SCHEME FOR IMPROVING THE BRITISH FISHERY.

The ministry having professed an inclination, and indeed shown a disposition, to promote and extend the commerce of the kingdom, the commons resolved to take some steps for encouraging the white fishery along the northern coast of the island, which is an inexhaustible source of wealth to our industrious neighbours the Dutch, who employ annually a great number of hands and vessels in this branch of commerce. The sensible part of the British people, reflecting on this subject, plainly foresaw that a fishery, under due regulations, undertaken with the protection and encouragement of the legislature, would not only prove a fund of national riches, and a nursery of seamen, but likewise in a great measure prevent any future insurrections in the Highlands of Scotland, by diffusing a spirit of industry among the natives of that country, who finding it in their power to become independent on the fruits of their own labour, would soon enfranchise themselves from that slavish attachment by which they had been so long connected with their landlords and chieftains. Accordingly, a committee was appointed to deliberate on the state of the British fishery; and upon their report a bill was founded for encouraging the whale fishery on the coast of Spitsbergen, by a bounty of forty shillings per ton for every ship equipped for that undertaking. The bill having made its way through both houses, and obtained the royal assent, the merchants in different parts of the kingdom, particularly in North Britain, began to build and fit out ships of great burden, and peculiar structure, for the purpose of that fishery, which ever since hath been carried on with equal vigour and success. Divers merchants and traders of London having presented to the house of commons a petition, representing the benefits that would accrue to the community from a herring and cod fishery, established on proper principles, and carried on with skill and integrity, this remonstrance was referred to a committee, upon whose resolutions a bill was formed; but before this could be discussed in the house, the parliament was prorogued, and of consequence this measure proved abortive.