THE SOCIETY OF IMPROVERS. 



23 



same in the newspapers.' The resolution was for a time 

 at least observed. Mr Maxwell tells us that, in compliance 

 with it, ' even at public assemblies of persons of the greatest 

 distinction, the whole company appeared dressed in linen 

 of our own manufacture.' 



The fisheries also engaged the Society's attention. It 

 drew up and addressed to ' all such as have interest therein ' 

 certain memoranda and suggestions on the manufactures 

 and fisheries of Scotland. In this paper it was recom- 

 mended ' that Trustees be named for North Britain to 

 encourage manufactures and make regulations respecting 

 them.' The Trustees, it was also suggested, ' should have 

 power to encourage the fisheries by, inter alia, giving 

 premiums to the merchants or fishers who should convey 

 a vessel of a certain tonnage out to the deep sea, and there 

 remain all the fishing time, whether they catch or not.' 

 Other two recommendations are very suggestive. One is 

 that, before the merchant or the fisher should receive a 

 premium, he must ' produce the fish legally [accordino- to 

 prescribed rule] cured to the cure-masters, to be placed in 

 the proper ports of North Britain for that purpose, in 

 order to be reported, examined, marked, and certified 

 as lawful cured fish.' The other suggestion is, that the 

 Trustees be authorised, ' if any complaint cam.e against 

 any merchant or fisher from the foreign market of not 

 having his fish cured in a proper manner,' to withhold the 

 premium. 



In these recommendations of the ' Honourable the 

 Society of Improvers ' we have the germs of two important 

 public bodies which have contributed not a little to the 

 prosperity of Scotland. One of these is the Board of 

 Trustees for Manufactures, established under an Act of 

 Parliament passed in 1727, immediately after the publica- 

 tion of the Society's suggestions. The other is the Board 

 of Fisheries, the initiatory step to^^•ards which appears in 

 a patent (issued in terms of an Act of Parliament) of date 

 July 18, 1727, wherein 'a sum not exceeding ;^ioo is 

 directed to be distributed in small prizes to such fishermen 

 as shall first make the discovery of herrings coming upon 



