' 
1793. on the White Sea fifberies. 3t 
naturally create. to take the léad in all great national 
objects to the north of the T'weed, and not leave them in 
the hands of political adventurers, whose greatest merit 
is what you call the gift of the gab, and who only take 
up such affairs in hopes that the land<d and burgh inter-. 
ests in Scotland will.defeatthe application, to teize and 
distrefs government; not caring a farthing, or 1 am much 
mistaken, if you fhould all be obliged to live on what 
Johnson has learnedly discovered in-his dictionary to 
be food for men in Scotland,~and for horses in England. 
But to return to Mr Swagin’s causes of want of succefs 
in the White Sea fifhery, the last he states, and which led 
me into this long digrefsion, arises from the article sa//, but 
not from old impolitic regulations respecting it, but a real 
deficiency in that necefsary and indispensible ingredient, 
which you certainly cannot complain of, surrounded as 
you are by the sea, more salt than that at Archangel. 
He gives the following little history of the diflerent kinds 
of it used in the White Sea, 
Whilst government kept the fifhery, Spanith salt was 
used ; and the company had no other. 
In 1730 government imported a carge of Britith salt, 
which lasted eleven years, or till 1791, so that we can 
guefs at the extent of the trade; and since that is done, 
Rufsian salt is their only resource, which unfortunately 
is so scarce, that they have not permifsion to carry it out 
to salt their fifh at sea; nay even on land, that necefsary 
operation feels the want of that abundance which would 
make it flourifh if plentiful; although he thinks the her- 
rings of the White Sea not so good as those caught by 
the Dutch on the coast of the island of Great Britain, 
partaking in some measure of the fat of that pampered 
country, © 
