per barrel to the fishermen, and may be regarded as adding to the wealth of the country perhaps not less than £3000. In coasting along between Fraserburgh and the Orkney Islands, another fleet of Dutch fishermen was seen at a distance. The harbour and bay of Wick were crowded with fishing-boats and busses of all descriptions, collected from the Frith of Forth, and southward even as far as Yarmouth and Lowestoffe. The Caithness fishing was said to have been pretty successful, though not equal to what it has been in former years.

In the Orkney and Shetland Islands, one would naturally look for extensive fishing establishments, both in herrings and what are termed white fish, (cod, ling, and tusk); but it is a curious fact, that while the Dutch have long come from their own coast to these islands to fish herrings, it is only within a very few years that the people of Orkney, chiefly by the spirited and praise-worthy exertions of Samuel Laing, esq., have given any attention to this important source of wealth. It has long been a practice with the great fishmongers of London to send their welled smacks to fish for cod, and to purchase lobsters, around the Orkney islands; and both are carried alive to the London market. This trade has done much good to these islands, and has brought a great deal of money to them; but still it is of a more circumscribed nature, and is less calculated to swell the national wealth, than the herring and white fishery in general.

'Hitherto the industry of the Orcadians has been chiefly directed to farming pursuits; while the Shetlanders have been almost exclusively occupied in the cod, ling, and tusk fishing. It is doubtful, indeed, if, up to this period, there be a single boat belonging to the Shetland Isles, which is completely equipped for the herring fishery. But here, again, another fleet of Dutch doggers was seen collecting in numbers off these islands, which is considered a rich harvest in Holland. So systematically do the Dutch pursue the fishing business upon our coasts, that their fleet of busses is accompanied by an hospitalship. This vessel we now found at anchor in Letwick Roads, and were informed that she paid weekly visits to the fleet, to supply medicines, and to receive any of the people falling sick, or meeting with any accident.

"Though Shetland is certainly not so much an agricultural country as Orkney, yet it may be hoped that the encouragement judiciously held out by the Highland Society, for the production of green crops in Shetland, may eventually have the effect of teaching these insular farmers the practicability of providing fodder for their cattle in the spring of the year. For ages past this has been a great desideratum. The command of a month or six weeks fodder, would enable the proprietors of that country to stook many of their fine verdant isles with cattle, and to employ their hardy tenantry more exclusively in the different branches of the fishery.

'It is well known, that, next to the Newfoundland Banks, those of Shetland are the most productive in ling, cod, tusk, and other white fish; and by the recent discovery of a bank, trending

many leagues to the south-westward, the British merchants have made a vast accession to their fishing-grounds. In the small picturesque Bay of Scalloway, and in some of the other bays and voes on the western side of the Mainland of Shetland, the fishing upon this new_hank (which I humbly presume to term the Regent Fishing Bank, a name at once calculated to mark the period of its discovery, and pay a proper compliment to the prince), has been pursued with great success. Here small sloops, of from fifteen to twenty-five tons burden, and manned with eight persons, have been employed. In the beginning of August they had this summer fished for twelve weeks, generally returning home with their fish once a week. On an average, these vessels had caught 1000 fine cod-fish a-week, of which about 600, in a dried state, go to the ton, and these they would have gladly sold at about £15 per ton. So numerous are the fish upon the Regent Fishing Bank, that a French vessel, belonging, it is believed, to St. Maloes, had sailed with her second cargo of fish this season; and though the fishermen did not mention this under any apprehension, as though there were danger of the fish becoming scarce, yet they seemed to regret the circumstance, on account of their market being thus pre-occupied.

'Here, and at Orkney, we had the pleasure to see many ships arriving from the whale-fishing, and parting with a certain proportion of their crews. To such an extent, indeed, are the crews of the whalers made up from these islands, that it is calculated that not less than £15,000 in cash are annually brought into the islands by this

means.

With propriety, therefore, may the whale-fishery be regarded as one of the most productive sources of national wealth connected with the British fisheries.

'From the Orkney and Shetland Islands our course was directed to the westward. A considerable salmon-fishing seems to be carried on in the mouths of the rivers of Lord Reay's Country in Sutherlandshire: the fish are carried from this to Aberdeen, and from thence in regular trading smacks to London. We heard little more of any kind of fishing till we reached the Harris Isles. There, and throughout the numerous lochs and fishing stations on the Mainland, in the districts of Gairloch, Applecross, Lochalsh, Gle'nelg, Moidart, Knoidart, Ardnamurchan, Mull, Lorn, and Kintyre, we understood that there was a general lamentation for the disappearance of herrings, which in former times used to crowd into lochs which they seem now to have in some measure deserted. This the fishermen suppose to be owing to the schools being broken and divided about the Shetland and Orkney Islands; and they remark, that, by some unaccountable change in the habits of the fish, the greater number now take the east coast of Great Britain. This is the more to be regretted, that in Sky, the Lewis, Harris, and Uist Islands, the inhabitants have of late years turned their attention much to the fishing. Indeed this has followed as a matter of necessity, from the general practice of converting the numerous small arable farms, which were perhaps neither very useful to the tenants, nor profitable to the laird, into great sheep

walks; so that the inhabitants are now more generally assembled upon the coast. The large sums expended in the construction of the Caledonian Canal, have either directly or indirectly become a source of wealth to these people: they have been enabled to furnish themselves with boats and fishing tackle, and for one fishingboat, which was formerly seen in the Hebrides only twenty years ago, it may be safely affirmed that ten are to be met with now. If the same spirit shall continue to be manifested, in spite of all the objections which have been urged against the salt laws, and the depopulating effects of emigration, the British fisheries in these islands, and along this coast, with a little encourage ment will be wonderfully extended, and we shall ere long see the Highlands and islands of Scotland in that state to which they are peculiarly adapted, and in which alone their continued prosperity is to be looked for, viz.-when their valleys, muirs, and mountains are covered with flocks, and the people are found in small villages

on the shores.'

SECT. I.-OF THE COD FISHERY.

The cod, gadus morhua of Linné, peculiar to the Northern Seas, is the most extensive fishery of which Great Britain can boast; and which is well known to have its principal rendezvous on the banks of Newfoundland, and the neighbourhood. It extends itself in a greater or less degree over all the shores of our islands in Europe. See GADUS. It is a gregarious and very voracious fish; and is sometimes found to devour its own species: we need only add here that it is prolific almost beyond belief. Leuwenhoeck counted 9,384,000 eggs in a cod fish of a middling size; Mr. Hanmer 3,686,750 in one which weighed 12,540 grains. The flesh is flaky, white, and firm, exceedingly palatable and wholesome and held in high estimation in every part of the world. In our seas they begin to spawn in January, and deposit their eggs in rough ground among the rocks. Some continue in roe till the beginning of April. They in general recover quicker after spawning than any other fish; therefore it is common to take some good ones all the summer. When out of season, they are thin-tailed, and much infested with the lernea asellina, on the inside of their mouths. The fish of a middling size are most esteemed, and are chosen by their plumpness and roundness, especially near the tail; by the depth of the fulcus or pit behind the head; and by the regular undulated appearance of the sides, as if they were ribbed. The glutinous parts about the head lose their delicate flavor, after having been twenty-four hours out of the water, even in winter, when these and other fish of this genus are in highest season. One mentioned by Mr. Pennant, as the largest that he ever heard of taken on our coasts, weighed seventy-eight pounds, the length was five feet eight inches, and the girth round the shoulders five feet. It was taken at Scarborough in 1755, and was sold for a shilling. But the general weight of these fish in the York

shire seas, he says, is from fourteen to forty pounds. The grand bank of Newfoundland is about seventy miles from it, and is 400 miles in length, and 200 in breadth, not including the Jaquet and Green Banks, &c.; the greatest and best part of it lies to the south and east of the island. The depth of water, according to governor Pownall's chart, aries from twenty-four to sixty fathoms. The greatest number, as well as the fattest and bulkiest fish, are to be found where the water is rough, with a sandy ground; on the contrary, they are lean and scarce where the water is still, upon an oozy bottom; and the depth to which they seem mostly attached, is from thirty to forty fathoms. All the immense fishery of these shores is carried on by hook and line only. In spring and summer they use short, and in winter long lines, on account of the cod keeping nearer the bottom in that season, and which (according to the fisherman's phraseology) they always keep bobbing, that is playing backwards and forwards by little and tremulous jerks of the hand and arm, by which means, as in angling, the line and hook are in continual motion; and, feeling the fish the moment he bites, they instantly haul him up. They are, therefore, all caught by the lip or mouth, which saves a great deal of time, as the fisherman is immediately enabled to renew the bait, not having to extricate the hook either from the gorge or stomach; besides, they are all taken alive, without being torn or mangled, a consideration of no small importance. In this manner, on the cold and uncomfortable banks of Newfoundland, each expert fisherman, although he can take but one at a time, will catch from 200 to 300 of their heavy fish in a day.

Almost all the civilised nations of the old world have endeavoured to avail themselves of this inexhaustible source of cod-fish. The Portuguese, the Dutch, and the Spaniards, the first especially, were ever very successful here: but the French, the Jersey and Guernsey islanders, and the Americans, are now the only competitors with Great Britain.

The entire fishery is conducted by vessels of from 100 to 200 tons burden each. They are mostly fitted out from Guernsey, Jersey, Ireland, and ports in the English Channel, as Poole, Dartmouth, &c.; they carry about 35,000 fish each, upon an average; their chief markets are Spain, Portugal, Italy, and the Levant; for the other parts of Europe are commonly provided with those taken in the British Seas, the Dogger, Wale, or Wese Banks, and the North Sea. There are besides these large vessels, at least 2000 small-decked craft, or shallops, from twelve to twenty tons burden, rigged like the luggers in England employed in the fisheries along the shores of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the islands of Cape Breton, a great part of whose hands is taken up on land, in erecting stages, and in curing and drying their fish.

At a period (1801-2) when our exports from this valuable colony did not much exceed onehalf of their value two years afterwards, the following was the

OFFICIAL ESTIMATE of the Value of the EXPORTS from NEWFOUNDLAND, i.e. between the 11th of October 1801, and the 10th of October 1802; distinguishing the COUNTRIES to which they were sent, and the REMITTANCES proceeding therefrom to GREAT BRITAIN.

Remitted to the United Kingdom, either directly or through Foreign Europe.

£

8.

262

47,759 8 4,517 18

67,725

West Indies

1

6

5,079 7

6

14,785

2,796 Tons

4,033 Tierces

Seal Skins

36,000

. British Europe Various British Europe

5

5

O per Ton.

O per Tierce O say

£593,485 0

Tons

28,132

3

Men

1,775

Lowest value of Imports and Remittances from the Newfoundland Fishery to the United Kingdom in the year 1802, £611,159 10

In the year 1805, the number of vessels employed in the American fishery here amounted to about 1500, carrying about 10,000 men, and the quantity of fish caught by them to 800,000 or 900,000 quintals, while the whole produce of the British Newfoundland fishery of that year did not exceed 500,000 quintals; and the number of vessels and men we employed did not amount to one-half of that employed by the Americans! The demand for fish in our West India settlements, upon an average of three years, ending 1807, was 456,221 cwt. 97,486 of which was furnished by the mother country, leaving 358,735 cwt. to be supplied from the American fisheries. Of this quantity, above half was supplied by the United States, using our salt and our fishing banks, and in the three years, only 170,610 cwt. from our Newfoundland fishery, found a market in the West Indies.

The causes assigned for this, in an able pamphlet on the subject of encouraging the Newfoundland fishery, are these:-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 actuated to labor by the most powerful incentive. The American fishermen are remarkable for their activity and enterprise, and not less so for their sobriety and frugality; and, in order to be as independent as possible on 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 and home; for the laws by which the colony was held were such as almost to forbid residence, 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, except only on such conditions as were not calculated to afford the residents much relief. From a system,' says the author of the above pamphlet, the first object of which is to 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 sur

prising that the inhabitants of Newfoundland are not able to maintain a competition against the American fishermen.'

In 1812, France having been driven out of her fisheries in this neighbourhood, our ships and men employed here are said to have equalled those of America, amounting to about 1500 vessels carrying ten men each. At this time the Americans were permitted to cure and dry fish on any part of the shore of Newfoundland; but the abuses this gave rise to induced our government, at the conclusion of the late war, to circumscribe their fishery within certain limits, and only to allow them the privilege of curing and drying their fish at certain spots on the shore. That is, 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 Quirpon 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 Belleisle, 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 so 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 cur fish, on or within three marine miles of any f the coasts, bays, creeks, or harbours of his Eritannic majesty's dominions in America, not included within the above mentioned limits; but may be admitted to such bays and harbours, for the purpose of wooding, watering, or repairing damages only. From its distance from the shores of Newfoundland, the Great Bank 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.

During the war with America in 1813, our Newfoundland fishery increased largely the export of dried cod alone for that year amounted to 946,102 quintals, with a proportionate increase in oil, seal-skins, salmon, &c.; amounting in value to £1,500,000. Since peace has be come universal, and the French and Americans have been readmitted, the former are said, by their bounties on all fish caught here, &c., to have taken in this fishery 300,000 quintals of cod in one year (1814). The nature and value of our own exports for this fishery, in that and the following year, will appear from the annexed Table.

The price of cod-fish is here reckoned at per quintal, from 158. to 258.; of salmon, from 658. to 80%. the tierce; of train oil, from £26 to £34 the ton, and seal oil generally about £36 the ton. In 1814 the number of passengers that went over from England, Ireland, and Jersey, amounted to 2800; in 1815 they were 6735. In 1815 the population of residents amounted to 55,284 in summer; in winter they are diminished about 10,000.

After the banks of Newfoundland, those near Ireland, the coast of Norway, Orkney, and the Shetland Islands, abound most with cod-fish. Dr. Hibbert gives the following interesting account of the recent discovery of the new bank, mentioned by Mr. Stevenson, in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, January, 1820:

• It is, I believe, about ten or twelve years since a few vessels, from six to thirty-five tons burden, and carrying from six to eight hands, first prosecuted a desultory and uncertain fishing for cod off the coasts of Shetland. They seldom went farther to look for fish than the immediate neighbourhood of Foula and Fair Isle; and their success in general was very limited. To some of the vessels thus employed the discovery of the bank is due. The first knowledge of its existence is contended for by three or more parties; but the great probability is, that it was simultaneous, since the same cause, which was the uncommonly fine spring of 1818, caused almost every vessel to seek for fish, at a more than usual distance from the coasts of Shetland, and finding a very abundant supply off the north of Orkney, in the vicinity of the place which attracted Mr. Neill's attention, they fell in with the track of the cod-bank.'

'The cod-bank of Shetland is described by the fishermen as lying from twenty-five to thirty miles west of Foula. That its extent is very great, all who have fished upon it agree. The information politely given me by Mr. Sheriff

Duncan of Lerwick, fully corroborates the previous statement I had made on the subject last year. The fishing vessels,' says this gentleman,

spread themselves so widely over the bank, that it seldom happens that more than two or three are in sight of each other at the same time, yet they have never reached its utmost boundary.' I shall, however, communicate what is known of its extent, from the experience of a former season. The bank appears to commence near the cluster of islands bearing the name of Orkney: it is said to lie into the land about sixteen miles. The fishermen refer to the west of Westray as its origin; and thence it is continued in a direction nearly north by west, having been variously entered upon in steering from the east, even as far distant as about twenty miles north-west of Shetland. If this information be correct, it would give to what is known of the extent of the bank, a distance of about 140 miles.

'Respecting the depth of water on the bank, I reported last year, that it was from twenty-eight to forty-seven fathoms: the information recently given me, assigns to it a depth of from forty to fifty fathoms. This discrepance of opinion, which is not of material consequence, probably arises from the difference of observations taken near the origin of the bank at Orkney, or to the west of Foula, where its form becomes more definite. Its breadth has been reported to me as varying from eighteen to forty-five miles; here also I have met with some little difference of opinion, which naturally arises from an indecision respecting the exact depth to which its boundaries or shelving sides may be referred, and which can only be rectified by extensive soundings. The surface of the bank is described as in some places rocky, and in others sandy, and as covered by buckies, mussels, and razor-fish.

'It has been thought that this bank is continuous with a cod-bank near the Faroe Islands, not only from the general direction of the Shetland