THE MACKEREL. 71 



Mr. Yarrell's admirable work -will serve to 

 show the causes of the bustle and excitement at 

 this juncture : — 



" In May, 1807, the first Brighton boat-load 

 of mackerel sold at Billingsgate for forty- 

 guineas per hundred — seven shillings each, 

 reckoning six score to the hundred ; the highest 

 price ever known at that market. The next 

 boat-load produced but thirteen guineas per 

 hundred. Mackerel were so plentiful at Dover, 

 in 1808, that they Avere sold sixty for a shilling. 

 At Brighton, in June of the same year, the 

 shoal of mackerel was so great, that one of the 

 boats had the meshes of her nets so completely 

 occupied with them, that it was impossible to 

 drag them in ; the fish and nets, therefore, in 

 the end sank together ; the fishermen thereby 

 sustaining a loss of nearly £60, exclusive of 

 what the cargo, could it have been got into the 

 boat, would have produced. The success of 

 the fishery of 1821 was beyond all precedent. 

 The value of the catch of sixteen boats from 

 Lowestoft, on the 30th of June, amounted to 

 £5,252 ; and it is supposed that there was no less 

 an amount than £14,000 altogether realized 

 by the owners and men concerned in the fishery 

 of the Suffolk coast. In March, 1833, four 

 Hastings' boats on one day brought on shore 



