A. D. 1782. y21 



during the fame years, is extraded from accounts hid before the houfe 

 of commons. 



Cod IjToUl of bounties 



exported Jpaid on vessels, 



cwt. Jand on exp<irta- 



ion of herriDgs 



nd codf. 



The fifliery of pilchards on the coaft of Cornwall is alfo a confider- 

 able objed, affording employment to above 3,000 filhermen belides the 

 feamen employed in carrying the fifli to foreign markets, which are 

 chiefly the ports in the Mcdiicrrancan, and in importing fait, ftaves, and 

 other materials for the fifliery, and four or five thuufand people em- 

 ployed in the bufinefles conneded with it on lliore. Pilchards are fo 

 much in requefl in the Italian flates, that the orders from them for 

 lead, tin, copper, leather, &c. have been often conditional, that if fuch 

 a quantity of pilchards could not be lent, the other articles could not 

 be received : and the Venetian government allowed Britiih veflels im- 

 porting a certain proportion of pilcluirds to take in currants at their 

 illands, though the carriage of that fruit was reflricled to their own 

 veflels. The annual export of this fifli on an average of ten years 

 1 747-1756 was about 30,000 hogflaeads ; but it had now declined to 

 I 2,000 or 13,000. 



The herring fifliery on the Y;i:uioulh coafl has alfo declined very 

 much. At this time it employed only 94 vellels ; whereas in the year 

 1760 it employed 205 of from 30 to 100 tuns, and gave employment 

 to about 6,oco men, women, boys, and girls, belides 30 or 40 veflels 

 from Folkflonc, Haflings, &c. which have now deferted it entirely. 

 For about twenty years preceding 1 760 the annual capture of herrings 

 on the Norfolk coall was above 47,000 barrels, of which alxnit 38,000 

 were exported. The fifliery, which the jx-o|)le of Yarmouth, witlj the 

 afliflanee of the Shetland filhermen, uled to carry on, in about two 

 hundred veflels of from 40 to 60 tuns, in the neighbourhood of Iceland, 

 where the cod moft ialeable in the Spanifli and Italian markets are 



• The numbers here given arc the total* of each 

 year, aicorJiiiE to the account made up a: t!ic 

 fait <illice in July 1784 by oulcr of the uommitiec 

 of tiie houfe vi commons. Uut ihcy appear un- 

 accountably gfcat, btinij, i:idcpiMidtnt nl the bar- 

 rels, far beyond a thoufand rc«i herring;? for ever)- 

 pcrl'on, young and old, in all E'ljlar.d and W'alcj ; 



whereat, I thii.k, ti may be doubted, whether 

 every individual, one with another, cunfun.rs 

 twenty red hcrtiiig* in a year, (luerc, if for 

 ihiuj'.iiiJi «e Ihoulil not rcail liaglr Irrriaj^t ? 



t For the furrs in ihij e-ohinm I am indebted 

 to Doctor Ai.dcrfoii. Sec hi« SliUc »/ lit Htbnjr. 

 (\^ vllcru illands) /. 44''. 



