184 THE PILCHARD. 



back, Christmas was the time of their departure > 

 this alteration in time is a very singular fact *. 



We have the following account of the fishery 

 from Dr. Borlase : — " It employs (he says) a great 

 number of men on the sea, training them thereby 

 to naval affairs ; employs men, women, and chil- 

 dren, at land, in salting, pressing, washing, and 

 cleaning ; in making boats, nets, ropes, casks ; and 

 in all the trades depending on their construction 

 and sale. The poor are fed with the offals of the 

 captures, the land with the refuse of the fish and 

 salt, the merchant finds the gains of commission 

 and honest commerce, the fisherman the gains of the 

 fish. Ships are often freighted hither with salt, and 

 into foreign countries with the fish, carrying off, at 

 the same time, part of our tin. The usual produce 

 of the number of hogsheads exported each year, for 

 ten years, from 1 747 to 1 756 inclusive, from the four 

 ports of Tawy, Falmouth, Penzance, and St. Ives, 

 it appears that Tawy has exported yearly 1 732 hogs- 

 heads ; Falmouth, 14,63 1 hogsheads and two thirds ; 

 Penzance and Mounts-bay, 12,149 hogsheads and 

 one-third j St. Ives, 12S2 hogsheads: in all amount- 

 ing to 29,795 hogsheads. Every hogshead, for ten 

 years last past, together with the bounty allowed for 

 each hogshead exported, and the oil made out of 

 each hogshead, has amounted, one year with an- 

 other, at an average, to the price of one pound thir- 

 teen shillings and three-pence ; so that the cash paid 



* Maton's Observations on the Western Counties, vol. i. p. J4°« 



