214 CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE HERRING-FISHERY. 



When the bounty was diminished, the busses again 

 annually decreased in number in this country, for in the 

 year 1781 only L.9674 were paid in Scotland for bounty, 

 and in the years 1779 and 1782 no bounty was claimed 

 for busses fitted out in England.* 



And in the five years from 1779 to 1785, notwithstand- 

 ing all the expenditure of public money and the enterprise 

 of private individuals, the herring-fishery, for want of 

 sound legislation and judicious superintendence, had nearly 

 ceased to be of any importance. We can account for this 

 failure of the fishery to a considerable extent by the in- 

 judicious laws as to the times enacted for rendezvousing, 

 and fishing, and the oaths required to be made ; for the 

 licenses to fish (which by statute were to be issued by the 

 Commissioners of Customs) bore that the fishermen on the 

 west coast were to proceed to the north-west Highlands, 

 and the oaths were required to prove that the herrings 

 were caught on the coasts of Scotland. These restrictions 

 prevented the fishermen following the herrings to other 

 quarters, and, as an intelligent writer of the time says, 

 " filled the inhabitants of the coast with indignation 

 against these self made legislators, after having in vain 

 pleaded upon the obvious words of the statutes of their 

 country." But that highly useful body the " Convention of 

 Royal Burghs," in 1783 took the matter into consideration, 

 and in a spirited memorial addressed to the Lords of the 

 Treasury, brought them to a right conception of the 

 statutes, and to issue a circular to the inhabitants, 

 pretending to have misunderstood the law, and releasing 

 them from such restrictions, — but only after serious injury 

 had been done. 



From the irregular manner of curing herrings on the 



* Highland Society's Transactions, vol. ii, Dr Walker's Essay. 



