Br Hibbert on the Discovery of the Shetland Cod-hanh. 141 
employed, 18 feet in keel, and 6 in beam, the adventurous 
crews of which carry each a stretch of lines amounting to 6000 
fathoms, with 1200 attached hooks. The German and Danish 
merchants, who had almost exclusively conducted the Shetland 
ling fisheries for nearly two centuries, left these shores in conse- 
quence of the bounties granted for the exportation of fish from 
Great Britain, agreeably to the acts of the years 1705 and 
1714. To these visitors succeeded occasional companies of 
Scotch and English merchants, who were actuated by the new 
bounty ; but eventually the fishery devolved to the Shetland 
landholders, whose policy it was to parcel out occupations to a 
number of individuals, involving at the same time, in the con- 
ditions of their holdings, the obligation to supply them at a sti- 
pulated rate with all the ling they caught during the customary 
summer season. The fish, when dried, were chiefly exported 
to the shores of the Mediterranean, and to Ireland. 
The second description of visitors to Shetland, for the pur- 
pose of prosecuting the fishery of the place, comprehended, as I 
stated, that people who, avoiding an intercourse with the natives 
of the shores which they rifled, obtained the lucrative object of 
their visits by an independent equipment : I here allude to the 
Dutch nation. An inquiry into the nature of their visits to 
Shetland will involve in it the question, whether the cod-bank, 
first generally made known to this country in the year 1818, 
was or was not previously resorted to by this reserved nation, 
who concealed from the rest of the world the fact of its exis- 
tence, or whether the knowledge of it, if really acquired by us, 
scarcely became an object of remembrance, owing to our pro- 
verbial supineness in every thing relating to the advancement 
of the British fisheries ? The independent system of the Hol- 
landers, and their little communication with the natives of the 
country, the policy of which is obvious, is alluded to by Brand, 
in his Tour to Shetland in the year! 7 12. “ The Dutch,” he re- 
marks, “ cannot be said so properly to trade with the country^ as 
to fish upon their coasts^ In fact, they only purchased fresh 
victuals from the natives, and a few stockings. 
The Dutch fishery is first particularly noticed by Captain 
Smith, who, in 163S, by order of the Earl of Pembroke, and the 
British Fishery Company of London, visited the islands of Shet- 
