It has ever been the disposition of the principal merchants in the west of England to extol the provisions of stat. 10 and 11 Will. 3. as the soundest policy that could be pursued in relation to the fishery. We know, after perusal of the former part of this historical enquiry, that there was always an opposition and jealousy subsisting between the _merchants and adventurers on the one hand_, and the _planters and inhabitants_ on the other; and the utmost credit we can give to the former, on this subject, is to believe, that this statute fully established their claims and pretensions, and gave them an ascendancy over the latter; and that they now saw sanctioned by parliament, what before depended upon a tenure of less validity. So far, and no farther, can this eulogy have a meaning; for as a scheme of regulation, that was to be generally beneficial, this act was, in the first place, no novelty; in the second place it seems never, from the very beginning, to have been completely executed; and thirdly, it gave power and jurisdiction to hands that were unfit to exercise it: and I shall presently shew, that those concede too much, who allow this act might have been a very good regulation at the time it passed; for it will appear from the best authority, that, at the very time it was passed, it was in no way of being carried into execution as the parliament intended.
To the _heads of inquiry_, which were delivered and given in charge to the commodore, who commanded the ships on that station, this act, and all the particulars of it, were now added; and there appear in the returns made thereto every year, their observations and opinion, both upon the act and its execution. Upon such a subject there cannot be adduced better authority than this. In the answers given to these _heads of inquiry_, and in the correspondence of the commodores, may be traced, from time to time, the actual state of the fishery; and it will be curious to bring together the information that may be collected from these sources. Among the earliest information of this sort, I find a letter from _Mr. George Larkin_, written from St. John’s in the year 1701. This was recently after the passing of the act; and the writer goes more fully into many points of the trade, than the officers of government usually did. These circumstances make this a valuable paper; and it becomes much more so, when it is considered, that Mr. Larkin was a gentleman bred to the civil law, who was sent out to make observations in the American settlements, for the information of government at home, as to the state of the Plantations, and the execution of the laws of trade and navigation.