133 



ei'M by tlie same means, and, not content with her own limited fishing 

 grounds, undertook the conquest of others: usurping the fisheries of 

 the regiojis of the Bosphorus, she captured and for a while awed into 

 submission their rightful owneis.* Amsterdam, from a vilLige of her- 

 ring-catchers, cabins, and curing-sheds, rose, by the skill of the inmates 

 of these frail struciures, by the fame of their commodities in foreign 

 countries, and by the immense consumption of them at home, to unex- 

 ampled affluence -and grandeur; and the sayings everywhere cuirent 

 two centuries ago, that "Amsterdam is founded on herring-bones," and 

 tliat " Dutchmen's bodies are built of pickled herrings," were hardly 

 more than quaint expressions of historic truth. 



The islands and portions of continent separated from each other by 

 deep and boisterous channels, which compose the kingdom of Denmtu-k, 

 compelled the Danes to communicate with different parts of their coun- 

 try by sea, and their barren soil as imperatively obliged them to resort 

 to fishing for support. Extending their voyages at length from their 

 <3wn coasts to Greenland and Iceland, the skill and wealth thus acquired 

 enabled them to add the ports of Copenhagen, Altona, and Kiel, to the 



flicted &e kiss, awd, -as a monumeot of tbeir triumpli, they aftenvards placed in the church of 

 Sta. Agn<ese a picture representifig the ceremony." 



Mouceuigo, who died in 1423, was well versed in the commercial and maritime affiurs of his 

 country ; and he advanced both to imexampled prosperity. A census taken while he was la 

 supreme authority fixed the population of the capital at 1911,000 souls 



Early in the sixteenth ceittury, the French ambassador, Louis Helian, pronounced a speech. 

 In whicJi he uttered the most violent iuvective'; .a^aJnst the Venetians, who he declared had 

 "abandoned the cause of Heaven, and deserved to be execrated by God and man — to be 

 iiunted down by sea and land — and to be exterminated by fire and sword." Refcriing to their 

 wars and conijuests, he naii, tha»t "not a century has elapsed since these fishermen emerged 

 from tlieir bogs; and no sooner had they placed foot on terra firma than they acquired greater 

 ■dominion by perfidy than Rome won by arms in the long course of two hundred years ; and 

 tiiey h&il alreafliy eoneeiied plans to bridge the Don, the Rhine, the Seine, the Rhone, th» 

 Tagus, and the Ebix), and to establish thefr ride in every province of Europe." 



Her power, however, was soon weakened. Her saU works, in which from her veiy birth, 

 she had refused all partnership and defied all competition, were shared by compulsion with 

 the H(dy See within a few years after the maledictions of the French minister. Her decline 

 and fall need not be here related. In modern times Venice is hardly known for her fisheries. 

 Ker exports of the products of the sea in 1829 y.'ere of the value of about tweurj--five thou- 

 sand dollars, while her imports amounted to neaHy a quarter of a million of dollars. " The 

 fehing boats of Venice," says McCulloch, in 1832, "are not of a size to be rated as vessels of 

 tesQage. About sixteen thousand of the population subsist by fishing near the port i^nd over 

 6he lagoon." 



* "At the close of the thirteenth century," says a historian of Venice, "Genoa, by her con- 

 nexion with -the Greeks, had acquired great strength in the East. She was mistress of Scio ; 

 she possessed many establi.shments on the shores of the Black sea, and among them the im- 

 portant town of C:i'S'.), which commands the entrance of the sea of Azoph. Above all, she 

 held, as a fief of the era|>ire, Pera, the suburb of Constantinople; and by its occ'jj);iiiiin she 

 yirtuaKy retained the keys of that great capital. She tuntroUcd its fisheries and its ntstovis. 

 IVithoitt her permission, not a bark covid navigate, its harbor; and, as she dosed or threw oi>en 

 her granaries, fiim'ne or abundance waited on her pleasure." 



Gib!;ou, in his Decline and Fall, speaking of Genoa, and referring to the year 1348, remarks 

 that she " supplied the Greeks with fish and corn — two articles of food almost equally im- 

 portant to a SHperstitious people." "They proceeded," he continues, "fo iistirp thu customs, 

 Che fishery, and titn the toll of the Bosphorus, from ipliidi the)) drriced a rerenue of two hundred 

 thomaitd pieces of gold. A Byzantine vessel which presumed to fish at the mouth of the harbor 

 teas sukIc by these audacious strangers, and the fishermen icerc murdered. Instead of suing for 

 pardon, the Genoese demanded satisfaction ; required in a haughty strain that the Greeks 

 should renounce the exercise of navigation, and encountered with regular arms the first sallies 

 of Che popuJar isdignatioa." 



