THE FISHERIES. 13 



their erection, in any manner, so as to be injurious 

 to navigation; and we have abundant evidence before 

 us, that those recent fixtures in the tide-way have 

 interfered with navigation,* and that more exphcit 

 legislation respecting them is demanded. Again; to 

 interfere injuriously with the public fishery, is con- 

 trary to the common law ; and, that these novel 

 engines of destruction do so interfere, requires little 

 argument or elucidation: they have had a most per- 

 nicious effect upon the fisheries at large ; they have 

 reduced the gross produce to an alarming extent ; 

 and being placed near, or inside, the mouths of rivers, 

 they take precedence of all ancient modes of capture, 

 and deprive not only the charter weir of its existing 

 rights, but swallow up those public rights of fishery 

 in the estuary, which belonged to the cotman, and 

 which are derived to him by a prescription, more 

 ancient than the parchment which secures the landed 

 proprietor, on the shore, in his possessions. In point 

 of fact, there was a clear transfer here to the landed 

 proprietor, of that public right of piscary which is 

 and ought to be inalienable. Here, then, is an in- 

 stance of the danger of innovation, and of the mis- 

 chief which results from experimental legislation. 

 The Legislature is now called upon to review its 

 own purposes, and expHcitly declare the law, and 

 place it upon its ancient and equitable basis. It was 

 disturbed, undoubtedly, but not displaced, by the 



* See Captain Frazer's Report to the Admiralty, Jan. ISJI. 



