A. D. 1799. 487 



houfes for making red herrings were ereded. In that and the follow- 

 ing years the Firth was covered with fifhing velTels, not only from the 

 adjicent ports, but from every part of Scotland, the coaft of England as 

 far as Briftol, and alfo Ireland, thofe from the weft coaft and from Ire- 

 land being conveyed acrofs the country by the Forth-and-Glyde canal ; 

 and the animating appearance of about 360 failing veifels and 1,200 

 boats, all bufity engaged in the fidiery, together with the crowds of gut- 

 ters, falters, coopers, and other people employed by it upon the iliore, 

 recalled the remembrance of antient times, when the numerous towns 

 upon the coaft of Fife were enlivened and enriched by the herring filTi- 

 ery *. The revival of this great fiftiery, which was calculated to pro- 

 duce annually about half a million of barrels of herrings f , afforded a 

 moft providential fupply of cheap and wholefome food to the adjacent 

 country, and all places to which they could be carried by the higglers, 

 in thofe years when the price of bread was moft exorbitant. Even the 

 London market was fupplied by the faft-failing Berwick fmacks with 

 frefti herrings from the Forth by means of the excellent contrivance of 

 packing fifti in ice : and prodigious numbers were alfo carried in a 

 ftightly-falted ftate X to London and other places. Though the people 

 of the eaft fide of Scotland were not now fo expert in curing their her- 

 rings as thofe of Campbelltown, Rothfay, Greenock, Stornoway, and the 

 weft coaft in general §, great quantities of the herrings cured in the 

 Forth were carried to the Weft-Indies for the ufe of the plantation neg- 

 roes : and confiderable quantities of the red herrings were alfo exported. 



As all thefe methods of difpofing of the fifti could not take off the 

 whole of them, the remainder were moftly boiled for oil : and by a new 

 procefs, invented by Mr. Crooks of Edinburgh and Sir John Dalrymple, 

 herrings, and any other fifti, even in a putrid ftate, are made into loap 

 by a mixture of turpentine and other materials ; an invention which 

 may in time reduce the price of that univerfally-neceftary article. 



About the end of this year a cargo of coals, faid to be of an excellent 

 quality, was ftiipped at Coal river, about 100 miles north of Port Jack- 

 fon in New South Wales, for Bengal. 



This year the once-powerful, and eminently profperous, Dutch Eaft- 

 India company made the laft payment to the proprietors of their ftock, 

 and that only of dividends in arrears. As the commerce of that com- 

 pany was now fufpended, this feems to be the proper place to lay before 

 the reader 



• In the Firth of Forth the herrings fwim near were as frefli as one would chufe to have them for 



the notth (hore, which gives the fifhermen of Fife, eating, and of a quality far luperior to thofe ufually 



efpecially in the wide part of the Firth a great ad- fold in London, though inferior to thofe of Locii 



vantage over thofe of the oppoiite Ihore. Fyne and fome other parts of the weit coafl. 



•f- The cullom-houfe accounts ot the tithery ex- J This year fome herrings from Stornoway fold 



hibit only the herrings (!(?•<•£/ in Scotland, without for about £2 fterling per barrel at Hamburgh, 



taking any cognizance of tliole caught by vellels where a cargo from Leith fo'.d at a third of that 



from England and Ireland, of the vail numbers con- price. But thofe carried thither by the hihermeii 



fumed frelh in the country, or thole carried ti) Lon- of Aitona, and cured in the Dutch nianr.ir, fold 



(Ion and other parts of Gicat Britain. for /J5. 



J Thefe herrings, when wafaed from the fait, 



