Part 17

As Captain Washington has well observed, it is not one or more great harbours of refuge on our north-eastern shores that is now required. The Bay of Cromarty, the _Portus Salutis_ of the ancients, one of the finest and most secure harbours in the known world, lies not more than fifty miles to the southward of Wick, while the safe anchorage of Long Hope, in the Orkneys, is only twenty miles to the northward of that great fishing capital of Caithness. These are accessible at all times to every kind of shipping. But it is not so much shelter for the general trade, as security for fishing-boats, and coasting vessels connected with the fisheries, that is so imperatively needed. In proof of this we shall here briefly record the great catastrophe which befell a portion of our fishing population of the north-east coast of Scotland in the autumn of 1848. It is known that at this time upwards of 800 boats, manned by 3500 men, were engaged in the fishery from the Wick district alone. On the afternoon of Friday the 18th of August of that year, the majority of these fishing-boats (all open ones) left Pulteneytown harbour soon after high water, and remained in the Bay of Wick. Towards evening they stood out to sea, and when about ten miles off the land, as usual, shot their nets. The afternoon was fine, though the evening had somewhat of a threatening aspect, yet not such as to deter a fisherman from the pursuit of his accustomed calling. At midnight, much wind and sea having risen, many of the boats ran for the harbour, and got safely in about high water, which occurred at half-past one o’clock. By three in the morning the wind had increased to a gale from the south-east, with heavy rain. Most of the remaining boats then bore up for the Bay, which they reached between four and five o’clock; but by this time the tide had fallen one-half, and therefore there was not more than five feet depth of water at the entrance of the harbour, so that, with such a sea running, no loaded boat could enter. Some, however, made the attempt, and were either thrown up at the back of the north quay, or wrecked on the south pier, or swamped upon the bar. In this disastrous way 25 men perished, besides 12 others whose boats were swamped at sea; thus, in the brief period of about three hours, occasioning a loss of 37 men drowned, leaving 17 widows and 60 children utterly destitute. There was a destruction of property in boats and nets of about £1600.

Dunbeath lies some sixteen or eighteen miles to the south-west of Wick. It is a favourite fishing-station, and much resorted to, having about 106 boats and 410 men. Its creek is slightly protected on the east by a promontory, and some detached rocks, which partially throw off the sea, and direct it into the west side of the bay; but it is much exposed to the south-west and southerly winds, and the fishermen have twice built up a breakwater of loose stones on the south side, near the burn-mouth. Not only is the violence of the waves to be dreaded, but after much rain in the interior, heavy fresh-water _spates_ descend suddenly, and cause great destruction among such boats as have not been hauled up to a place of safety. Thus in the storm referred to, 18 boats were drifted out of the harbour by the river flood, and were smashed upon the beach. Still more unfortunately, a Lybster boat, while making for the harbour, was upset, and three men drowned.

Helmsdale, in Sutherlandshire, is fifteen miles farther to the south-west. It has made wonderful progress within comparatively recent years—is in a very thriving condition, and possesses some of the best curing establishments in all Scotland. But there is great want of accommodation both for men and boats, and the crowded state of the river is disadvantageous. There is also a bar at its mouth, and the harbourage, moreover, suffers much from the inland spates. During the autumn of 1848 there were 177 boats fishing from Helmsdale. Of these, 130 put to sea on the evening of the 18th of August. In the disastrous gale of the ensuing morning, two boats were upset while running over the bar for the harbour, and four men were drowned. Two other boats were either run down or foundered at sea, when 5 men perished, and another man was washed overboard while endeavouring to haul his nets,—making a loss of 10 lives.

On the southern side of the Moray Firth, Buckie is known as a most important, though exposed and almost shelterless station. It puts out about 160 boats, and its fishermen are noted as among the most daring as well as industrious on our coasts. They pursue the deep-sea fishing, and so labour not during the herring harvest alone, but all the year round. In the gale of the 19th of August, 12 of its boats were wrecked off Peterhead, 8 were sorely damaged, and their nets carried away, while 11 men were drowned. Port Gordon, Portessie, and Findochtie belong to the same quarter. They lost among them 5 boats wrecked, and 10 men drowned—making a total loss, for that limited district, of 17 boats and 21 men.

Peterhead occupies a commanding and well-known position on a projecting and very exposed portion of our coast, and the stations included as in the same district, extend southwards as far as Aberdeen. It has about 60 boats of its own, while those of the entire district amount to 262, with 920 men and boys. But while these are the numbers belonging to the district, the actual amount at work within it, during the season of 1848, was 437 boats, employing 2185 men. Peterhead has the advantage of both a north and south harbour, each of considerable extent. The south harbour is dry at low water, but the outer portion of the northern has from six to seven feet at low water of spring-tides, and eighteen feet at high water. During the gale of the 18th and 19th of August, the boats began to run for shelter about eleven o’clock at night, and continued to do so until half-past three o’clock in the morning, at which time it was high water. But while endeavouring to make the harbour, 30 boats were totally lost, 33 were damaged and stranded, and 31 men were drowned.

Stonehaven is the principal station of the next and more southern district, which extends for about fifty-five miles from Girdleness to Broughty Ferry on the Tay. This district furnishes 306 boats, manned by 1160 fishermen. Of its 23 fishing stations 17 have no piers. Findon, so celebrated for its smoked haddocks, has 14 boats, but no pier. Portlethen, somewhat sheltered by a ledge of rocks, has 20 boats, but no pier. Cowie, under a similar precarious shelter, has 18 boats, but no pier. Auchmithie, with 37 boats, and Johnshaven with 10, have nothing like a pier. In many of these places the shore is steep and rough, with loose though heavy shingle. The boats, when they get in safely, must often be hauled well up for a continuance of protection. This, with relaunching, is most laborious and exhausting work. The women labour in and out of water, whether deep or shallow, as well as, sometimes even more assiduously than, the men. They carry the wet nets up the steep banks to be spread and dried, and they are not seldom seen bearing the wearied men out of the boats upon their backs, and landing them, high and dry, upon the beach. But these are savage customs, and lead to or perpetuate an uncouth and indurated, if not savage life. Yet before we can “excavate the heathens,” and ameliorate their manners, we must excavate their beach, and build them substantial piers of stone and lime. On the miserable morning of the 19th of August, 6 boats belonging to this district were totally lost, and 19 men drowned.

The following is a brief summary of the loss of life and property which was suffered in the course of a very few hours during this disastrous gale:—

┌────────────────┬────────────────┬────────────────┬────────────────┐ │ District. │Number of boats │ Value of boats │ Number of men │ │ │lost or damaged.│ and nets lost. │ drowned. │ ├────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┤ │Wick, │ 41│ £1621│ 37│ │Lybster, │ │ 320│ │ │Helmsdale, │ 24│ 800│ 13│ │Peterhead, │ 51│ 3820│ 31│ │Stonehaven, │ 8│ 450│ 19│ ├────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┤ │Total loss,[15] │ 124│ £7011│ 100│ └────────────────┴────────────────┴────────────────┴────────────────┘

A calamity so great and sudden forcibly drew the public attention to the subject, and the Lords of the Admiralty were induced ere long to depute Captain Washington to inquire into and report regarding it. His report was printed by order of the House of Commons, and contains many most valuable observations and suggestions.[16] We cannot here enter into technical details, but may quote one of his concluding paragraphs.

“In reviewing the evidence adduced on the present inquiry, it cannot fail to strike the most cursory reader that the want of good harbours, accessible at all times, is the grand cause of the loss of life and property, and the increased risk connected with our fisheries. It is not the construction of two or more large central harbours (as has been suggested) that is wanted, but a general deepening and improvement of all the existing harbours and rivers along the whole eastern coast of Scotland. Nor would the improvement of these harbours be attended with any very considerable outlay. _It is scarcely credible that the small sum of £2500 a-year, which Parliament has devoted_ [through the Board of Fisheries] _to building harbours and piers in Scotland for the last few years, should have given so great a stimulus to important local improvements as those grants are found to have done._ But they are quite inadequate to grapple in earnest with the want which exists: four times their amount, or £10,000 a-year for a few years, steadily laid out on piers and harbours, would do much to remedy the want, and to place the fishermen of the east of Scotland on a par with those of more favoured coasts. It would be an act of mercy to a race of hardy, industrious, frugal men—to 10,000 fishermen of one of the poorest and most unproductive districts of Scotland, who are not at sea as occasional passers-by, but are constantly hovering off the coast in pursuit of their calling for three months together, exposed to the suddenness and violence of north-east gales—such as that of August 1845, and again in August 1848—without the common shelter that all mariners are entitled to look for in the hour of need.”—_Report_, p. xvii.

Here we seem to have a distinct statement of what is most required,—an equally distinct recognition of the great benefits which have already resulted from small means,—and a strong recommendation of a large increase of those means, to be administered, we may presume, through the same medium and machinery as heretofore employed, and of which Captain Washington so much approves.

The harbour of Lybster lies in a sheltered situation, about half-way between Wick and Helmsdale. The best localities for the herring fishery are only a few miles off; and it had thus risen from a creek, scarcely navigable by small boats, to a fishing-station of very considerable importance. More than twenty years ago, Mr Sinclair, the proprietor, erected a pier on the west side of the harbour, at an expense of about £7000. Above 100 herring-boats were in use to frequent it during the season; many coasting vessels entered in; the quay-dues produced a revenue of £130, and a large and thriving village became established. All this time the harbour accommodation was limited and incommodious, consisting only of the channel of the river; and its increase of trade cannot be explained in any other way than by the safety experienced by boats in consequence of the entrance being well protected from the worst and most prevailing winds. Such being the case, Capt. Washington thought it highly desirable to profit by the advantages which nature had bestowed upon this creek; “or rather,” he observes, “it becomes an imperative duty to do so, when we consider the number of lives endangered, and the value of the property at stake, on the sudden springing up of an easterly gale, such as that of August 1845, and again in August 1848, which strewed the coast of Caithness with wrecks.” We may add, that the Lybster district comprises also Occumster, Clyth, Latheronwheel, Forse, &c., and that these places yielded, during the few weeks’ continuance of the fishing of 1854, as many as 41,550 barrels of herrings. In consequence of Captain Washington’s recommendation, and other patriotic influences, the Treasury advised a grant of £6000 for the improvement of the harbour of Lybster. The sum was voted by Parliament, and has since been successfully administered under the superintendence of the Board of Fisheries. The advantageous effects of this well-managed grant are manifest from the following facts. The number of boats that fished from the old harbour of Lybster in 1850 was 97, but the number that has fished from it since the basin was enlarged, is 174 boats in 1853, and 171 boats in 1854. But the difference in mere numbers of these two years, as compared with 1850, does not exhibit the actual alteration and improvement; for since the disastrous gale of 1848, the boats have almost every year been of larger build—so much so, that the fishermen consider that the old harbour would not have held above 80 boats of the existing size, and that 180 of these boats are now harboured in greater safety than 80 could have formerly been. The amount of fishermen employed in 1848 was 418; during the past season (1855) it was 920. Had this increased accommodation existed in 1848, there is no saying what saving of life and property might have been accomplished. During the gale so frequently referred to, of the 34 boats which fished from Forse, 9 were totally lost, with all their nets, and 11 were severely damaged. Some of those Forse boats did, however, run for Lybster, and were saved; and all would have done so, but from the fear of want of room. It was this fear, unfortunately, that induced one of the Lybster boats, as already mentioned, to run for Dunbeath, where she was totally wrecked, and three of her crew drowned.

Our notices have hitherto been of a very casual kind, drawn out by the sympathy which cannot but be felt for the disastrous death of intrepid men and the destruction of property, which inevitably leads to such severe and long-continued suffering on the part of the survivors, haply but little thought of during the first wild wailings of the widow and the fatherless. But poverty sorely embitters grief; and the amount of prolonged misery involved by destitution so often consequent on death, can be in no way conveyed by the mere recital of the facts, however harrowing these may be. But it is cheering to know that the occasional disbursement of sums, which, to the greatest maritime nation that ever existed on earth, or made its undisputed home upon the deep, are only as a few grains of sand to the shores of the immeasurable sea, may produce the most obvious, immediate, and permanent advantage, and actually go far to convert a life of danger and difficulty into one of comparative security and ease. In reference to this view of the subject Captain Washington has well observed:—

“Besides the invaluable boon on this (the Caithness) coast of a harbour that might be fearlessly run for at all times of tide, and within which the fisherman might land his cargo immediately on his arrival, and rest quietly at his home until the moment of sailing arrives (instead of the anxious hours now often spent off a harbour’s mouth, waiting for the rise of tide), such a harbour would probably lead to a larger and safer class of fishing-boats (those now in use being adapted to a shallow dry harbour), and induce the fishermen to follow the deep-sea fishing all the year round, instead of merely the herring fishery for the season; and thus cultivate habits of steady industry and occupation, which could not but be beneficial to himself, his family, and the community.”—_Report_, p. viii.

“Nor could such an outlay,” he afterwards adds, “be considered in any other light than as sound economy. By the exertions of the British Fisheries Society, and of individuals, a vast public interest has been created on this coast within the last half-century. A fishing village has been raised into a comparatively opulent town, wealth has been diffused, and civilisation has followed in its wake. The example here set has had a most beneficial influence on a large portion of the Highlands and islands of Scotland, and habits of industry and the best mode of fishing have been taught to the Highlander. The large amount of 126,000 barrels of herrings, or one-fifth of the whole produce of the Scottish fisheries, was cured at Wick during the past year, in addition to 12,000 barrels otherwise consumed.[17] The total value of the boats, nets, and lines employed exceeded £61,000, while the catching and curing the fish occupied 5600 persons; and the carrying of salt, and the export of the fish to Ireland and the European markets, gave occupation to 16,700 tons of shipping. _These are great public interests, which are entitled to be considered._ They are the results of spirited enterprise that may fairly claim to be encouraged, not by bounties and protection duties, but by placing these industrious and hardy Caithness fishermen, as far as possible, on a level with those of more favoured coasts, by the construction of a low-water harbour, to which they may confidently resort in the hour of need.”—Ibid. p. ix.

There can be no doubt that the formation of a capacious, easily accessible, and well-sheltered low-water harbour, in a central portion of the great fishing district of the north-east of Scotland would be of infinite advantage; but it is equally certain (and Captain Washington, as we have already shown, is likewise of that opinion) that the improvement and increase of the smaller, even the creek harbours, and the precarious piers of such as have any such erections, would be of incalculable service. It is a well-known fact, and one worthy of being held in remembrance, that during the lamentable gale of the 19th of August 1848, thirty boats ran for Keiss Bay, where there is a harbourage built or enlarged by the Board of Fisheries, and were saved. We may here add, what is well known, that where there are no harbours, the boats must be drawn up and beached in creeks and bays. Their size, therefore, in these cases, corresponds not to the wilderness of waves which they have to encounter, but to the nature of the situation on which they can be drawn up and placed in safety. We thus frequently find a great contrast between the size of boats where harbours or other sheltering fabrics have been built, and those frequenting places where there are none. It is also well known that the boats engaged in the cod and ling fisheries, &c., now require to proceed farther out to sea than formerly; and as they are necessarily constructed of a larger size, and so draw more water, they also need deeper harbourage than of old.

We may now briefly notice the commercial value of our fisheries. The capital embarked in the trade is not less than _two millions seven hundred and thirty thousand pounds_. It is chiefly distributed among a people inhabiting wild and barren districts of the country, where the climate is cold and moist, employment precarious, labour poorly paid, and all creature-comforts few and far between. Their real resources lie in the sea, the products of which, unlike the _cereals_, are fortunately not very materially affected by a somewhat cloudy and uncomfortable climate. Many years ago, views of this kind were propounded by a Scotchman, Mr David Loch, the father, we believe, of the late lamented M.P. for the Wick burghs. He writes rather critically regarding the natives of the _Western_ Highlands:—

“I am sorry to observe that the fishing is greatly neglected at this and the harvest seasons, as most of the people are farmers as well as fishermen; so that their time being divided between the two branches, the great object, fishing, has not that time and attention paid to it which is absolutely necessary. It is true that the country is not unfavourable to the breeding of sheep, not only on account of the pasture in general, but also as the snow never remains long on the ground; and as the farmers, very judiciously, use no tar, they sell their wool at 14s. the stone. The fisheries, however, should be their first care; and I declare, from my own knowledge, that a few boats’ crews of our east-country fishers would make rich here, and realise more money than half the farmers in this quarter. What a pity it is the inhabitants should be so blind to their own interest, and neglect to avail themselves of the advantages which their local situation offers to them! A boat’s crew of six men would make more money in one month than any farmer here can off the produce of a hundred acres of his best arable land, after deducting the value of the seed and the expenses attending its culture; and the former could, from the proceeds of their fish, furnish themselves with meal, flour, malt, barley, and vivers of every kind, on easier and much better terms than the latter can possibly raise and supply themselves with from their own farms. _Fish_ is the natural produce of their seas, with which they abound, and to which they are contiguous; and _grass_, for pasturing sheep and black cattle, the natural produce of their lands. Nature, in denying them the means (of grain culture), has given them the fisheries, which is their natural staple, and is more than an equivalent for the deprivation of the other.”[18]

A higher and more recent authority, Sir John M‘Neill, G.C.B., Chief Commissioner of the Poor Law Board for Scotland, has borne corresponding testimony to the value of our fisheries, and their great advance during our own days. In reference to the county of Caithness, he observes:—

“Nearly the whole sea-coast of the county, including the towns of Thurso and Wick, is inhabited by persons more or less directly dependent upon the fisheries. In the rural parts, the fishermen have generally attached to their dwellings small farms or lots as they are called, varying in extent from two to ten acres of arable land. These, however, do not afford them the chief part of their subsistence. They rely upon the fisheries, and regard the cultivation of their lots as a secondary and comparatively unimportant part of their business.

“At the end of the last century, the value of the cured fish annually exported from Caithness did not exceed £13,000, and it then consisted almost exclusively of salmon. The cured herring, cod, and ling, exported from Wick and Lybster for the last ten years, gives an average annual value of not less than £130,000, according to the Returns of the Board of Fisheries. The annual value of the whole land in the county was returned in 1843 at £66,000. The population in 1841 was 36,343.