am afraid, been too common for the vessels to
fit out for the sole purpose of catching, not
the fish, but the bounty. In the year 1759,
when the bounty was at fifty shillings the ton,
the whole buss fishery of Scotland brought
in only four barrels of sea-sticks. In that
year, each barrel of sea-sticks cost government,
in bounties alone, L.113 : 15s.; each
barrel of merchantable herrings L.159 : 7 : 6.
Thirdly, The mode of fishing, for which
this tonnage bounty in the white herring fishery
has been given (by busses or decked vessels
from twenty to eighty tons burden), seems
not so well adapted to the situation of Scotland,
as to that of Holland, from the practice
of which country it appears to have been borrowed.
Holland lies at a great distance from
the seas to which herrings are known principally
to resort, and can, therefore, carry on
that fishery only in decked vessels, which can
carry water and provisions sufficient for a
voyage to a distant sea; but the Hebrides, or
Western Islands, the islands of Shetland, and
the northern and north-western coasts of Scotland,
the countries in whose neighborhood
the herring fishery is principally carried on,
are everywhere intersected by arms of the sea,
which run up a considerable way into the
land, and which, in the language of the country,
are called sea-lochs. It is to these sea-lochs
that the herrings principally resort during
the seasons in which they visit those seas;
for the visits of this, and, I am assured, of
many other sorts of fish, are not quite regular
and constant. A boat-fishery, therefore, seems
to be the mode of fishing best adapted to the
peculiar situation of Scotland, the fishers carrying
the herrings on shore as fast as they are
taken, to be either cured or consumed fresh.
But the great encouragement which a bounty
of 30s. the ton gives to the buss-fishery, is
necessarily a discouragement to the boat-fishery,
which, having no such bounty, cannot
bring its cured fish to market upon the same
terms as the buss-fishery. The boat-fishery,
accordingly, which, before the establishment
of the buss-bounty, was very considerable, and
is said to have employed a number of seamen,
not inferior to what the buss-fishery employs
at present, is now gone almost entirely to
decay. Of the former extent, however, of this
now ruined and abandoned fishery, I must
acknowledge that I cannot pretend to speak
with much precision. As no bounty was paid
upon the outfit of the boat-fishery, no account
was taken of it by the officers of the customs
or salt duties.
Fourthly, In many parts of Scotland, during
certain seasons of the year, herrings make
no inconsiderable part of the food of the common
people. A bounty which tended to lower
their price in the home market, might contribute
a good deal to the relief of a great number
of our fellow-subjects, whose circumstances
are by no means affluent. But the herring-buss
bounty contributes to no such good purpose.
It has ruined the boat-fishery, which is
by far the best adapted for the supply of the
home market; and the additional bounty of
2s. 8d. the barrel upon exportation, carries
the greater part, more than two-thirds, of the
produce of the buss-fishery abroad. Between
thirty and forty years ago, before the establishment
of the buss-bounty, 16s. the barrel, I
have been assured, was the common price of
white herrings. Between ten and fifteen years
ago, before the boat-fishery was entirely ruined,
the price was said to have run from seventeen
to twenty shillings the barrel. For these
last five years, it has, at an average, been at
twenty-five shillings the barrel. This high
price, however, may have been owing to the
real scarcity of the herrings upon the coast of
Scotland. I must observe, too, that the cask
or barrel, which is usually sold with the herrings,
and of which the price is included in
all the foregoing prices, has, since the commencement
of the American war, risen to
about double its former price, or from about
3s. to about 6s. I must likewise observe,
that the accounts I have received of the prices
of former times, have been by no means quite
uniform and consistent, and an old man of
great accuracy and experience has assured me,
that, more than fifty years ago, a guinea was
the usual price of a barrel of good merchantable
herrings; and this, I imagine, may still
be looked upon as the average price. All accounts,
however, I think, agree that the price
has not been lowered in the home market in
consequence of the buss-bounty.
When the undertakers of fisheries, after
such liberal bounties have been bestowed upon
them, continue to sell their commodity at the
same, or even at a higher price than they were
accustomed to do before, it might be expected
that their profits should be very great; and it
is not improbable that those of some individuals
may have been so. In general, however,
I have every reason to believe they have
been quite otherwise. The usual effect of
such bounties is, to encourage rash undertakers
to adventure in a business which they
do not understand; and what they lose by
their own negligence and ignorance, more
than compensates all that they can gain by
the utmost liberality of government. In 1750,
by the same act which first gave the bounty
of 30s. the ton for the encouragement of the
white herring fishery (the 23d Geo. II. chap.
24), a joint stock company was erected, with
a capital of L.500,000, to which the subscribers
(over and above all other encouragements,
the tonnage bounty just now mentioned, the
the exportation bounty of 2s. 8d. the barrel, the
delivery of both British and foreign salt duty
free) were, during the space of fourteen years,
for every hundred pounds which they subscribed
and paid into the stock of the society,
entitled to three pounds a-year, to be paid by