53 
and having no way of supporting them¬ 
selves but by the fish which they take, 
(and which they are obliged to sell to 
their landlords at a fixed price,) are often 
necessitated, either to go on board such 
merchant vessels as call in here, or en¬ 
ter voluntarily into his Majesty’s Navy. 
In many places, three or four families 
are found on a farm which thirty or forty 
years ago was possessed only by one. 
Unmarried men have another induce¬ 
ment to enter into matrimony ; for when 
Government requires a number of men 
for the Navy, the proprietors take good 
care to send off those who are unmarried. 
By these factitious regulations, the po¬ 
pulation has become superabundant, in¬ 
somuch that the produce of the islands 
does not support their inhabitants more 
than seven or eight months in the year. 
Before the proprietors of lands became 
so deeply engaged in the fishing business, 
juvenile or premature marriages were, in 
