Volume 1

Travels and works of Captain John Smith, President of Virginia, and Admiral of New England / edited by Edward Arber.

  • John Smith
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Travels and works of Captain John Smith, President of Virginia, and Admiral of New England / edited by Edward Arber. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    whereof 100 are Dog[g]ers, 700. Pinckes and Welbotes, [1620] 700. frand botes, 400. Enaces, 400. Galbotes, Britters and To[a]debotes, with 1300. Busses; besides three hundred that yearely fish about Yarmouth, where they sell their fish for gold; and 15. years agoe [in 1605] they had more then 116000 Sea-faring men. These fishing ships do take yearely 200000. Last of [A 255-] fish, 12. barrells to a Last; which amounteth to 3000000. pounds [i.e., sterling*] by the Fishermens price, that 14. yeres agoe [1606] did pay for their tenths 300000. pound ; which venting in Pomerland, Sprusland, Denmarke, Lefland, Russia, Suethland, Germany, Netherlands, England, or else¬ where, &c. make their returnes in a yeare about 7000000. pounds; and yet in Holland they haue neither matter to build shippes, nor merchandize to set them foorth, yet they as much encrease as other Nations decay f Herring. Salt-fish, poore Iohn. Sturgion. Mullit. Tunny. Porgos. Caviare. But leauing these vncertainties as they are, of this I am certaine: That the coast of England, Scotland, and Ireland, the north Sea, with Island, and the Sound, New-found land, and Cape Blancke, doe serue all Europe, as well the land Townes as Portes; and all the Christian shipping,** with these sorts of Staple fish which is trans¬ ported, from whence it is taken, many a thousand mile, viz. R Now seeing all these sorts of fish, or the ^ u ar80' most part of them, may be had in a land more fertile, temperate, and plentifull of all necessaries for the building of ships, boates and houses; and the nourishment of man: the seasons are so proper, and the fishings so neare the habitations wee may there make, that New England hath much aduantage of the most of those parts, to serue all Europe farre cheaper then they can, who at home haue neither wood, salt, nor food, but at great rates ; at Sea, nothing but what they carry in their shippes, an hundred or two hundred leagues from their habitation. But New Englands fishings [are] neare land, where is helpe of wood, water, fruites, fowles, corne, or other refresh- tA 745-1