and that in fine cloths Gallipol oil alone is used. This appears to be reasonable enough; but the owners of the whale-fishing ships had another and a more formidable rival in the market in the lighting of the streets of London and other great towns with gas. It was stated, that for every three parishes in the metropolis thus lighted, five whole ships would be thrown out of employment; and that if all the parishes in London, Westminster, and Southwark, should be so lighted, it must entirely put an end to a trade which employs 10,000 seamen, 2000 apprentices, and 2000 landsmen, training constantly to the sea, and which affords occupation to about 100,000 individuals. The Gas Company say, on the other hand, that the expenditure of coal will amply compensate, in a national point of view, for any loss the Greenland trade may sustain, by the additional quantity of shipping employed in bringing the coal to the metropolis. This, however, is an exaggerated statement; but as whale-oil is now employed for so many more purposes than formerly, and even in the manufacture of gas, the lighting of the streets, even if general, will probably not injure the fishery to any great extent; though the lighting of the shops and private houses, should the practice become general, must seriously injure the South Sea fishery, as sperm was very commonly used for domestic purposes.

The state of the northern whale fishery will be seen from the following account of the number of fish and produce of oil brought by the ships of the several ports of Great Britain from the Greenland and Davis’ Straits fishery, in the year 1814:
[table]

143 ships, at 50 men to each ship, give 7150 as the num ber of men emnloved annualiv in the northern whale ns cry [7:9:609]19,408 Tuns of oil, at L.38 L 737,504647 Ditto whale-bone, the produce of001981 fish, at L.80 per ton 51,76000Total amount of the produce of the north-ern whale fishery in the year 1814 L.789,26400The statutes of 35 Geo. III. c. 92, and 42 Geo. III. c. 18, regulate the proceedings, and prescribe the conditions on which premiums of L.100 to L.400 may be claimed by each of sixteen ships employed in this fishery. Though less important, in a national point of view, than the northern whale fishery, the number of ships and seamen employed in it are very considerable. They - are fitted out mostly from London, and amounted, in the year 1815, to 107 ships, comprising 32,100 tons, and manned with about 3210 seamen, and their return cargoes were calculated to be worth about L.1,070,000 sterling.
[table]

These statements of the productive value of the foreign British fisheries may probably approach pretty nearly to the truth; but the reports of the home fisheries are too vague to afford any thing like an accurate estimate. If we should take the 120,000 tons of fish said to be imported annually into the metropolis, at the low average rate of threepence a pound, and allow tor the rest of the consumption in the British empire only one half the quantity consumed in and exported from the capital, and half a million for the export produce of the herring and cod and ling fishery, we shall have the productive value of the whole as under:
[table]

As to the number of seamen, landmen, and boys employed in the fisheries, that is, on the water, they may be reckoned at about 120,000.

Pearl Fishery. See Pearl, Mollusea, Index. Whale Fishery. See Balaena, Mammalia, Index.