and on the Salmon Fisheries. S57 
103. 1S6.) ; they employ many hands, (pp. 51. 80. 123.) ; they 
educate expert seamen, (pp. 51. 81. 104.) 
Sir H. Davy assuming (though destroyed in the evidence) 
that salmon belong in fact to the river in which they were spawn- 
ed, affect a particular river, and always return to it, declares, 
As the old law of the country was framed upon this principle, 
salmon-fisheries never having been considered as belonging to 
the coasts all stake-nets should be abolished, as they enable per- 
sons having no interest in the river to cut off almost entire- 
ly the supply of fish p. 145. Without entering into the 
rather singular dispute in political economy, — whether British 
subjects should be fed with salmon, or the preference given to 
seals and grampuses,~"we shall rather advert to the law and. the 
reason.^ as laid down by the latter, in reference to stake-nets. Had 
Sir Humphry Davy ever examined the old law on the subject, he 
never could have risked such a groundless assertion. In Magna 
Charta^ he will find these words: ‘‘ Oranes hidelli (wears, or stake- 
nets, Coke and Court of Session) deponantur de cetero penitus 
per Thamesiam et Medweyam,et per totam Av^^mm^nisi per cos~ 
teram marisP He will find in 9th Henry III. c. 23. All wears 
from henceforth shall be utterly put down by Thames and Med- 
way, and through all England, hut only hy the sea-coasts.’’"' And 
in 12th Edward IV. c. 7. that all kidels by Thames and Med- 
way, and throughout the realm of England, should be taken 
av^y (sinoun per les coaster del mear) saving hy the sea-hanhsT 
In the statute of Robert I. of Scotland, 1318, c. 12, everything 
in reference to wears or fixtures applies to these, in aquis ubi 
mare fluit et refluit or, as it is expressed in the act 1424, 
c. 11. of King James I. in fresclie watteris quhar the sea fillis 
and ebbs.” It hence appears, in opposition to Sir Humphry 
Davy’s statement, that stake-nets, or engines similar to stahe-^ 
nets, were permitted on the sea-coast hy the old law qf the coun- 
try, though proliibited elsewhere. The reason given, that, by 
stake-nets, persons having no 'interest in the salmon, cut off the 
supply from the river heritors, to whom in fact they belong, will 
be found equally untenable. Let us see to what conclusion 
it would naturally lead us. If stake-net fishings, in estu- 
aries and on the shore, should be abolished, because fish are 
taken in these which belong to the place ‘‘ in which they were 
VOL. XIT. XO. 24. APRIL 1825. 
A a 
