64 THE BRITISH FISH TRADE. 



to be reported " the destruction continued, notwithstanding 

 the action of the Legislature ; and it occurred to another 

 Bishop that, as Parliamentary action had failed, recourse 

 might be had to a Higher Power. Bishop Wilson, probably 

 convinced like all around him of the decay of the fishery, 

 added a paragraph to the Litany, and desired his clergy to 

 pray every Sunday to God to restore the blessings of the 

 sea. But though the prayer was offered up and abundantly 

 answered, the same complaints continued. A few years 

 afterwards, according to Mr. Lecky, the Irish fisheries 

 decayed in consequence of the introduction of trawling on 

 the Irish coast ; while, to come down to our own time, in 

 the year in which the Queen ascended the throne, a petition 

 presented to Parliament declared that the fishermen of 

 Scotland, Ireland, and Holland had found out the 

 breeding places of the herrings, and had resorted there to 

 catch them, and that since the discovery was made the fish 

 generally, throughout the west and north of Scotland, had 

 annually decreased. What would the good Bishop of 

 St. David's have said, 330 years ago, if some seer had told 

 him that the time was coming when British fishermen would 

 draw 2,000,000,000 herrings annually from the British seas, 

 and that the fisheries would still go on increasing ? What 

 would Parliament have said in 1558 if it had known that 

 the " lamentable and horrible " practices which it denounced 

 would be continued for upwards of three centuries, and that 

 at the end of that time the British fisheries would yield a 

 produce twenty times as valuable as the revenue which 

 Elizabeth had at her disposal ? What would Parliament 

 have said in 1837 if some statesman had used such language 

 as this : This fishery which you declare is being destroyed, 

 has never yet produced 500,000 barrels of cured herrings a 

 year ; a little more than forty years hence it will regularly 

 produce 1,000,000 barrels? Yet such a prediction would 



