HOME FISHERIES.
The alleged neglect of the fisheries, on the part of Great Britain, 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 disregard ed those advantages, so liberally bestowed by Nature along the extensive coasts of her sea-girt islands, in supplying a wholesome and nutritious article of food for the sustenance of an abundant population; but al. so, 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 them required to be exerted in any extra ordinary degree, in the pursuit of this occupation. " The fishery," says Sir William Monson, " needs no discovery; the experience of our neighbours hav ing 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 na tion, that God and Nature, offering us so great a treasure, even at our own doors, we do, notwith standing, neglect the benefit thereof, and by paying money to strangers for the fish of our own seas, im poverish ourselves to make them rich ;" and is a con trast 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, &c. and of the multitude of poor women and children to whom it afforded employment. In a little pamphlet, under the title of .England's Path to Wealth and in a dialogue between an Eng lishman and a Dutchman, the whole alphabet is in geniously brought to bear, in regular order, 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 taken in 1669.
Persons employed as fishermen, and in equipping fishermen with their ships, boats, tackle, convey ing of salt, &c. . 450,000 From which it will appear not at all improbable that the pensionary De Witt did not exaggerate when he stated, that every fifth man earned his sub sistence by the sea fishery; that Holland derived her main support from it ; and that the herring-fish ery ought to be considered as the right.arm ofthe re.. public. 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 60 to 150 tons burden, occu pied generally in the cod and ling fishery, besides others employed in carrying out salt to them, and re turning with cured fish ; that from Bonganess to the mouth of the Thames, they had a fleet of 1600 bus ses 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 carry..
ing the salt to fishing ships, and returning with cured fish—and in the exportation of that fish to a foreign market ;—making, thus, the total number of ship.. ping engaged in, and connected with, the herring fishery alone, to amount to 6400 vessels, calculated to give employment to 112,000 mariners and fisher men. By the same authority we are told that Hol land, at that time, could boast of 10,000 sail of ship. ping, and 168,000 mariners; " although the coun try itself affords them neither materials, or victual, or 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 Amster dam 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, Sir Wal ter Raleigh, Sir William Monson, Sir William Petty, Sir Loger 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. Those provinces of Holland, where the fisheries flourished, had few or no resources but those which the waters afforded them; they grew no corn; they had no su perabundance of food for the rearing of cattle; they had few or no manufactures ; whereas Great Britain had all, 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 indus try to profit ; and it must be allowed that, by an ex traordinary degree of patience, and of 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 nor mystery in the craft,—nothing that British fishermen could not then have, and, in point of' fact, nothing which they have not of late years, ac complished, in as perfect a manner as the Dutch.