quence of this act was only eight. In this year the whole buss fishery of Scotland, according to the statement of Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations,' b. iv. c. v.), brought in only four barrels of "Sea Sticks" (herrings cured at sea), each of which, in bounties alone, cost the government 1137. 15s., and each barrel of merchantable herrings cost 1591. 7s. 6d. The explanation of this fact is, that the bounty being given to the vessels and not to the fish, "ships were equipped to catch the bounty and not the herrings." By the 25th Geo. III. (1785-6) the tonnage bounty was reduced to 20s., and a bounty of 48. per barrel was given on the fish, but the whole payment was limited to 30s. per ton, except when more than three barrels per ton were taken, in which case 1s. per barrel was given on the excess. On an average of ten years 54,394 barrels were taken annually, at a cost to the government of about 7s. 6d. per barrel.

In 1786 "The British Society for extending the Fisheries and improving the Sea Coasts of the Kingdom" was incorporated, and a joint-stock was subscribed " for purchasing land, and building thereon free towns, villages, and fishingstations in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland." This joint-stock was raised by the subscriptions of a few individuals, who did not look for any profitable return. The members of the society were chiefly proprietors of estates, and their object was the improvement of their property.

Another act was passed in 1808 for the regulation of the fisheries. The bounty was again raised to 60s. per ton on decked vessels of not less than 60 tons, burthen, with an additional bounty of 20s. per ton for the first thirty vessels entered in the first year. Premiums amounting to 3000l. were also granted for boats of not less than 15 tons' burthen. This act prescribed regulations for fishing, curing, inspecting, and branding herrings, and a board of seven commissioners was appointed for administering the law. This act, which was at first passed for a limited time, was made perpetual in 1815 (55 Geo. III., c. 94). The tonnagebounty had in the mean time been extended to fishing-vessels of not less than

45 tons' burthen. During the year 1814 only five vessels had been fitted out for the fishery from Yarmouth, and not one for the deep-sea fishery from any other port of Great Britain. For the inspection and branding of herrings the whole coast of Great Britain was divided into districts. In each of these officers were appointed to oversee the operations of the fishermen, and to prevent frauds in regard to the bounty. The principal regulations affecting the curing of herrings were borrowed from the practice of the Dutch fishermen. In 1817 a further boon was granted to the fishermen by allowing them the use of salt duty free; a peculiar advantage, which ceased in 1823 by the repeal of the duty on that article.

The impolicy of granting these bounties was at length seen and acknowledged. In 1821 the tonnage bounty of 60s. above mentioned was repealed; the bounty of 4s. per barrel, which was paid up to the 5th of April, 1826, was thereafter reduced 1s. per barrel each succeeding year; so that in April, 1830, the bounty ceased altogether. This alteration of the system was not productive of any serious evil to the herring fishery. The average annual number of barrels of herrings cured and exported respectively in the five years that preceded the alteration was 349,488 and 224,370. In the five years from 1826 to 1830, while the bounty was proceeding to its annihilation, the average numbers were 336,896 cured, and 208,944 exported; and in the five years ending the 5th of April, 1837, the average numbers were 396,910_barrels cured, and 222,848 exported. In 1842 the quantities (barrels) of white herrings cured, &c., in Great Britain (so far as the same had been brought under the cognizance of the commissioners of the herring fishery under 1 Wm. IV. c. 54), were as follows:

In 1843 the number of vessels which cleared outwards for the British Herring Fishery was 333, of 7316 tons, and the crews amounted to 1150 men. The netting which they possessed was 481,906 square yards, and they took out 121,724 bushels of salt and 60,904 barrels. The total number of barrels of cured herrings landed during the season was 57,539, of which 55,949 were gutted and packed within twenty-four hours after being caught. The gross total of white herrings cured by fish-curers on shore in the ports of Scotland was 565,880 barrels, out of which number 383,231 contained herrings gutted and packed within twenty-four hours after they were caught. There were besides, it is computed, herrings sold in a fresh and cured state to the value of 114,5381. The number of barrels of white herrings which were entitled to be branded with the official brand was

162,713, and 114,614 barrels were assorted and cured according to the Dutch mode, and were branded accordingly.

The number of boats and of fishermen, and other persons employed in taking, gutting, curing, and packing cod and herrings in 1832 and 1842 were as follows:

House of Commons was appointed to inquire into the distress which was at that time said to affect the several fisheries in the British Channel. One cause of this distress, it was alleged, was the interference of the fishermen of France but by a convention with France, concluded in 1839, limits are now established for the fishermen of the two countries. Another cause of the unprosperous state of the fishermen was stated in the report of the committee to be "the great and increasing scarcity of all fish which breed in the Channel, compared with what was the ordinary supply fifteen to twenty years ago."

We do not at present hear of the distress amongst the fishermen on our coasts. The facilities of communication with populous inland districts have greatly extended the market for fish, and in parts of the country in which fish had scarcely been at all an article of food. In London, where the facilities for obtaining a supply of fish are nearly perfect, there is one dealer in fish to four butchers, and fish is hawked about the streets to a great extent; but in Warwickshire the proportion of dealers in fish to butchers is as 1 to 27, and in Staffordshire 1 to 44. In the borough of Wolverhampton there was only I fish-dealer in 1831, but there were

46 butchers. It is evident that when the large masses of population in the midland and northern manufacturing districts acquire a habit of consuming fish as an agreeable variety to their ordinary supply of food, a great impetus will be given to the fisheries on all our coasts. The rapid means of transport afforded by railways enable the inhabitants of Birmingham and London to consume cod and other fish caught in the Atlantic by the fishermen of Galway and Donegal. This improvement in the means of communicating with the best markets is a great boon. The fishermen who supply the London market instead of returning to Gravesend or other ports of the Thames and Medway, for instance, put their cargoes already packed in hampers on board the steam-boats which pass along the whole eastern coast as far north as Aberdeen; or they sometimes make for Hull or some other port in the eighbourhood of the

fishing-ground, and there land their cargoes, which are conveyed to London in the course of a few hours or to other great inland markets in a still shorter time. Fast sailing cutters are sometimes employed to take provisions to the boats on the fishing-ground, which bring back the fish taken by each. In consequence of these arrangements the fishermen are sometimes kept at sea for several months together.

It is amusing at this time to read the various projects or "ways to consume more fish," which were entertained at the commencement of the last century. The difficulty on account of the cost of conveyance, and the limited distance to which fresh fish could be sent from the coast, induced some persons to propose that fish sent to inland towns should be "marinated," or pickled according to a peculiar method. In the sixteenth century, and before those improvements in agriculture were made by which fresh meat may be obtained all the year round, there were great fish fairs in different parts of the country, at which persons bought a stock of salted fish sufficient to last during the winter and the subsequent season of Lent. The herring fair at Yarmouth was regulated by a statute in the fourteenth century. In 1533 the fairs of Stourbridge, St. Ives, and Ely were "the most notable fairs within this realm for provision of fish" (24 Hen. VIII. c. 4). In 1537 the town of Lynn, in Norfolk, obtained letters patent for establishing a fish fair; but in 1541 the right of holding the fair was abolished by statute (33 Hen. VIII. c. 34), because the inhabitants attempted to engross the business of other fairs. The supply of the fairs and markets with cheap fish was considered an important matter in those days. In 1541 an act was passed which prohibited the English fishermen from buying fish of foreigners at sea, because if they did not do so "the same Picards and Flemings would bring the same fish over themselves and sell it to the king's subjects much better cheap, and for less money" (33 Hen. VIII. c. 2).

One branch of fishing wholly different in its object from all other branches has been described by the committee of 1833 ander the title of the Stow-Bout Fishery.

This fishery prevails principally upon the Kentish, Norfolk, and Essex coasts; and the object is the catching of sprats as manure for the land, for which there is a constant demand. This branch of fishing is represented by the committee to have much increased, and to give employ ment on the Kentish coast alone to from 400 to 500 boats, which remain upon the fishing grounds frequently for a week together and until each has obtained a full cargo.

Vessels and boats employed in fishing are licensed by the Commissioners of Customs in pursuance of the acts for the prevention of smuggling; and they are required to be painted or tarred entirely black, except the name and place to which such vessel or boat belongs. A parliamentary return for 1844 gives the number of vessels above and under fifty tons registered at each port in the United Kingdom: the greater proportion of those under fifty tons are principally employed in fishing. At Faversham there were 218 vessels under fifty tons, and their average tonnage was twenty-one tons; at Yarmouth, 321; Southampton, 131; Maldon, 105; Rochester, 256; Colchester, 203; Dover, 91; Rye, 55; Ramsgate, 80; Dartmouth, 256.

The licences thus granted specify the limits beyond which fishing vessels must not be employed: this distance is usually four leagues from the English coast, and it is affirmed that our fishermen are injured by this restriction, because some valuable fishing grounds lie beyond the prescribed limits and are thus abandoned to foreigners.

The pilchard fishery, which is carried on upon parts of the Devon and Cornish coasts, is of some importance. The number of boats engaged in it is about 1000, which give employment to about 3500 men at sea and about 5000 men and women on shore. As soon as caught the pilchards are salted or pickled and exported to foreign markets, chiefly to the Mediterranean: the average export amounts to 30,000 hogsheads per year. The quantity was much greater formerly, when a bounty of 8s. 6d. per hogshead was paid upon all exported; heavy duties are generally imposed in the countries to which the exports are made.

Our chief salmon fisheries are carried on in the rivers and æstuaries of Scotland, but the annual value of this fishery is not exactly known. In 1835 the produce of the salmon fisheries in Sutherlandshire was 258,291 lbs.; in the river Foyle, 321,366 lbs.; in the river Beauly the number of fish taken was 15,891, and the number taken in the south-east and north-east was 54.659, and the average weight of each was estimated at 10 lbs. The produce of the fishings in the rivers Tay. Dee, Don, Spey, Findhorn, Beauly, Borriedale, Langwell and Thurso, and of the coasts adjacent, are conveyed in steam-boats and small sailing vessels to Aberdeen, where they are packed with ice in boxes and sent to the London market. The shipments thus made from Aberdeen, in 1835, was 11,549 boxes (each containing from ten to twelve fish and weighing 120 lbs.) and 5671 kits.

The rental of the salmon fisheries on the river Tweed averaged about 12,000. a-year for the seven years preceding 1824. The late Duke of Gordon received a rental of about 8000l. a-year for a fishery on the Spey: the expenses of the fishery are supposed to have amounted to about one-half this rum.

London is the great market to which Scotch salmon are sent. The quantity which arrives during one season is about 2500 tons, and the average price is from Od. to 1s. per lb. The arrivals average about 30 boxes per day in February and March, 50 in April, from 80 to 100 in May, from 200 to 300 at the beginning of June, and 500 towards the close of the month, when the number gradually increases until it amounts, at the end of July and beginning of August, to 1000 boxes and upwards per day, and the price is occasionally as low as 5d. and 6d. per lb.; and is in fact lowest at the time when the fish is in the primest condition. The plan of packing salmon in ice was adopted about 1785, and the idea was taken from the Chinese; but it was not until the application of steam to navigation that the trade reached anything like its present magnitude. Even when ice was used, contrary winds would protract the voyage and the fish would be spoiled. The London trade, instead of being at

VOL. II.

its height in July and August, was over by May, or whenever the weather became warm. The great towns of Yorkshire, Lancashire, and the midland manufacturing counties, are also frequently supplied with immense quantities of Scotch and Irish salmon, but they are not constantly well supplied.

The produce of salmon fisheries in Ireland is also considerable.

Salmon fishing commences on the 1st of February, and terminates on the 14th of September. The intervening period is called close-time,' and the acts for regulating salmon fisheries impose penalties on those who take fish during this

season.

Mackerel visit every part of our coasts in the spring and early part of the summer, and are taken in great abundance. For the encouragement of the mackerel and other similar fisheries, the carriages in which the fresh fish are conveyed to London are exempted from the post-horse duty. As mackerel will not keep, it may be hawked about on Sunday for sale, a privilege which no other fish enjoys.

The cod fishery at Newfoundland was carried on as early as 1500 by the Portuguese. Biscayans, and French, but it was not until 1585 that the English ventured to interfere with them. In that year Sir Francis Drake being sent to the island with a squadron, seized the foreign ships which he found engaged in the fishery, and sent them to England, where they were declared lawful prizes. In 1614 and 1615 the English had 200 and 250 vessels engaged in the Newfoundland cod fishery. Towards the end of the seventeenth century it was carried on on a still larger scale by the French; and it is stated by the author of 'Considerations on the Trade to Newfoundland,' inserted in the second volume of Churchill's 'Collection of Voyages,' that the French have quite beaten the English out of this trade, as may be instanced in many of the outports of our nation, and particularly Barnstaple and Biddeford, which formerly employed in this trade above fifty ships, and now do not fit out above six or eight small ships.'

By the treaty of Utrecht, which acknowledged the sovereignty of the whole

D