ee resides only in
those seas; for, could any of this company but convey one to the temple
of luxury under the Piazza, where Macklin the high-priest daily serves
up his rich offerings to that goddess, great would be the reward of that
fishmonger, in blessings poured down upon him from the goddess, as great
would his merit be towards the high-priest, who could never be thought
to overrate such valuable incense.

And here, having mentioned the extreme cheapness of fish in the
Devonshire sea, and given some little hint of the extreme dearness with
which this commodity is dispensed by those who deal in it in London, I
cannot pass on without throwing forth an observation or two, with the
same view with which I have scattered my several remarks through this
voyage, sufficiently satisfied in having finished my life, as I have
probably lost it, in the service of my country, from the best of
motives, though it should be attended with the worst of success. Means
are always in our power; ends are very seldom so.

Of all the animal foods with which man is furnished, there are none so
plenty as fish. A little rivulet, that glides almost unperceived through
a vast tract of rich land, will support more hundreds with the flesh of
its inhabitants than the meadow will nourish individuals. But if this
be true of rivers, it is much truer of the sea-shores, which abound with
such immense variety of fish that the curious fisherman, after he hath
made his draught, often culls only the daintiest part and leaves the
rest of his prey to perish on the shore. If this be true it would
appear, I think, that there is nothing which might be had in such
abundance, and consequently so cheap, as fish, of which Nature seems to
have provided such inexhaustible stores with some peculiar design. In
the production of terrestrial animals she proceeds with such slowness,
that in the larger kind a single female seldom produces more than one
a-year, and this again requires three, for, or five years more to bring
it to perfection. And though the lesser quadrupeds, those of the wild
kind particularly, with the birds, do multiply much faster, yet can none
of these bear any proportion with the aquatic animals, of whom every
female matrix is furnished with an annual offspring almost exceeding the
power of numbers, and which, in many instances at least, a single year
is capable of bringing to some degree of maturity.

What then ought in general to be so plentiful, wh