284 CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE HERRING-FI8HERY. 



of the port, ranging from 25 to 45 tons, all cutter rigged. 

 They are called sloops, carvel built, and all exclusively beam 

 trawlers. He describes them as generally well appointed. 

 Each vessel has four men and a boy, or three men and 

 two boys. There are, besides, from 80 to 100 smaller class 

 boats chiefly engaged in the hook and long-line fishing, 

 and, when the herrings appear, in the drift-net fishing ; 

 they vary in size from 4 to 15 tons — the smaller class be- 

 ing called yawls. He observes no bad spirit between the 

 two classes ; indeed, they are sometimes greatly annoyed 

 by a class of persons called pirates, — strangers who come 

 from distant places and rob their nets at night. All the 

 regulations of the French Convention are generally ob- 

 served, and the fence mouths are seldom encroached upon. 

 The trawlers finding that when the weather permits, their 

 most productive ground is far outside the limits, they 

 never trawl in the bay, unless it should be blowing a gale 

 of wind outside, and very rarely during the fence months 

 under any circumstances. They gene rally trawl in theoffing 

 between Start Point and Hope's Nose, about five miles 

 from the entrance to the bay, sometimes in thirty fathoms ; 

 but they vary their ground according to the state of the 

 weather. With a strong easterly wind the fish lie ofi* in 

 deep water. It is a mode of fishing particularly liable to 

 casualties. A sloop will sometimes lose her whole gear, 

 to the value of L.40 and upwards. The laws relating to 

 fence months are not well understood, but yet they seldom 

 trawl in the bay ; the ground is only fit in the centre, be- 

 ing all foul along shore on both sides. Knows of no in- 

 stance of a breach of the 25th article of the Convention, 

 requiring trawlers to keep three miles from herring boats. 

 The French boats, from Dieppe andBourdeaux, often come 

 in during the winter in large numbers. They do not 



