assist me with your prayers, that at the very point and instant of death's stroke, I may in that very moment stand steadfast, without fainting in any one point of the Catholique faith, free from any fear. And I beseech Almighty God of his infinite goodnesse, to save the king and his realme, and that it may please him to hold his hand over it and send him good counsel.' These, or like words, he spake with such a cheerful countenance, such a stout and constant courage, and such a reverend gravity, that he appeared to all men not only void of feare, but also glad of death. Besides this, he uttered his words so distinctly, and with so loud and cleare a voice, that the people were astonished thereat, and noted it for a miraculous thing, to heare so plain and audible a voice come from so weak and sickly an old body; for the youngest man in that presence, being in good and perfect health, could not have spoken to be better heard and perceived than he was. Then after these few words by him uttered, he kneeled down on both his knees and said certain prayers, among which one was the hymn of Te Deum laudamus, to the end, and the psalm of In te, Domine, speravi. Then came the executioner and bound a handkerchief about his eyes; and so this holy father, lifting up his hands and heart towards heaven, said a few prayers, which were not long, but fervent and devout; which being ended, he laid his head down on the middle of a little block, where the executioner being ready with a sharp and heavy axe, cut asunder his slender neck at one blow, which bled so abundantly that many wondered to see so much blood issue out of so slender and lean a body. Lord Her

bert says that the Pope Paul III. sent him a Cardinal's hat, but unseasonably, his head being off.'

FISHER (John), D.D., a modern English prelate, was born at Hampton in Middlesex in 1748, his father being at that period curate of the village. Becoming afterwards chaplain to bishop Thomas, Mr. Fisher was by him presented to the vicarage of Peterborough, in the grammarschool of which city his eldest of ten sons, the subject of this memoir, received the rudiments of his education. He was afterwards removed to St. Paul's school, and thence proceeded to Peterhouse, Cambridge, in 1766. In 1770 he took his degree of A. B. with considerable credit; and two years afterwards succeeded to a fellowship at St. John's, of which college he also became a tutor. While in this situation prince Czartorinski Poniatowski, and several other distinguished personages, were placed under his care; but it was to his integrity in the election of Dr. Chevalier to the vacant headship of his college, that his future success in life is to be mainly attributed. It induced bishop Hurd to recommend him to George III. in the capacity of tutor to prince Edward, afterwards duke of Kent. In 1787 he married the daughter of Mr. Scrivener of Sibton Abbey, Suffolk, and two years afterwards proceded to his doctor's degree. În 1803 he was raised to the bishopric of Exeter, and was appointed to superintend the education of the late lamented princess Charlotte. In 1809 he was translated to the see of Salisbury. Dr. Fisher died in this see, in 1825, with the character of a most amiable and unostentatious, while active churchman.

FISHERIES. While the sea surrounds her on every side, and her navy shall continue the bulwark of Great Britain, the subject of fisheries, and the encouragement of a hardy race of fishermen, must ever be of importance to this country. Both have, therefore, from an early period attracted the attention, not only of individuals, but of the government. It is said that nearly half of the known Linnæan species of fish frequent our shores.

We cannot, in this article, attempt more than to furnish the reader with a sketch of the history of our principal established fisheries, i.e. the cod, the herring, the pilchard, the mackerel, the salmon, and the lobster and oyster fisheries, &c. all of them articles of food, and of a large home consumption. For an account of the northern and southern whale-fishery, see WHALE-FISHERY. We, perhaps, should first notice the longstanding complaint that has been made of our neglect of fish as an article of food. There can be no question that the complaint is just, as applied to a large portion of the inhabitants of this country. In the inland counties, the laboring classes seldom or never touch it; cod is a luxury at the tables of respectable families of the middle class; and salmon, once the common food of all ranks while in season,

VOL. IX.

in the northern counties, is universally scarce and dear; and through large portions of the country almost unknown. The only way in which this can be accounted for is, the entire monopoly of fish that has long been concentrated in the hands of the London salesmen. Boats to convey fish fresh to this market, gradually draw off all the regular supplies from the local markets; and the contrivance of packing fish in ice has further aided their absorption in this one direction. In the metropolis the price is always kept up sufficiently high to ensure a supply; when there is any danger of the supply becoming excessive, the old method of the Dutch East India Company, to enhance the price of their spices, i. e. by destroying them, is resorted to; and the tricks and manoeuvres of the fishermen, salesmen, and fishmongers, are only exceeded by those of Mark-Lane. In the cities of London and Westminster, to crown this modern absurdity in the supply of a principal article of food, there is also, unfortunately, but one fish-market-the favored Billingsgate! The consequence of which is,' as Mr. Barrow has observed, 'that a sort of blockade checks the supply of fish for the metropolis; that large quantities are withheld or destroyed as they approach the market, in order to keep up the

S

price; and 2,000,000 of people are nearly prohibited from the use of an article of food, which might be applied to the diminishing of the consumption of butchers' meat and wheat-corn, to the great relief of the whole kingdom.'

The committee of the fish association' have enumerated four principal impediments to an increased supply and distribution, of which they strongly recommend the removal by all practicable means. The first, which, in fact, produces the rest, is the restriction of the market to Biliingsgate; the second is the doubt and hesitation of fishermen in bringing up to this only market so large a quantity of fish as they might procure, under an uncertain demand for it; the third, the difficulty and the increased expense of distribution from their above-mentioned remote market; and the fourth, the uncertainty of the price, and the total ignorance in which the public are kept as to the daily state of the supply.

The evils of the Billingsgate monopoly,' says the foregoing writer, are strongly exemplified in the case of mackerel, which is known to be scarcest in the market when most abundant in the British channel: then, indeed, the mackerel fishery is abandoned by the fishermen for two reasons; the one is, that they would be too cheap; the other, the difficulty of distribution, which is effected by fisherwomen, who attend daily at Billingsgate to purchase the mackerel, and carry them for sale to the different parts of the town: the attendance of these women secures to the fishermen a regular custom for their fish; but this laborious, and not always profitable employment, is abandoned as soon as the common fruit comes into season, the carriers and distributors finding the sale of strawberries, gooseberries, currants, &c., a more pleasant and profitable occupation, with less risk and trouble. All the mackerel which may arrive at this period, beyond the estimated demand of the fishmongers, however fresh and good, is thrown into the Thames. Perhaps, therefore, in the case of this particular fish, a free and unrestricted use of salt might be the means of procuring and preserving a considerable stock of palatable and nutritious food. It is the more surprising that these impediments to a more extended use of fish in the metropolis, so obviously arising out of the chartered privilege of Billingsgate, should so long have been suffered to exist, especially as nothing more is required for the dissolution of this injurious monopoly than the establishment of new markets. The evils of this monopoly are not of recent date. In early times, there appears to have been a regularly established fish-market at Queenhithe. In the first year of Henry III., 1226, the constable of the Tower was ordered to compel the boats, arriving with fish, to proceed to that market; and Edward IV. directed that two out of three vessels, arriving with fish, should proceed to Queenhithe, and the other remain at Billingsgate. At that period, the population of London, and its environs, appears to have been about a twenty-fourth part of its resent amount, yet it had then two fish-markets. market of Queenhithe, however, was sufi to drop; and we hear of no attempt to

establish a second, until the middle of the last century, when an act was passed, in the year 1749, for making a free market for the sale of fish in the city of Westminster; and for preventing the forestalling and monopolising of fish.' Yet, strange and unaccountable as it may appear, this act was then, and has since remained a dead letter. Westminster, since that time, has increased its population at least three-fold, and is still without a fish-market. The act has never been repealed, and requires only the nomination of new and more efficient commissioners to carry it into effect. If, in the vicinity of all the bridges across the Thames, fish-markets were once established, the fishermen of Deal, Dover, Hastings, Brighton, and other parts of the coasts of Kent and Sussex, would amply supply those markets by land-carriage, with the ordinary kinds of fish, in addition to the more valuable kinds brought up the Thames; and it could not fail to increase the general use of fish in and about London, if, when the Regent's canal shall be opened, two or three fish-markets were established near it for the supply of Islington, Pancras, Paddington, and the whole line of London along the New Road, containing an immense population almost entirely cut off from the use of fish. The only arguments in favor of keeping back the fish, and throwing them overboard, is the frequent westerly wind which prevents the fishing-vessels from proceeding to the market up the Thames; but that excuse is now done away by the numerous steam-vessels, which could easily tow up the fishing-boats.'

With regard, therefore, to the country at large, the demand for fish has, for a great length of time, become too unsteady and unimportant to ensure that regular mercantile supply which the natural abundance of fish all around us, the inexhaustible natural supply, would teach us to expect. We are much surprised that spirited individuals in the interior parts of Great Britain are not found to undertake the regular transmission of it from the coasts; to stimulate the demand, and regulate the supply as a matter of trade: but into the vortex of London monopoly this great article of human subsistence has been drawn; and a great length of time, and many mercantile revolutions, may be necessary to recover it from it.

We should, perhaps, add, that the salt duties (lately repealed) largely contributed to the disuse of salt-fish in this country.

Certain it is that the fisheries have not always languished for want of public encouragement. In 1580 a plan was formed for raising £80,000 for establishing The British Fishery." In 1615 the same sum was raised by a joint-stock company. In 1632 a Royal Fishing company was established under the sanction of Charles I.; who, in order to increase the demand, prohibited the importation of foreign fish, directed a supply to be furnished for his fleet, and ordered Lent to be more strictly observed. In 1660 parliament granted a remission of the salt duties, and freed all the materials employed in the fisheries from customs and excise.

The national fishery met with great encouragement under the auspices of Charles II. In

1677 this monarch incorporated the duke of York and others into The Company of the Royal Fishery of England;' but their capital was exhausted in the purchase and fitting out of a few busses, built in Holland, and manned with Dutchmen, which were seized by the French. In 1713 it was proposed to raise £180,000 on annuities, for the purpose of establishing a fishing company. In 1749 by the recommendation of George II. in his opening speech to Parliament, and, in consequence of a report of a committee of the house of commons, the sum of £500,000 was subscribed for carrying on the fisheries, under a corporation, by the name of "The Society of the Free British Fishery,' of

which the Prince of Wales was chosen the governor. This society, patronised by men of the first rank, promised fair for a little time, but soon began to languish; nor was the large bounty of 56s. a ton, able to prevent its total failure. The attention of parliament was again called to this great national object in 1786, when a new corporation was formed, under the name of The British Society for Extending the Fisheries and Improving the Sea Coasts of the Kingdom,' which has continued, with various modifications, to the present time.

Parliament also has been liberal in encouraging the fisheries by bounties. A committee of the house of commons, in 1785, reported that the herring-fishery cost the country little short of £20,000 annually, which, on an average of ten years, was equal to £75 per cent. on the value of all the fish that had been taken by the vessels on which it was paid. But, as Dr. Smith has observed, a tonnage-bounty, proportioned to the burden of the ship, and not to her diligence and success in the fishery, is not the best stimulus to exertion; it was an encouragement for fitting out ships to catch, not the fish, but the bounty; or to induce rash adventurers to engage in concerns which they do not understand. The carelessness of such persons, and the ignorance of those employed by them in curing and packing the fish, not only robbed the public purse, but destroyed the character of the article in the foreign market; where, if saleable at all, it fetched only an inferior price, while the skill and attention of the Dutch secured for their fish that preference to which they were justly entitled. The recent change of the bounty, however, from the tonnage to the quantity and the quality of the fish caught and cured, with the regulations adopted by the acts of 48th and 55th Geo. III. have had the good effect of raising the character, and consequently increasing the demand for British fish in the foreign markets, where the herrings in particular are now held in equal esteem with those of the Dutch. This bounty, granted by the act 48th Geo. III. c. 110, is 2s. per barrel on all herrings branded by the proper officers, and 4s. a barrel granted by the act 55th Geo. III. c. 94, and is so considerable, that, at present, it amounts to not less than £30.000 a-year.

The following is an official return, for the year ending 5th April, 1818, of the total number of vessels, including their repeated voyages, which have been cleared outwards for the British Her

ring Fishery, not on the Tonnage Bounty, in the year ended 5th April, 1818; distinguishing the number of men on board, the tonnage, netting, salt, and barrels carried out.

Ves. Men. Tonnage. Netting. Salt. Barrels. Num. Num. Tons. Sq. Yards. Bushels. Numb. 8844049 26,951}{2,490,660 224,133 125185|

The returns for the same year of the total number of vessels which were fitted out in Scotland, for the Open Sea Fishery,' under the regulations of the 48th and 55th Geo. III., is as under :

North Britain takes the lead in all our domestic fisheries. The whole coast of Scotland may indeed be considered as one continued fishery, distinguished by the names of the Shetland, or northern fishery, that on the east side of the kingdom from the Pentland frith to Berwick, and the western or Hebrides fishery. The principal town on the Shetland Islands is called Lerwic, situated on a narrow channel of the Main-land, called Brassa or Brassey Sound. Hither the Dutch and other foreigners have been accustomed to resort to the fisheries at the appointed seasons, when Lerwic has had all the appearance of a continued market or fair. The eastern fisheries along the shores of Scotland, though less considerable than those on the coasts of Shetland, are also of great national importance. The late war, however, drove our Dutch neighbours from their haunts. In 1819 Mr. Stevenson, the celebrated engineer, thus describes their re-appearance there; and adds so many useful reflections on the subject of the fisheries of Scotland, that we transcribe the principal part of his paper on the subject originally communicated to the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal.

In the early part of August last (1819), while sailing along the shores of Kincardineshire, about ten miles off Dunottar Castle, the watch upon deck, at midnight, called out

Lights a-head.' Upon a nearer approach, these lights were found to belong to a small fleet of Dutch fishermen employed in the deep-sea fishing, eash vessel having a lantern at her masthead. What success these plodding people had met with, our crew had no opportunity of enquiring; but upon arriving the next morning at Fraserburgh, the great fishing station on the coast of Aberdeen, we found that about 120 boats, containing five men each, had commenced the fishing-season here six weeks before, and had that night caught no less than about 1500 barrels of herrings, which, in a general way, when there is a demand for fish, may be valued at £1 sterling

per barrel to the fishermen, and may be regarded as adding to the wealth of the country perhaps not less than £3000. In coasting along between Fraserburgh and the Orkney Islands, another fleet of Dutch fishermen was seen at a distance. The harbour and bay of Wick were crowded with fishing-boats and busses of all descriptions, collected from the Frith of Forth, and southward even as far as Yarmouth and Lowestoffe. The Caithness fishing was said to have been pretty successful, though not equal to what it has been in former years.

In the Orkney and Shetland Islands, one would naturally look for extensive fishing establishments, both in herrings and what are termed white fish, (cod, ling, and tusk); but it is a curious fact, that while the Dutch have long come from their own coast to these islands to fish herrings, it is only within a very few years that the people of Orkney, chiefly by the spirited and praise-worthy exertions of Samuel Laing, esq., have given any attention to this important source of wealth. It has long been a practice with the great fishmongers of London to send their welled smacks to fish for cod, and to purchase lobsters, around the Orkney islands; and both are carried alive to the London market. This trade has done much good to these islands, and has brought a great deal of money to them; but still it is of a more circumscribed nature, and is less calculated to swell the national wealth, than the herring and white fishery in general.

Hitherto the industry of the Orcadians has been chiefly directed to farming pursuits; while the Shetlanders have been almost exclusively occupied in the cod, ling, and tusk fishing. It is doubtful, indeed, if, up to this period, there be a single boat belonging to the Shetland Isles, which is completely equipped for the herring fishery. But here, again, another fleet of Dutch doggers was seen collecting in numbers off these islands, which is considered a rich harvest in Holland. So systematically do the Dutch pursue the fishing business upon our coasts, that their fleet of busses is accompanied by an hospitalship. This vessel we now found at anchor in Lerwick Roads, and were informed that she paid weekly visits to the fleet, to supply medicines, and to receive any of the people falling sick, or meeting with any accident.

'Though Shetland is certainly not so much an agricultural country as Orkney, yet it may be hoped that the encouragement judiciously held out by the Highland Society, for the production of green crops in Shetland, may eventually have the effect of teaching these insular farmers the practicability of providing fodder for their cattle in the spring of the year. For ages past this has been a great desideratum. The command of a month or six weeks fodder, would enable the proprietors of that country to stock many of their fine verdant isles with cattle, and to employ their hardy tenantry more exclusively in the different branches of the fishery.

'It is well known, that, next to the Newfoundland Banks, those of Shetland are the most productive in ling, cod, tusk, and other white fish; and by the recent discovery of a bank, trending

many leagues to the south-westward, the British merchants have made a vast accession to their fishing-grounds. In the small picturesque Bay of Scalloway, and in some of the other bays and voes on the western side of the Mainland of Shetland, the fishing upon this new bank (which I humbly presume to term the Regent Fishing Bank, a name at once calculated to mark the period of its discovery, and pay a proper compliment to the prince), has been pursued with great success. Here small sloops, of from fifteen to twenty-five tons burden, and manned with eight persons, have been employed. In the beginning of August they had this summer fished for twelve weeks, generally returning home with their fish once a week. On an average, these vessels had caught 1000 fine cod-fish a-week, of which about 600, in a dried state, go to the ton, and these they would have gladly sold at about £15 per ton. So numerous are the fish upon the Regent Fishing Bank, that a French vessel, belonging, it is believed, to St. Maloes, had sailed with her second cargo of fish this season; and though the fishermen did not mention this under any apprehension, as though there were danger of the fish becoming scarce, yet they seemed to regret the circumstance, on account of their market being thus pre-occupied.

'Here, and at Orkney, we had the pleasure to see many ships arriving from the whale-fishing, and parting with a certain proportion of their crews. To such an extent, indeed, are the crews of the whalers made up from these islands, that it is calculated that not less than £15,000 in cash are annually brought into the islands by this means. With propriety, therefore, may the whale-fishery be regarded as one of the most productive sources of national wealth connected

with the British fisheries.

From the Orkney and Shetland Islands our course was directed to the westward. A considerable salmon-fishing seems to be carried on in the mouths of the rivers of Lord Reay's Country in Sutherlandshire: the fish are carried from this to Aberdeen, and from thence in regular trading smacks to London. We heard little more of any kind of fishing till we reached the Harris Isles. There, and throughout the numerous lochs and fishing stations on the Mainland, in the districts of Gairloch, Applecross, Lochalsh, Glenelg, Moidart, Knoidart, Ardnamurchan, Mull, Lorn, and Kintyre, we understood that there was a general lamentation for the disappearance of herrings, which in former times used to crowd into lochs which they seem now to have in some measure deserted. This the fishermen suppose to be owing to the schools being broken and divided about the Shetland and Orkney Islands; and they remark, that, by some unaccountable change in the habits of the fish, the greater number now take the east coast of Great Britain. This is the more to be regretted, that in Sky, the Lewis, Harris, and Uist Islands, the inhabitants have of late years turned their attention much to the fishing. Indeed this has followed as a matter of necessity, from the general practice of converting the numerous small arable farms, which were perhaps neither very useful to the tenants, nor profitable to the laird, into great sheep

walks; so that the inhabitants are now more generally assembled upon the coast. The large sums expended in the construction of the Caledonian Canal, have either directly or indirectly become a source of wealth to these people: they have been enabled to furnish themselves with boats and fishing tackle, and for one fishingboat, which was formerly seen in the Hebrides only twenty years ago, it may be safely affirmed that ten are to be met with now. If the same spirit shall continue to be manifested, in spite of all the objections which have been urged against the salt laws, and the depopulating effects of emigration, the British fisheries in these islands, and along this coast, with a little encouragement will be wonderfully extended, and we shall ere long see the Highlands and islands of Scotland in that state to which they are peculiarly adapted, and in which alone their continued prosperity is to be looked for, viz.-when their valleys, muirs, and mountains are covered with flocks, and the people are found in small villages on the shores.'

SECT. I. OF THE COD FISHERY.

The cod, gadus morhua of Linné, peculiar to the Northern Seas, is the most extensive fishery of which Great Britain can boast; and which is well known to have its principal rendezvous on the banks of Newfoundland, and the neighbourhood. It extends itself in a greater or less degree over all the shores of our islands in Europe. See GADUS. It is a gregarious and very voracious fish; and is sometimes found to devour its own species: we need only add here that it is prolific almost beyond belief. Leuwenhoeck counted 9,384,000 eggs in a cod fish of a middling size; Mr. Hanmer 3,686,750 in one which weighed 12,540 grains. The flesh is flaky, white, and firm, exceedingly palatable and wholesome and held in high estimation in every part of the world. In our seas they begin to spawn in January, and deposit their eggs in rough ground among the rocks. Some continue in roe till the beginning of April. They in general recover quicker after spawning than any other fish; therefore it is common to take some good ones all the summer. When out of season, they are thin-tailed, and much infested with the lernea asellina, on the inside of their mouths. The fish of a middling size are most esteemed, and are chosen by their plumpness and roundness, especially near the tail; by the depth of the fulcus or pit behind the head; and by the regular undulated appearance of the sides, as if they were ribbed. The glutinous parts about the head lose their delicate flavor, after having been twenty-four hours out of the water, even in winter, when these and other fish of this genus are in highest season. One mentioned by Mr. Pennant, as the largest that he ever heard of taken on our coasts, weighed seventy-eight pounds, the length was five feet eight inches, and the girth round the shoulders five feet. It was taken at Scarborough in 1755, and was sold for a shilling, But the general weight of these fish in the York

shire seas, he says, is from fourteen to forty pounds. The grand bank of Newfoundland is about seventy miles from it, and is 400 miles in length, and 200 in breadth, not including the Jaquet and Green Banks, &c.; the greatest and best part of it lies to the south and east of the island. The depth of water, according to governor Pownall's chart, varies from twenty-four to sixty fathoms. The greatest number, as well as the fattest and bulkiest fish, are to be found where the water is rough, with a sandy ground; on the contrary, they are lean and scarce where the water is still, upon an oozy bottom; and the depth to which they seem mostly attached, is from thirty to forty fathoms. All the immense fishery of these shores is carried on by hook and line only. In spring and summer they use short, and in winter long lines, on account of the cod keeping nearer the bottom in that season, and which (according to the fisherman's phraseology) they always keep bobbing, that is playing backwards and forwards by little and tremulous jerks of the hand and arm, by which means, as in angling, the line and hook are in continual motion; and, feeling the fish the moment he bites, they instantly haul him up. They are, therefore, all caught by the lip or mouth, which saves a great deal of time, as the fisherman is immediately enabled to renew the bait, not having to extricate the hook either from the gorge or stomach; besides, they are all taken alive, without being torn or mangled, a consideration of no small importance. In this manner, on the cold and uncomfortable banks of Newfoundland, each expert fisherman, although he can take but one at a time, will catch from 200 to 300 of their heavy fish in a day.

Almost all the civilised nations of the old world have endeavoured to avail themselves of this inexhaustible source of cod-fish. The Portuguese, the Dutch, and the Spaniards, the first especially, were ever very successful here: but the French, the Jersey and Guernsey islanders, and the Americans, are now the only competitors with Great Britain.

The entire fishery is conducted by vessels of from 100 to 200 tons burden each. They are mostly fitted out from Guernsey, Jersey, Ireland, and ports in the English Channel, as Poole, Dartmouth, &c.; they carry about 35,000 fish each, upon an average; their chief markets are Spain, Portugal, Italy, and the Levant; for the other parts of Europe are commonly provided with those taken in the British Seas, the Dogger, Wale, or Wese Banks, and the North Sea. There are besides these large vessels, at least 2000 small-decked craft, or shallops, from twelve to twenty tons burden, rigged like the luggers in England employed in the fisheries along the shores of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the islands of Cape Breton, a great part of whose hands is taken up on land, in erecting stages, and in curing and drying their fish.

At a period (1801-2) when our exports from this valuable colony did not much exceed onehalf of their value two years afterwards, the following was the