proceeds with such slowness, that in the larger kind a single

female seldom produces more than one a-year, and this again
requires three, for, or five years more to bring it to

perfection. And though the lesser quadrupeds, those of the wild
kind particularly, with the birds, do multiply much faster, yet

can none of these bear any proportion with the aquatic animals,
of whom every female matrix is furnished with an annual offspring

almost exceeding the power of numbers, and which, in many
instances at least, a single year is capable of bringing to some

degree of maturity.
What then ought in general to be so plentiful, what so cheap, as

fish? What then so properly the food of the poor? So in many
places they are, and so might they always be in great cities,

which are always situated near the sea, or on the conflux of
large rivers. How comes it then, to look no farther abroad for

instances, that in our city of London the case is so far
otherwise that, except that of sprats, there is not one poor

palate in a hundred that knows the taste of fish?
It is true indeed that this taste is generally of such excellent

flavor that it exceeds the power of French cookery to treat the
palates of the rich with anything more exquisitelydelicate; so

that was fish the common food of the poor it might put them too
much upon an equality with their betters in the great article of

eating, in which, at present, in the opinion of some, the great
difference in happiness between man and man consists. But this

argument I shall treat with the utmostdisdain: for if ortolans
were as big as buzzards, and at the same time as plenty as

sparrows, I should hold it yet reasonable to indulge the poor
with the dainty, and that for this cause especially, that the

rich would soon find a sparrow, if as scarce as an ortolan, to be
much the greater, as it would certainly be the rarer, dainty of

the two.
Vanity or scarcity will be always the favorite of luxury; but

honest hunger will be satisfied with plenty. Not to search
deeper into the cause of the evil, I should think it abundantly

sufficient to propose the remedies of it. And, first, I humbly
submit the absolute necessity of immediately hanging all the

fishmongers within the bills of mortality; and, however it might
have been some time ago the opinion of mild and temporizing men

that the evil complained of might be removed by gentler methods,
I suppose at this day there are none who do not see the

impossibility of using such with any effect. Cuncta prius
tentanda might have been formerly urged with some plausibility,

but cuncta prius tentata may now be replied: for surely, if a
few monopolizing fishmongers could defeat that excellent scheme

of the Westminster market, to the erecting which so many justices
of peace, as well as other wise and learned men, did so

vehemently apply themselves, that they might be truly said not
only to have laid the whole strength of their heads, but of their

shoulders too, to the business, it would be a vain endeavor for
any other body of men to attempt to remove so stubborn a

nuisance.
If it should be doubted whether we can bring this case within the

letter of any capital law now subsisting, I am ashamed to own it
cannot; for surely no crime better deserves such punishment; but

the remedy may, nevertheless, be immediate; and if a law was made
at the beginning of next session, to take place immediately, by

which the starving thousands of poor was declared to be felony,
without benefit of clergy, the fishmongers would be hanged before

the end of the session. A second method of filling the mouths of
the poor, if not with loaves at least with fishes, is to desire

the magistrates to carry into execution one at least out of near
a hundred acts of parliament, for preserving the small fry of the

river of Thames, by which means as few fish would satisfy
thousands as may now be devoured by a small number of

individnals. But while a fisherman can break through the
strongest meshes of an act of parliament, we may be assured he

will learn so to contrive his own meshes that the smallest fry
will not be able to swim through them.

Other methods may, we doubt not, he suggested by those who shall
attentively consider the evil here hinted at; but we have dwelt

too long on it already, and shall conclude with observing that it
is difficult to affirm whether the atrocity of the evil itself,

the facility of curing it, or the shamefulneglect of the cure,
be the more scandalous or more astonishing.

After having, however, gloriously regaled myself with this food,
I was washing it down with some good claret with my wife and her

friend, in the cabin, when the captain's valet-de-chambre, head
cook, house and ship steward, footman in livery and out on't,

secretary and fore-mast man, all burst into the cabin at once,
being, indeed, all but one person, and, without saying, by your

leave, began to pack half a hogshead of small beer in bottles,
the necessary consequence of which must have been either a total

stop to conversation at that cheerful season when it is most
agreeable, or the admitting that polyonymous officer aforesaid to

the participation of it. I desired him therefore to delay his
purpose a little longer, but he refused to grant my request; nor

was he prevailed on to quit the room till he was threatened with
having one bottle to pack more than his number, which then

happened to stand empty within my reach. With these menaces he
retired at last, but not without muttering some menaces on his

side, and which, to our great terror, he failed not to put into
immediate execution.

Our captain was gone to dinner this day with his Swiss brother;
and, though he was a very sober man, was a little elevated with

some champagne, which, as it cost the Swiss little or nothing, he
dispensed at his table more liberally than our hospitable English

noblemen put about those bottles, which the ingenious Peter
Taylor teaches a led captain to avoid by distinguishing by the

name of that generousliquor, which all humble companions are
taught to postpone to the flavor of methuen, or honest port.

While our two captains were thus regaling themselves, and
celebrating their own heroic exploits with all the inspiration

which the liquor, at least, of wit could afford them, the
polyonymous officer arrived, and, being saluted by the name of

Honest Tom, was ordered to sit down and take his glass before he
delivered his message; for every sailor is by turns his captain's

mate over a cann, except only that captain bashaw who presides in
a man-of-war, and who upon earth has no other mate, unless it be

another of the same bashaws. Tom had no sooner swallowed his
draught than he hastily began his narrative, and faithfully

related what had happened on board our ship; we say faithfully,
though from what happened it may be suspected that Tom chose to

add perhaps only five or six immaterial circumstances, as is
always I believe the case, and may possibly have been done by me

in relating this very story, though it happened not many hours ago.
No sooner was the captain informed of the interruption which had

been given to his officer, and indeed to his orders, for he
thought no time so convenient as that of his absence for causing

any confusion in the cabin, than he leaped with such haste from
his chair that he had like to have broke his sword, with which he

always begirt himself when he walked out of his ship, and
sometimes when he walked about in it; at the same time, grasping

eagerly that other implement called a cockade, which modern
soldiers wear on their helmets with the same view as the ancients

did their crests--to terrify the enemy he muttered something, but
so inarticulately that the word DAMN was only intelligible; he

then hastily took leave of the Swiss captain, who was too well
bred to press his stay on such an occasion, and leaped first from

the ship to his boat, and then from his boat to his own ship,
with as much fierceness in his looks as he had ever expressed on

boarding his defenseless prey in the honorable calling of a
privateer. Having regained the middle deck, he paused a moment

while Tom and others loaded themselves with bottles, and then
descending into the cabin exclaimed with a thundering voice,

"D--n me, why arn't the bottles stowed in, according to my orders?"
I answered him very mildly that I had prevented his man from

doing it, as it was at an inconvenient time to me, and as in his
absence, at least, I esteemed the cabin to be my own. "Your