CROWN'S SEA FISHINGS. 127 



eries, but have maintained that it is both right and 

 according to law that they shall be permitted to cap- 

 ture salmon in the open sea in any way they choose. 

 The Lord Advocate is assuredly right in viewing the 

 establishment of the Crown's property in sea-fishings 

 as a favourable opportunity for settling the modes in 

 which these should be conducted. As no less than 600 

 such fishings exist on the coast of Scotland, the Com- 

 missioners of Her Majesty's Woods and Forests, whose 

 inquiry ascertained this fact, could not avoid a further 

 investigation for the purpose of ascertaining whether it 

 is just and expedient, having regard to the rights of 

 the Crown and individuals, that the existing mode of 

 fishing by bag and stake nets should either be done 

 away with altogether, or should be regulated. And 

 yet, for their most reasonable desire to discharge their 

 duty to the Crown and the public, the Commissioners 

 have been represented as rapacious interferers with 

 the vested rights of the said 600 riparian proprietors, 

 as they are termed, who insist that their stake-nets 

 shall not be meddled with, at least without compensa- 

 tion, seeing, as they assert, that their right to use them, 

 however doubtful at one time, has now the validity de- 

 rived from prescription. 



In order to show the reasonable spirit of the Com- 

 missioners, we quote the following, from the evidence 

 before the Lords of Horace Watson, Esq., Solicitor to 

 the Commissioners of Woods and Forests and Land 

 Kevenues : 



" To say that bag and stake nets should be prohibited 

 altogether in Crown leases would be deciding the very 

 question which the Committee are going to investigate 

 namely, Whether they should be done away with at 

 all, or whether they should be regulated or abolished in 

 certain localities ? I may add that the Commissioners 

 of Woods are bound, by their duty to the Crown and 

 to the public, not to give away the Crown property. It 

 is their duty to see that a fair revenue is obtained from 



