210 CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE HERRING-FISHERY. 



These Acts, although necessarily authorising the ex- 

 pending of considerable sums of the public money, had a 

 beneficial effect in directing the attention and the capital 

 of the inhabitants of the kingdom to the herring-fishery. 

 But although so much encouragement had been given or 

 offered, in this year (1757) only L.8867 was paid in 

 bounties, and in 1758 only 10,942 barrels of herrings were 

 exported.* 



It required some time to initiate those employed in 

 the proper mode of fishing and curing; and, although the 

 bounties were considerable (without reference to the im- 

 petus given), the number of people employed and the 

 various materials used fully warranted the propriety of 

 the application of the money. Such, however, was the mis- 

 management of the public revenues in Scotland in 1766, 

 that many of those who embarked in the fisheries were 

 ruined in consequence of the neglect or inability of the 

 public officers in Scotland to pay the bounties, while at 

 the same time the bounties in England were regularly paid. 



The bounties were truly looked on as hardly equivalent 

 to the heavy duties on the raw materials required in the 

 fishery, and in fitting out the busses, and to compensate 

 for the heavy fees paid the custom-house and other officers ; 

 but the non-payment of the bounty was of most ruinous 

 consequences to all those engaged in the fishery, and in 

 consequence of this dishonouring of the bounty debentures, 

 the number of the busses annually decreased. For in- 

 stance, there were fitted out in — 



1767 263 busses. 



1768 200 do. 



1769 89 do. 



1770 19 do. 



* Knox's Considerations, p. 19. 



t J. Lannie Buchanan on the Fishery of Great Britain, p. 64. 



