i'j6 



A. D. 1750. 



be carried oti with a fufficient flock, under proper regulations; and 

 reafonable encouragement be given to fuch peri'ons as are willing to car- 

 ry on the faid fifhcries. For the encouragement therefor of fuch per- 

 fons, and for the better regulation of the trade, and for preventing 

 frauds and impofitions in the management thereof, it was enacted, tliat 

 the king by letters patent, may incorporate a number of gentlemen, 

 herein named, and all others who fliall be entitled to any ftiarc in the 

 capital lum of L5oo,ooo, to be one body politic and corporate, by the 

 name of the Society of the free Britifli fifhery, for the term of 21 years ; 

 during which time they are every three years to elect a governor, pre- 

 lldent, vice-prefident, council, and other officers, who may make bye 

 laws for the management of the trade; may direcl: what feals or marks 

 Ihall be put on the barrels or calks of their fiili, for the counterfeiting 

 whereof a penalty ot L500 fliall be incurred for each ofience. This 

 corporation may make calls on their members ; the firftand lecond pay- 

 ments to be each 10 per cent of their fubfcriptions, and the fubfequent 

 payments to be by the diredion of a general court of the fociety. In 

 failure of anfwering fuch calls, the fociety may difpofe, after thirty days 

 previous notice in the London gazette, of fo much of the ftock of fuch 

 defaulter as fliall produce the fum fo called in. Three per cent per an- 

 num, upon every Lioo actually employed in the faid fifliery, lliall be 

 paid to the proprietors of the faid flock for fourteen years to come, by 

 the receiver-general of the cufloms, half yearly. The fociety fliall em- 

 jiloy Li 00,000 at leaft, within eighteen months after the date of fuch 

 fubfcription ; and accounts of the monies which fhall be fo employed 

 fliall be annually laid before the parliament. And if lofs fhall arife by 

 any year's adventure, and there fliould be gain by fucceeding years, the 

 gain fliall be employed to make good the veil'els and fifliing flock to the 

 full value of the faid original fum of Li 00,000 before any dividend fliall 

 be made. A bounty of thirty lliillings per ton fhall be annually paid out 

 of the cuftoms, for fourteen years to come, to the owners of all decked 

 veflels from twenty to eighty tons burden, which fliall be built after the 

 commencement of this acl, for the ufe of, and fitted out and employed 

 in, the faid fillieries, whether by this fociety, or any other perfons ; fuch 

 veiTel to be a decked bufs or veiTel, built in Great Britain, and to pro- 

 ceed thereon from lome port of Great Britain, manned and navigated 

 as the law direds ; and with a fufficient quantity of filliing nets and 

 ftores. Certificates to be produced before the colledor and comptroller 

 of the refpedlive Britifli ports, that it is their firm purpofe to proceed 

 therein, either to BrafTa found in Shetland, and be at the rendezvous of 

 the fifhery there on or before the nth of June, and that they will not 

 fhoot or wet their nets before the 13th* of the fame month, and fhall 

 continue fifhing among the flioles of herring, as they move fouthward, 



* By the alteration of the ftilc, the 34th is now the day for beginning to fiioot their nets, M. 



