tons, for not
outworking the Dutch in their fishing trade, I think it is not foreign to
the purpose to have thus stated the case, and to have shown that it is not
indeed a neglect in our management, that the Dutch thrive in the fishing
trade, and we sit still, as they call it, and look on, which really is not
so in fact, but that the nature of the thing gives the advantage to the
Dutch, and throws the trade into their hands, in a manner that no industry
or application of ours could or can prevent.

Having thus vindicated our people where they are really not deserving
blame, let us look forward from hence and see with the same justice where
they are in another case likewise less to blame than is generally
imagined; namely, in the white fishing, or the taking of cod-fish in these
northern seas, which is also represented as if it was so plentiful of fish
that any quantity might be taken and cured, and so the French, the Scots,
and the Portuguese, might be supplied from hence much cheaper and more to
advantage than by going so long a voyage as to the banks of Newfoundland.

This also is a mistake, and the contrary is evident; that there is a good
white fishing upon the coast, as well of the north part of the British
coast as on the east side of Scotland, is very true; the Scots, to give
them their due, do cure a tolerable quantity of fish, even in or near the
frith of Edinburgh; also there is a good fishery for cod on the west side,
and among the islands of the Leuze, and the other parts called the western
islands of Scotland; but the mistake lies in the quantity, which is not
sufficient to supply the demand in those ports mentioned above, nor is it
such as makes it by far so easy to load a ship as at Newfoundland, where
it is done in the one-fifth part of the time, and consequently so much
cheaper; and the author of this has found this to be so by experience.

Yet it cannot be said with justice that the Scots' fishermen are
negligent, and do not improve this fishing to advantage, for that really
they do kill and cure as many as can be easily done to make them come
within a price, and more cannot be done; that is to say, it would be to no
purpose to do it; for it will for ever be true in trade, that what cannot
be done to advantage, may be said not to be possible to be done; because
gain is the end of commerce, and the merchant cannot do what he cannot get
by.

It may be true that in the herring fishery the consumption mi