a
thousand sail every year; and I believe they do send so many ships, or
those ships going so many times, or making so many voyages in the year as
amounts to the same number of freights, and so is the same thing.

All these ships going for corn for the Dutch, have their chief supply of
corn from that country; it follows, then, that their herrings are carried
for nothing, seeing the ships which carry them must go light if they did
not carry the fish; whereas, on the other hand, our fish must pay freight
in whatever vessel it may go.

When our ships, then, from Scotland, for there the fishery chiefly lies,
and from thence the trade must take its rise; I say, when they have
carried their fish to the ports above-named, of Dantzic and Konigsberg,
how must they come back, and with what shall they be loaded?

The only answer that can be given is, that they must bring back the goods
mentioned before, or, in shorter terms, naval stores, though indeed not
much of naval stores neither, except timber and plank, for the hemp and
tar, which are the main articles, are fetched further; viz., from Riga,
Revel, Narva, and Petersburg. But suppose after delivering their fish,
some of the ships should go to those ports to seek freight, and load naval
stores there, which is the utmost help in the trade that can be expected.

The next question is, whither shall they carry them, and for whose account
shall they be loaden? To go for Scotland, would not be an answer; for
Scotland, having but a few ships, could not take off any quantity
proportioned to such a commerce; for if we were to push the Dutch out of
the trade, we must be supposed to employ two or three hundred sail of
ships at least, to carry herrings to Dantzic, &c.

To say they might take freight at London, and load for England, would be
no answer neither; for besides that even England itself would not take off
a quantity of those goods equal to the number of ships which would want
freight, so if England did, yet those ships would still have one dead
freight, for they would be left to go light home at last, to Scotland,
otherwise how shall they be at hand to load next year? And even that one
dead freight would abate the profit of the voyage; and so still the Dutch
would have the advantage.

Upon the whole, take it how and which way we will, it will for ever be
true, that though our fish were every way equal to the Dutch, which yet
we cannot affirm, and though it came as soon to m