Much longer seines than Washington needed were used as fish became
scarcer. There are tales of them four and five miles long, actually
able to block off the entire river, being used in the neighborhood of
Mt. Vernon before control laws were enacted and enforced. The catches
were enormous. Barges were heaped high with all sorts of fish and towed
into Washington City where they were sold before they spoiled, for what
they would bring.

Today the pollution for which Washington and Alexandria are responsible
has destroyed most fish life within several miles of Mt. Vernon.

Like his fishing predecessors ever since Jamestown, Washington had his
troubles with salt. One of his business letters ordering a supply
complained: "Liverpool salt is inadequate to the saving of fish....
Lisbon is the proper kind."

He was only briefly touching on a subject that had vexed the Colonists
since the beginning. Through the years the cry for more and better salt
had gone up. The fishermen of Virginia needed salt for their fish as
badly as the Hebrews in Egypt needed straw for their bricks. Although
trading with foreign countries increased steadily, the question of a
salt supply for Virginia remained unsolved.

As the 18th century had progressed, matters grew even worse. In 1763
the Virginia Committee of Correspondence had written urgently to its
agent in London to apply to Parliament for an act to

allow to this Colony the same liberty to import salt from Lisbon or
any other European ports, which they have long enjoyed in the
Colonies and provinces of New England, New York and Pennsylvania.
This is a point that hath been more than once unsuccessfully
labored; but we think it is so reasonable, that when it is set in a
proper light, we shall hope for success. The reason upon which the
opposition hath been supported, is this general one that it is
contrary to the interest of Great Britain to permit her plantations
to be supplied with any commodity, especially any manufacture from
a foreign country, which she herself can supply them with. This we
allow to be of force; provided the Mother Country can and does
supply her plantations with as much as they want; but the fact
being otherwise, we have been allowed to supply ourselves with
large quantities from Cercera, Isle of May, Sal Tortuga and so
forth. The course of this trade being hazardous, in time of war,
this useful and neces