232 CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE HERRING-FISHERY. 



offered for bounty, to be liable to seizure ; and each barrel was 

 to lie fifteen days before being repacked. The herrings to be 

 entitled to bounty were to be gutted by a knife, or the whole 

 or part of the bounty might be withheld. No net was to 

 have the meshes smaller than one inch from knot to knot ; 

 nor were any false or double nets to be used, under a penalty 

 of L.40. And no herrings were to be packed in casks made 

 of fir. Those offering herrings a second time for bounty to 

 be liable in a penalty of L.500 ; and a bond was to be given 

 that the salt for the fishery should not be relanded. The 

 Act was to continue in force for four years. 



The tonnage bounty on busses, with the peculiar and im- 

 proper restrictions enacted, did not prove suitable or advan- 

 tageous, and the number of vessels fitted out gradually de- 

 creased ; and on the 21st July 1821, the Act 1 and 2 Geo. 

 IV., c. 79, was passed, abolishing the bounty of L.3 per 

 ton on such vessels ; and in this Act were other clauses in 

 reference to the appointment of the superintendent of the 

 fisheries on the deep sea and otherways, and as to the 

 proper standard of the measure of herrings, called a cran, 

 admitting the herrings caught at the Isle of Man, or by 

 boats from the Isle of Man, to the bounty of 4s. per barrel, 

 as paid on herrings caught off the other coasts, and re- 

 ceived under the same regulations. 



In 1824 the increasing success of the herring-fishery 

 at "Wick or Pulteneytown, rendered it necessary that it 

 should be enlarged and made more safe for the numerous 

 boats and vessels that resorted thither at the fishing sea- 

 son ; and the British Fishery Society, which had already 

 expended a considerable sum, as already mentioned, on the 

 improvement of the place, commenced building an outer 

 harbour. 



The Act, 17th June 1824, 5 Geo. IV., c. 64, gradually 



