226 DEEP-SEA FISHING. 



been able to obtain very little definite iDforraation. The 

 town is said to have been interested in the sea fisheries 

 for about 150 years; but the first precise account of it 

 that has come under our notice relates to the year 1798, 

 when, according to a statement^ prepared by the late 

 Mr. G-room, of Harwich, giving particulars of the intro- 

 duction of welled-smacks at that port, some attempts 

 were made at Gravesend, Greenwich, and Barking to 

 construct smacks of a similar description, to be em- 

 ployed in the North Sea fishery. Barking appears 

 to have greatly increased in importance during the 

 following fifty years, as Mr. Groom states that, in 1852, 

 she had as many as 134 trawlers, besides 46 smacks 

 engaged in the cod and haddock line-fishery. But since 

 that date a change in an opposite direction has been 

 taking place, and the Barking fleet is now reduced to 

 about 120 vessels, of which only three are engaged in 

 the cod fishery. This, we believe, is the number owned 

 at and reputedly sailing from Barking, but they may not 

 all be on the London register ; for, as- we have before 

 mentioned, local registration is a very uncertain guide 

 to the number of fishing boats owned at or fishing from 

 the port. As a station. Barking is undoubtedly declining; 

 no smacks are built there now ; and the advantages of 

 the North Sea ports are gradually telling against the 

 less convenient but once important stations on the 

 Thames. 



Leigh, a few miles above Southend, and in the 

 Maldon district, has long been famous for its shrimp 

 fishery, the proceeds of which are sent in large quanti- 

 ties to the London market ; and as the fishery is carried 

 on in tolerably salt water, although within the mouth 

 of the Tliames, we may as well give a short account of 



' Sea Fisheries Comntission, Minutes of Evidcncr, \\ 45G (1864). 



