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when a free importation takes place, it has been ascertained that the ports of Norfolk export as much corn as all the other counties of England together; seldom less than a million sterling in value, and, at the present high price of grain, it may be estimated at a much larger sum. Out of this quantity, Yarmouth has been known to export a propor, tion nearly equal to one half: but, the immense shipments of corn and flour annually made, will better appear by the following statement, of the returns for the last three years, viz., from October 10th, 1821, to October 10th, 1824, ending 10th October in each year.

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FLOUR........ 105,377 126,763 148,252

The vessels thus engaged, are generally from seventy to one hundred tons burthen, but others of a much larger description are employed in perform ing foreign voyages.. Russia, Sweden, and Norway, daily contribute their stores of steel, iron, pitch, and wood, which, with other commodities, too numerous to mention, are imported; and cottons,

bombazines, and every article of British production, are shipped in return; indeed nearly the whole population of the town are, directly or indirectly, engaged in mercantile concerns.

But the chief business of the merchants lies in their extensive and unrivalled fisheries, which, from the foundation of the borough to the present moment, have been a constant and uninterrupted source of wealth and employment to the inhabitants.

In the early part of May, the mackerel season comes in, and usually continues about eight weeks; during which time great numbers are caught and conveyed to London, and the adjacent markets, affording employment for more than seven hundred men, and occupying about seventy boats. The herring fishery begins a few days before Michaelmas, and terminates generally in the middle of November, forming the greatest source of wealth to the trader. The herring has been noticed by naturalists for its migratory and gregarious propensities: immense shoals of them pass annually from the northward further south, in quest of food, and for the purpose of depositing their spawn in the warm and capacious rivers of America. They quit the north seas, when the weather becomes cold, for a more southern climate, and, as it changes to heat, they revisit the north, and afterwards descend to the shores of Great Britain and Ireland, proving by this instinctive change of place, that temperature at least, if not warmth, is necessary to their existence. About June they appear off the islands to the north of Scotland, where, dividing themselves

into two distinct bodies, they traverse the eastern and western coasts of the kingdom, and arrive off Yarmouth in the latter end of September, when the grand fishery season begins. The boats fitted out for this occasion, are of three different descriptions; the smallest are open boats or yawls, the larger are decked, and from forty to fifty tons burthen. Other vessels, named cobles, are employed by the merchants, but these are hired from Whitby, and other places in Yorkshire, are paid a fixed price for their services, and seldom stay during the whole of the season. The crews of the decked boats and yawls are remunerated by the last, and consequently their profits depend upon the catch of the season: the number of men in each varies according to the size of the boat. Providing themselves with a sufficient quantity of salt, in the event of their being kept long out of the harbour, they proceed to sea, and generally take their drift, as it is termed, about eight or ten leagues to the north-east of Yarmouth, between a sand, named Smith's Knowl, and the Foreland; but at other periods of the fishery, they meet with the herrings much nearer home. Every boat is furnished with eighty or one hundred nets, each of which is about twenty yards long, and eight and a half deep: they are fastened in length to a wear rope, by cords or seasonings, each of which is three fathoms long; the nets are floated by corks, placed at intervals of a few feet from each other, and the wear rope is supported by small tubs or buoys, about thirty-five yards distant from each other. Early in the evening, the nets are thrown over the side of the

boat, which is steered away under an easy sail, and hauled or drawn up again at, daylight, when the success or failure of the evening's cast is of course determined: a single boat has thus been known to take twelve or fourteen lasts in one night. The fish are then landed, unless the quantity caught amounts only to a few thousand, and in that case they are salted, and the boats remain on the fishing ground; but they generally come into the harbour once every two or three days, when the fresh herrings are taken to the fish-house and salted. After remaining fifty hours, they are washed in vats by the curers, spitted through the head or gills with small wooden rods, and hung up in the fish-house, which is a large building, thirty or forty feet high, and fitted up expressly for the purpose. The spits are hung in tiers; and thus prepared, a fire of billet wood is kindled under them, which is extinguished two or three times during the operation, to allow the oil or fat to drip from the herrings, until they are perfectly smoked, which usually occupies nine or ten days; they are then packed into barrels, each containing from eight hundred to one thousand herrings, ready for foreign exportation, or home consumption.

Nearly 40,000 barrels have been sent annually to the catholic countries of the Mediterranean, and other places, and, at certain seasons, a much greater number; but of late years, the foreign market has, from some cause or other, visibly declined, which may perhaps be attributed, in a great measure, to the vast increased consumption of herrings in

Great Britain, (at this time very considerable,) and the competition in the foreign market, with the Dutch, French, and other fishermen, who now participate in the fishery, which a few years since was wholly engrossed by the English. A last of herrings, consisting of ten barrels, of one thousand each, is on an average worth about £16, though the price varies considerably in different seasons. Formerly, a summer fishery for herrings was carried on to a considerable extent, by the Yarmouth fishermen, and in 1603, a bill was brought into parliament to restrain them, but rejected; subsequently, no such restriction appeared necessary, for the herrings, at that period of the year, ceased to frequent the English coast; and although at this time, a few occasionally visit us, and are caught, yet the practice may be considered, in a commercial point of view, to have entirely declined.

The North Sea fishery* was also carried on by a few enterprising individuals. The boats employed in that service proceeded, about the month of June, to Brassey Sound, in the Island of Shetland, in the

* This fishery was chiefly monopolized by the Dutch, in the beginning of the 17th century, who prosecuted it to a very great extent, and employed upwards of 20,000 men in their busses and small craft, almost to the exclusion of the English, who frequently complained to the government, and vented their displeasure in sarcasms and bitter reflections upon the industry and avarice of the Hollanders. In the Harleian collection of papers is preserved a quarto pamphlet, of fifty pages, entitled " England's way to win wealth, &c." written by Tobias Gentleman, fisherman and mariner, and printed in 1614, containing a "true relation of the inestimable wealth that is yearly taken out of his Majesty's seas by the Hollanders, by their great number of Busses, Pinks, and Line Boats, &c." in which, taking an able and luminous view of the subject, the author thus characterizes the Dutch of that period.

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