d his fish completed two days.... He has been
delayed by the almost continual storm that has prevailed since his
arrival and which has ruined us fishermen.

My fishery has been miserably conducted from the beginning as might
be expected from my entire ignorance and the penury of my partner
who was poorer than myself.... Still I have expectations that it
may turn out an immense thing from the trial we have made. The
shores being opposite to Maryland Point, the reach above and below
with the mouths of the two creeks on this side form a sweep, both
tides upon them, that must collect for fish; and they are kept in
by a kind of pound on the Virginia shore's trend. There apparent
advantages accord with the experiment for, with a desperate
patched-up seine that always breaks with a good haul, we have
contrived to land 20,000 a day, every day we can haul. We are
nearer to the Fredericksburg and Falmouth Virginia markets than any
shore that is or can be opened on the river by 10 miles
notwithstanding every discouragement and particularly the activity
and lies practiced against us by the Little Creek fisheries on each
side, who must fail with our success.

April 10, 1795. Herrings they tell me are 10 shillings per thousand
at all the shores. If I had your lease I could make a fortune. I
have a great mind to send Pollard and George up for your small boat
and seine.... If Peyton comes down with his seine to haul at my
shore, I will seine salted herrings enough for us both.

That acidulous but always colorful roving reporter from the mid-west,
Anne Royall, offers the best picture, for accuracy and detail, of
hauling a seine ever presented by anyone not a technician. Though
written almost 50 years after the Revolution, it describes the kind of
fishing on which Virginians had principally depended since Christopher
Newport began the Colonial era and George Washington ended it:

The market of Alexandria is abundant and cheap; though much
inferior to any in any part of the western country, except beef and
fish, which are by far superior to that of the western markets....
Their exquisite fish, oysters, crabs, and foreign fruits upon the
whole bring them upon a value with us.

Their fish differ from ours, even some species. Their catfish is
the only sort in which we excel; they have none that answer to our
blue c