A. D. 1784. 65. 



leem to have known nothing of the method of making oil of them, or 

 were prevented by the want, or high price, of fuel, gave up the filhery. 

 There are * few years in which one or more of the lochs are not equally 



* well llored with the herrings : but from the mode in which the fifh- 



* ing has been hitherto carried on, it feldom happens that great benefits 

 ' refult from it to the natives.* 



According to an account laid before the committee of the houfc of 

 commons the following were the numbers of foreign vellels and men 

 employed in the herring fifhery in the courfe of this fummer *. 



From various ports of Holland 166 vefTels carrying 2,265 i^<^ti. 



Emden (Pruflian) 



Hamburgh and Alton a 



Dunkirk 



Oftend and Newport (in Flanders) 

 The Danes had alfq 

 and the Dutch 



275 veflels carrying 3,765 men. 

 The lords of the treafury, in order to obtain information upon the 

 important fubjed of the fifhery on the wefl coafi: of Scotland, this fummer 

 appointed Dodlor Anderfon, a gentleman already diftinguifhed by his va- 

 rious publications upon fubjeds of rural economy and the means of excit- 

 ing a fpirit of national induftry, to make a furvey of the coall, which he 

 performed, and gave in his report of it ; the fubflance of which, and of 

 his evidence given before the committee of the houfe of commons for 

 fifheries, he publifhed in ^n account of the prejentjiate of the Hebrides and' 

 weflern coq/is of Scotland. 



In the courfe of the laft twenty years a great number of journies to 

 the fame parts of the country, and for the fame purpofe, had been made 

 by the patriotic Mr. John Knoxf , who devoted the fortune, he had ac- 

 quired in bufinefs, to the improvement of his country in planning im- 

 provements upon the herring fifliery, the eflablifliment of towns upon 

 the north-well coaft of Scotland, and meliorating the condition of the 



* The author of a pamphlet, publiilied this year, writer: but the numbers for this year, as taken 



fays, 'There ^xuva annually in BrafTa found [in from the parh'amentary accounts, mud be prefumtd 



' Shetland] between two and three hundred Dutch to be correft. 



« Iceland (hips of 80 tons ; two or three hundred f This gentleman was for many years an eminent 



' Dutch herring buffes ; thirty Dunkirk, herring bookfeller in the Strand. He explored the fcvcral 



' buflcs ; thirty Irom Oftcnd ; about thirty Daniib ; coafts, which are the fcenes of the fiftieries, no lefs 



' twenty or thirty Pruflian; feveral jaggers jbeCdes l\\7iiwjixteen times between the years 1764 and 1787. 



' Dutch and Britilli Greenland fhips.' ***• They He died in the year 1790. His book, though 



' pay nothing for anchorin;^ ground, nor for the fomcwhat loaded with extraneous matter, mult be 



' liberty of fifning on the Biitifh fliore.' \_General ever regarded by the friends of their country, and 



remarks on the Britipi Jiflierics, by a North Briton, of humanity, as a noble monument of the public 



p. 30.3 I am not enabled to fay, whether the num- fpirit and philanthropy of an uudiftinguifhed jadivi;'.- 



oers are generally fo high as they are dated by this i>al. 



Vol. IV. I 



