so much to be called upon
to improve in husbandry, as they do in manufactures and other things; not
but that even in this, the lands not yet cultivated do call aloud upon us
too; but I say it is not the present case.

I come in the next article to that yet louder call of the oracle, as
above, namely, fish and take. Indeed this is an improvement not fully
preserved, or a produce not sufficiently improved; the advantages nature
offers here cannot be said to be fully accepted of and embraced.

This is a large field, and much remains to be said and done too in it, for
the increase of wealth, and the employment of our people; and though I am
not of the opinion which some have carried to an unaccountable length in
this case, viz., that we should set up the fishery by companies and
societies, which has been often attempted, and has proved abortive and
ill-grounded; or that we ought by force, or are able by all our advantages
to beat out the Dutch from it; yet we might certainly very much enlarge
and increase our own share in it; take greater quantities than we do; cure
and pack them better than we do; come sooner to market with them than we
do; and consume greater quantities at home than we do; the consequence of
which would be that we should breed up and employ more seamen, build and
fit out more fishing-vessels and ships for merchandise than we do now, and
which we are unaccountably blameable that we do not.

And here I must observe, that the increasing the fishery would even
contribute to our vending as well as catching a greater quantity of fish,
and to take off the disadvantage which we now lie under with the Dutch, by
the consequence of trade in the fishery itself. The case is this: the
chief market for white herring, which is the fishery I am speaking of, is
the port of Dantzic and Konigsberg, from which ports the whole kingdom of
Poland, and great duchy of Lithuania, are supplied with fish by the
navigation of the great river of the Vistula, and the smaller rivers of
the Pragel and Niemen, &c.

The return brought from thence is in canvass, oak, and spruce, plank and
timber, sturgeon, some hemp and flax, pot ashes, &c., but chiefly corn.

Here the Dutch have an infinite advantage of us, which is never to be
surmounted or overcome, and for which reason it is impossible for us ever
to beat them out of this trade; viz., the Dutch send yearly a very great
number of ships to Dantzic, &c., to fetch corn; some say they send