arket, and carried as
good a price there, all which I fear must a little fall short, yet it
would still be true that the Dutch would gain and we should lose.

There is yet another addition to the advantage of Holland, viz., in the
return of money; that whereas when our fish shall be sold, we shall want
to remit back the produce in money; that is to say, so much of it as
cannot be brought back in goods. And the difference in the exchange must
be against us; but it is in favour of the Dutch; for if they did not send
their herrings and other fish to Dantzic, they must remit money to pay for
their corn; and even as it is, they are obliged to send other goods, such
as whale oil, the produce of their Greenland fishery, English
manufactures, and the like; whereas the Scots' merchants, having no market
for corn, and not a demand for a sufficient value in naval stores, &c.,
viz. the product of the country, must bring the overplus by exchange to
their loss, the exchange running the other way.

It is true, this is a digression; but it is needful to show how weak those
notions are, which prompt us to believe we are able to beat the Dutch out
of the fishing trade by increasing our number of busses, and taking a
larger quantity of fish.

But this brings me back to the first argument; if you can find a way to
enlarge your shipping in the fishery, and send greater quantities of fish
to market, and yet sell them to advantage, you would by consequence
enlarge your demand for naval stores, and so be able to bring more ships
home loaden from thence; that is to say, to dispose of more of their
freight at home; and indeed nothing else can do it.

N. B. This very difference in the trade is the reason why a greater
quantity of English manufactures are not sent from hence to Dantzic, as
was formerly done; viz., not that the consumption of those goods is
lessened in Poland, or that less woollen manufactures are demanded at
Dantzic or at Konigsberg; but it is that the Dutch carry our manufactures
from their own country; this they can do to advantage; besides their
costing nothing freight, as above, though they are sold to little or no
profit, because they want the value there to pay for their corn, and must
otherwise remit money to loss for the payment.

As these things are not touched at before in any discourses on this
subject, but we are daily filled with clamours and complaints at the
indolence and negligence of our Scots and northern Bri