53 
COD 
carried on in the German Ocean, and that in yery early times, 
as appears from the fact that it was so recognised belore the 
year 1368, when the city of Amsterdam procured permission 
from the King of Sweden to form an establishment for carrying 
it on in the Isle of Schonen; and in the year 1415, Henry 
the Fifth of England compelled the King of Denmark to make 
satisfaction to some of his subjects for injuries received in his 
dominions for something connected with it. Whatever was the 
nature of the privilege thus claimed, it was afterwards lost, 
until Elizabeth recovered it. This fishery was the principal 
source of the supply of Cods, until the discovery of the much 
larger numbers to be obtained on the banks of Newfoundland; 
when the attention of fishermen became directed to that more 
distant but more promising source of wealth, under the 
direction and with the assistance of merchants who made it a 
portion of the traffic which they were accustomed to carry on 
with the Italian ports of the Mediterranean. On these fertile 
banks the mode of fishing has varied, but it is only of late 
that reports have been circulated of a decrease in the numbers 
of the fishes that are found in that district; as if the long- 
continued and mighty inroads which have been made on them 
have at last effected a decided diminution of what may have 
appeared an inexhaustible supply. But Cods have long been 
found in large numbers nearer home, as on the Dogger Bank, 
and in our North-eastern Sea, where, along the borders of 
Northumberland and Norfolk, the fishery engages the service 
of a large number of boats and men, of which the port of 
Barking in particular affords an instance. According to evidence 
produced before a committee of the House of Commons, there 
belong to that place about one hundred and twenty fishing 
vessels, of the burden of forty to sixty tons, with a crew of 
upwards of eight hundred men; and their employment m this 
fishery lasts for about three months in the year, during which 
they are accustomed to make three voyages on the whole. 
But within a year or two a new discovery has been made 
of a situation, which for a time, is likely to draw to itself 
the attention of fishermen of the northern portion of our 
island and perhaps of Ireland, in a higher degree than any 
other. This is along the upper portion of a submarine elevation, 
of which the situation is marked by a solitary rock that bears 
the name of Kockall, and which probably was belter known 
