11 



was right. An alarm, however, had spread through- 

 out the body of fishermen, and when, by the kind 

 interference of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 

 an order to the Excise was obtained for the fisher- 

 men being allowed the like quantities of salt, duty 

 free, which they had before received, they for the 

 most part wholly abandoned that fishery for the 

 season. The number of vessels which were about 

 to proceed to it was double that of the preceding 

 year, in which nine hundred tons of cod were 

 obtained ; and the injury thus produced may be 

 readily estimated, for only about one hundred and 

 fifty tons of live and salted cod were furnished by 

 these fisheries in the last year. The Committee 

 have submitted to the consideration of Govern- 

 ment, a measure which would completely obviate 

 the impediment to the prosecution of those fisheries, 

 connected with the renewal of the 41st Geo. III. 

 cap. ^1, being the Act under which the bulk of 

 the salt-fish consumed in London is cured. But 

 owing to the slow progress which the regular 

 inquiries, perhaps in some degree necessarily make, 

 the Bill passed only a few days before the close of 

 the Session, without the remedy to these fisheries. 

 The Committee have every reason to acknowledge 

 the great attention paid to their representations by 

 his Mnjesty's Government ; but it is a fact which 

 they cannot but seriously lament, that owing to 

 the allowances of salt, duty free, not having been 

 in a state of complete arrangement, fish to a very 



