tions, and such other buildings as might be necessary for carrying on their business throughout all its parts.

Each fisherman of good character to be furnished with a strong and sufficient boat, with tackle, and every other requisite. This ought to be done only on condition that the money so expended, as well as the sum for buildings, if any should be erected, should be refunded from the produce of their Fishery, at such periods as might render the payment least burdensome to themselves. Perhaps it would be most eligible that the payment be made by instalments proportioned to their profits.

When a number of fishermen have been collected at one station, a few of those who have experience, and who are respectable and industrious, should be invited to settle among them, not only as examples to others, but that they might profit by their skill and advice. The influence of such persons would be attended with the happiest effects.*

As it might be improper to leave the people entirely to their own habits, allowing each to follow the dictates of his own ideas (for, were this the case, it is not to be expected that much good could arise from their exertions), laws and rules should be established for regulating every circumstance respecting their occupation, and this code should be sanctioned by Parliament, to give it the authority which its importance would require; but care should be taken, in framing these laws, that as little violence as possible be offered to inveterate habits and prejudices, and the language ought to be so clear and intelligible, as to leave no room for misinterpretation, that great source of opposition and discontent.

When fishing stations have been peopled in the above manner, and parti cularly with men disengaged from agriculture, proper measures should be adopted to provide markets, not only for the sale of their fish, but for sup plying them with provisions and necessaries suited to their wants, and within the compass of their means and purchase.

A few revenue cutters, under the command of select officers, should be appointed to those parts of the coasts where these Fisheries are established, to enforce the laws; and the commanders ought to be invested with powers to adjust disputes and misunderstanding among the fishermen at sea, sub. ject, however, to the revision of a higher authority, established for that purpose.

Inspectors of Fisheries should also be appointed to reside on the coast, for the purpose of visiting the different stations, and of enforcing the regulations on shore; part of their duty to consist in transmitting to Government a re

"It would, perhaps, contribute much to the improvement of our Fisheries, were a few Dutch fishers, induced by suitable encouragements, to embark in our vessels, to teach our people their methods of taking and curing herrings. I have heard of attempts made by our countrymen to introduce the buss fishing at sea. Their vessels were sent to fish among the Dutch busses, and endeavoured to imitate what they saw them doing; but while the latter had soon completed their cargoes, the former had not taken a single fish. This failure must have been owing either to want of proper tackle or to want of skill." Prize Essays of the Highland Society, vol. i, p. 296, note by the editor.

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port, from time to time, of the state of the Fisheries, and every circumstance affecting their welfare.

Money for defraying the expence attending this plan might be supplied either by Government or by individuals. If by individuals, a patriotic society, without any view to private emolument, might form a subscription, the amount to be expended agreeably to the system here proposed, unless the proprietors of adjacent land should be induced to take the whole upon themselves, as the expending money in this manner would not only do public good, but benefit themselves. At any rate, the experiment, as it might be made upon a small scale, is worth attempting, its future extension depending on its success.

NUMBER IV.

General ACCOUNT of the BRITISH SOCIETY for extending the Fisheries, and improving the Sea Coasts of the Kingdom, laid before a Committee of the House of Commons by the Earl of Kinnoul, in 1798.

Ir is the usual custom of this Society, that one of the Directors of the preceding year (the officers being chosen annually) is to give an account of the state and progress of the affairs of the Society, to the general meeting of proprietors at the anniversary.

The Earl of Kinnoul fulfilled this duty on Monday the 26th of March 1798; and, after a prefatory address, delivered the account accordingly, accompanied with various documents, the substance of which is drawn up in the following statement:

It is now twelve years since the Society was first instituted. The operations directed by Act of Parliament to be carried into execution by the Society, have been carried to a great degree of forwardness; and some experiment has been made of the effect of those operations. The following is a general account of the state of the undertaking, after such a length of time and degree of trial.

The object proposed to be accomplished by the institution of the Society, was the great public improvement indicated by its title, "To extend the Fisheries, and improve the Sea Coasts of the Kingdom." The north-western coasts of the island, in particular, were proposed to be, and have in fact been, the principal seat of the undertaking; because fish is far more abundant there, the coast less improved, and the people less employed, than in other parts of the kingdom. This appears by the preamble of the Act of Parliament which incorporated the Society, 26th Geo. III.

It states, that "the building of free towns, villages, harbours, quays, piers, and fishing stations, in the Highlands and Islands of North Britain, will greatly contribute to the improvement of fisheries, agriculture, manufactures, and other useful objects of industry, in that part of the kingdom, in which the dispersed situation of the inhabitants had hitherto proved a great impediment to their active exertions; and their being collected into fishing towns and villages, would be the means of forming a nursery of hardy seamen for his Majesty's navy, and the defence of the kingdom."

b b

The mode to be adopted for effecting the intended purpose, was described and limited by the Act of Parliament. It was by raising a fund" to be applied in purchasing or otherwise acquiring lands and tenements in perpetuity, for the building of free towns and villages, harbours, quays, piers, and fishing stations, on such lands so purchased or acquired, and on no other lands or tenements whatsoever." The reason of this limitation was, that the formation of villages at suitable distances, where all the implements and materials of industry might be provided, was considered as the principal means for the improvement of a coast, where, from Caithness to Campbel-town, a distance of about two hundred miles, swarming with fish, and a great population, there was not one market town nor public store, and only a few private stores, where some articles were dealt out for the fisheries, on condition of selling the fish to the owners of the stores at their own prices. Another reason for the limitation was, to prevent the Society from being induced to lay out their stock in adventures in the sale of fish, or other branches of trade, which, though specious and promising, could hardly become profitable to a large society, from whom minute attentions are not to be expected, which render adventures successful in the hands of individuals. Of this a striking instance had occurred in the case of a large society, named the British Fishing Company, which traded in fish about half a century since, and ended in insolvency.

Though the object of the British Society was thus a great public improvement, and though the mode of effecting it was thus directed to be by the purchase of lands and erection of buildings, whereof the extent was not limited, and might be to any length the funds of the Society could reach; yet the Directors of the Society were of opinion, and to that opinion they have carefully adhered, that not only all bold and inconsiderate expenditure of money should be avoided, and that the stock of the society should be saved as much as the object of the institution could possibly admit, but even that the plan and operations of the Society should be so conducted, as to admit of a return in due time to the individual subscribers, of a part at least of their public-spirited contributions.

How far these purposes have been carried into execution, will appear from the subsequent statements.

The selection of fit situations for the villages was a matter of great importance. A Committee of Directors, disdaining the fatigues of travelling over a part of the island unaccommodated with roads, and intersected by arms and channels of the sea, subject to violent gusts of wind, even in sum→ mer, visited that unimproved coast soon after the institution of the Society. The result was a determination to fix on three settlements; one on the northern coast, at Ullapool; another on the southern part of the coast, at Tobermory; and the third to the westward, among the Hebridian Islands, at Lochbay, on the western side of the Isle of Skye. It is needless to dwell on the advantages peculiar to each; they have been often stated to the proprietors; and it is more particularly the business of the present occasion, to state the operations and their effect at those settlements.

The general result has undoubtedly been the calling forth, in a very consi derable additional degree, the spirit of adventure in the Fisheries, to which the natives have become disposed from the frequent visits of the shoals, which afford the only species of adventure which has hitherto turned to account in that quarter. Those additional exertions have followed in several ways from the operations of the Society.

The people upon the coast, understanding that a Society had been formed by persons of the first consideration in the country, for the express purpose of improving the Fisheries, naturally expected, and were not disappointed, that, in the prosecution of this favourite species of industry, they should experience a degree of protection and accommodation hitherto unknown. They therefore proceeded, and continue to proceed, with increased alacrity. Irregularities in the mode of fishing, which occur when the fishers are crowded in a small bay or loch which the shoal of herrings have entered, was one of the first grievances represented to the Society; to remedy which, as much as possible, was the object of a particular inquiry instituted by the Directors, and of some representations to the Board of Manufactures and Fisheries at Edinburgh, of which the consequence was a more exact attention to the duty of repressing those irregularities by the officers appointed for the purpose, named the Fishing or Justiciary Bailies.

Another grievance, of which complaint was made to the Society, was a contraband importation of Swedish herrings into Ireland, which interfered exceedingly in the market with the sale of British-caught fish. Upon representation by the Directors of this abuse, it was removed, and no farther complaint has been heard on the subject. The great grievance and complaint of the fishers, the want of a ready and sufficient supply of salt when the shoals appear, has been repeatedly the subject of serious consideration with the Directors. After much attention to this subject, they have not been able to suggest any mode of freeing the salt from the custom-house regulations that have been established to prevent frauds, and would at the same time leave the conveyance of salt from the maker to the fisher uninterrupted by those regulations, and prove a satisfactory security against illicit uses of that commodity. But the Directors had the satisfaction to find the strongest disposition in Government to accommodate the fishers in the freest possible manner, 'consistent with the security of the revenue; and, when peace and leisure are restored, there is no reason to doubt that the subject will be resumed, for the purpose of endeavouring to make both those desirable ends mutually compatible. But, even under the present system of regulations for conveying salt, duty free, to the fisher, the repeated applications of the Directors in behalf of the fishers, have procured such a practical mitigation of the rigour of restriction, that no complaints on the subject have lately been made, which of itself is a matter of the highest consequence, especially to the fishers of small property, who chiefly felt the inconvenience of those regulations.

But, what has given particular and important relief, not only in the article of salt, but in all fishing materials, such as casks, nets, hooks, &c. is the