96 ON THE CHANNEL-FISHERIES. 



full value thereof, and one month's imprisonment 

 without bail or mainprize. 



And whereas the salutary provisions of the said 

 recited act* are totally disregarded, by the fisher- 



* This I know to be a fact, for when the herring and pil- 

 chard fishermen have encircled large shoals of this sort of fish 

 and mackarel in their seine nets within half or a quarter of a 

 mile from the shore, the trawlers have purposely dashed in 

 among their nets, and broken them to pieces, and permitted all 

 the fish to escape. Now the reason assigned for this extraor- 

 dinary conduct is curious enough, but I have been respectably 

 informed that it is the true reason ; namely, that the taking of 

 mackarel, herring, and pilchard, prejudices what is caught by 

 the sale of the trawlers, which is chiefly confined to the better 

 sorts of flat fish. I say, I know this to be a fact, because I once 

 knew of an information at the suit of the king's attorney-general 

 for this very offence, and in that information it was sworn to as a 

 very common practice, and that the trawlers, to avoid detection, 

 would cover the names of their vessels on the stern, and would 

 threaten to run down any boat which should come near them. 

 The expence of this information was considerable, and such as 

 no man will incur a second time. It is therefore necessary, if 

 government wish to give the country the benefit of this act, to 

 give at the same time a more effectual way of putting it in 

 force than by the necessity of having communication with 

 the attorney-general, who in his professional capacity is a gen- 

 tleman equally to be dreaded either as friend or foe. It is 

 impossible that the sea-fish can ever be plentiful whilst these 

 trawlers are allowed, with their small-mesh nets, to fish close 

 upon the shore ; and the injury which they do to themselves 

 and the public is incalculable, for the reasons before assigned. 

 An owner of a fishing smack this day (27th May, 1820,) told 

 me, that the fishery was ruined by what he called the bay 

 fishery \ that is, by fishing so near the coast in the bays and 

 creeks, and by the twelve feet nets : and added, that it was to 

 be lamented the practice was not put an end to. But I say, that 



