Part 9

It is ordered, according to the act of the late General Assembly, that no man go or send abroad either upon fowling, fishing, or otherwise whatsoever without a sufficient plenty of men, well armed and provided of munition, upon penalty of undergoing severe censure of punishment by the Governor and Council.

It was characteristic of Virginia's fisheries that the pessimists occupied the stage for a while, then the optimists. An example of the whipping-up of enthusiasm is this discourse of Edward Williams writing on Virginia at mid-century. China was a fabulous country, therefore he compared Virginia with it. Ideas ran riot as he contemplated the resources crying to be developed:

... What multitudes of fish to satisfy the most voluptuous of wishes, can China glory in which Virginia may not in justice boast of?... Let her publish a precedent so worthy of admiration (and which will not admit belief in those bosoms where the eye cannot be witness of the action) of five thousand fish taken at one draught near Cape Charles, at the entry into Chesapeake bay, and which swells the wonder greater, not one fish under the measure of two feet in length. What fleets come yearly upon the coasts of Newfoundland and New England for fish, with an incredible return? Yet it is a most assured truth that if they would make experiment upon the south of Cape Cod, and from thence to the coast of this happy country, they would find fish of greater delicacy, and as full handed plenty, which though foreigners know not, yet if our own planters would make use of it, would yield them a revenue which cannot admit of any diminution while there are ebbs and floods, rivers feed and receive the ocean, or nature fails in (the elemental original of all things) waters.

There wants nothing but industrious spirits and encouragement to make a rich staple of this commodity; and would the Virginians but make salt pits, in which they have a greater convenience of tides (that part of the universe by reason of a full influence of the moon upon the almost limitless Atlantic causing the most spacious fluxes and refluxes, that any shore of the other divisions in the world is sensible of) to leave their pits full of salt-water, and more friendly and warm sunbeams to concoct it into salt, than Rochel, or any parts of Europe. Yet notwithstanding these advantages which prefer Virginia before Rochel, the French king raises a large proportion of his revenues out of that staple yearly, with which he supplies a great part of Christendom.

Nor would it be such a long interval (salt being first made) betwixt the undertaking of this fishing, and the bringing it to perfection, for if every servant were enjoined to practice rowing, to be taught to handle sails, and trim a vessel, a work easily practised, and suddenly learned, the pleasantness of weather in fishing season, the delicacy of the fish, of which they usually feed themselves with the best, the encouragement of some share in the profit, and their understanding what their own benefit may be when their freedom gives them an equality, will make them willing and able fishermen and seamen. To add further to this, if we consider the abundance, largeness, and peculiar excellency of the sturgeon in that country, it will not fall into the least of scruples, but that one species will be of an invaluable profit to the buyer, or if we repeat to our thoughts the singular plenty of herrings and mackerel, in goodness and greatness much exceeding whatever of that kind these our seas produce, a very ordinary understanding may at the first inspection perceive that it will be no great difficulty to out-labor and out-vie the Hollander in that his almost only staple.

This flowery author goes on to make ingenious suggestions about raising fish in captivity, like domesticated animals, by inclosing a creek against their egress but keeping it sluiced to permit the action of tides. He even guesses that a nutritious and medicinal oil could be produced from fish livers. It is worth noting that both these suggestions have been proved practical but they had to wait until modern times to be carried out.

In the anonymous A Perfect Description of Virginia, published in 1649, the population is given as 15,000 English and 300 negroes. The count of boats, remembering the shortage of 40 years before, is impressive: "They have in their Colony pinnaces, barks, great and small boats many hundreds, for most of their plantations stand upon the river sides or up little creeks, and but a small way into the land so that for transportation and fishing they use many boats."

The enmity of the Indians had been a constant irritation, and worse, ever since the first days. As soon as it became possible to do so, effort was made to cut them off from the resources of the tidal waters. It was reasoned, and as it turned out, rightly, that with them unable to supplement their food supplies with fish and shellfish, especially oysters, they would be weakened in body and more easily subdued. The word early went out: Keep the Indians away from the water. This strategy worked so successfully that by 1662 it was deemed safe to ease the pressure. Thus another milestone was reached: the first oyster licensing law, as recorded in Hening's Statutes:

Be it further enacted that for the better relief of the poor Indians whom the seating of the English had forced from their wonted convenience of oystering, fishing ... that the said Indians upon address made to two of the justices of that county they desire to oyster ... they, the said justices, shall grant a license to the said Indians to oyster ... provided the said justices limit the time the Indians are to stay, and the Indians bring not with them any guns, or ammunition or any other offensive weapon but only such tools or implements as serve for the end of their coming. If any Englishman shall presume to take from the Indians so coming in any of their goods, or shall kill, wound, maim any Indian, he shall suffer as he had done the same to an Englishman and be fined for his contempt.

This was followed, according to Hening, in 1676 by another cavalier gesture to the oppressed:

... It is hereby intended that our neighbor Indian friends be not debarred from fishing and hunting within their own limits and bounds, using bows and arrows only. Provided also that such neighbor Indian friends who have occasion for corn to relieve their lives and it shall and may be lawful for any English to employ in fishing or deal with fish, canoes, bowls, mats, or baskets, and to pay the said Indians for the same in Indian corn, but no other commodities....

Thomas Glover, author of An Account of Virginia, addressed to the Royal Society in London, published in 1676, sides with the optimists. His catalogue has a familiar sound but it is valuable as substantiating many of the earlier reports. One impression to be gained from it is that after more than 60 years of occupancy of the new territory, the settlers had in no way depleted their fishery resources, had not, in fact, even scratched the surface:

In the rivers are great plenty and variety of delicate fish. One kind whereof is by the English called a sheepshead from the resemblance the eye of it bears with the eye of a sheep. This fish is generally about fifteen or sixteen inches long and about half a foot broad. It is a wholesome and pleasant fish and of easy digestion. A planter does often times take a dozen or fourteen in an hour's time with hook and line.

There is another sort which the English call a drum, many of which are two foot and a half or three foot long. This is likewise a very good fish, and there is plenty of them. In the head of this fish there is a jelly, which being taken and dried in the sun, then beaten to powder and given in broth, procures speedy delivery to women in labour.

At the heads of the rivers there are sturgeon and in the creeks are great store of small fish, as perch, croakers, taylors, eels, and divers others whose name I know not. Here are such plenty of oysters as they may load ships with them. At the mouth of Elizabeth River, when it is low water, they appear in rocks a foot above water. There are also in some places great store of mussels and cockles. There is also a fish called a stingray, which resembles a skate, only on one side of his tail grows out a sharp bone like a bodkin about four or five inches long, with which he sticks and wounds other fish and then preys upon them.

The same author went farther than any other reporter up to that time in telling a real fish story:

And now it comes into my mind, I shall here insert an account of a very strange fish or rather a monster, which I happened to see in Rappahannock River about a year before I came out of the country; the manner of it was thus:

As I was coming down the forementioned river in a sloop bound for the bay, it happened to prove calm, at which time we were three leagues short of the river's mouth; the tide of ebb being then done, the sloop-man dropped his grapline, and he and his boy took a little boat belonging to the sloop, in which they went ashore for water, leaving me aboard alone, in which time I took a small book out of my pocket and sat down at the stern of the vessel to read; but I had not read long before I heard a great rushing and flashing of the water, which caused me suddenly to look up, and about half a stone's cast from me appeared a prodigious creature, much resembling a man, only somewhat larger, standing right up in the water with his head, neck, shoulders, breast and waist, to the cubits of his arms, above water; his skin was tawny, much like that of an Indian; the figure of his head was pyramidal, and slick, without hair; his eyes large and black, and so were his eyebrows; his mouth very wide, with a broad streak on the upper lip, which turned upward at each end like mustachioes; his countenance was grim and terrible; his neck, shoulders, arms, breast and waist were like unto the neck, arms, shoulders, breast and waist of a man; his hands if he had any, were under water; he seemed to stand with his eyes fixed on me for some time, and afterward dived down, and a little after riseth at somewhat a farther distance, and turned his head towards me again, and then immediately falleth a little under water, and swimmeth away so near the top of the water, that I could discern him throw out his arms, and gather them in as a man doth when he swimmeth. At last he shoots with his head downwards, by which means he cast his tail above the water, which exactly resembled the tail of a fish with a broad fane at the end of it.

Judging from the few piddling regulations and restrictions referred to in extracts already cited, the Virginia lawmakers could see no need for intensive or even active supervision of the Tidewater fisheries. A rather epoch-making law was enacted in 1678 by the county court of Middlesex County, which is about 50 miles from James City, at the juncture of the Rappahannock river and Chesapeake bay:

Whereas, by the 15th act of Assembly made in the year 1662, liberty is given to each respective county to make by-laws for themselves; which laws, by virtue of the said act are to be binding upon them as any other general law; and whereas several of the inhabitants of this county have complained against the excessive and immoderate striking and destroying of fish, by some fire, of the inhabitants of this county by striking them by a light in the night time with fish gigs, wherby they not only affright the fish from coming into the rivers and creeks, but also wound four times that quantity that they take, so that if a timely remedy be not applied, by that means the fishing with hooks and lines will be thereby spoiled to the great hurt and grievance of most of the inhabitants of this county. It is therefore by this court ordered that from and after the 20th day of March next ensuing, it shall not be lawful for any of the inhabitants of this county to take, strike, or destroy any sort of fish in the night time with fish gigs, harping irons, or any other instrument of that nature, sort or kind, within any river, creek or bay which are accounted belonging to or within the bounds or precincts of this county. And it is further ordered that if any person or persons being a freeman, shall offend against this order, he or they so offending shall for the first offence be fined five hundred pounds of good tobacco to be paid to the informer, and for every other offence committed against this order after the first, by any person, the said fine to be doubled and if any servants be permitted or encouraged by their masters to keep or have in their possession any fish gig, harping iron or any other instrument of that kind or nature and shall therewith offend against this order, that in such case the master of such servant or servants shall be liable to pay the several fines above mentioned, and if any servant or servants shall, contrary to and against their master's will and knowledge, offend against this order, that for every offence they receive such corporal punishment as by this court shall be thought meet.

As population became more dense it was inevitable that rights previously of little significance began to be asserted. This case of 1679 taken from Hening's Statutes, was a forerunner of countless others like it which continue to this day:

Robert Liny, having complained to this Grand Assembly that whereas he had cleared a fishing place in the river against his own land to his great cost and charge supposing the right thereof in himself by virtue of his patents, yet nevertheless several persons have frequently obstructed him in his just privilege of fishing there, and despite of him came upon his land and hauled their seines on shore to his great prejudice, alleging that the water was the King Majesty's and not by him granted away in any patent and therefore equally free to all His Majesty's subjects to fish in and haul their seines on shore, and praying for relief therein by a declaratory order of this Grand Assembly; it is ordered and declared by this Grand Assembly that every man's right by virtue of his patent extends into the rivers or creeks so far as low water mark and it is a privilege granted to him in and by his patent, and that therefore no person ought to come and fish there above low water mark or haul seines on shore without leave first obtained, under the hazard of comitting a trespass for which he is sueable by law.

In most cases this decision somewhat limited a landowner's claim. But on the seaside of Virginia's Eastern Shore conditions have always been so that at low tide thousands of acres of land are laid bare, with the result that "low water mark" is in many cases difficult of interpretation as a boundary between waterfront properties and the public domain.

Toward the close of the century fishing methods had shaped up advantageously compared to the crudities and hit-or-miss practices of the first settlers. Robert Beverley described them in 1705:

The Indian invention of weirs in fishing is mightily improved by the English, besides which, they make use of seines, trolls, casting nets, setting nets, hand fishing and angling and in each find abundance of diversion. I have sat in the shade at the heads of the rivers angling and spent as much time in taking the fish off the hook as in waiting for their taking it. Like those of the Euxine Sea, they also fish with spilyards which is a long line staked out in the river and hung with a great many hooks on short strings, fastened to the main line, about four foot asunder. The only difference is that our line is supported by stakes and theirs is buoyed up with gourds.

The abundance of the fisheries never ceased impressing visitors. A French tourist added to the chorus in 1687:

Fish too is wonderfully plentiful. There are so many shell oysters that almost every Saturday my host craved them. He had only to send one of his servants in one of the small boats and two hours after ebb tide he brought it back full. These boats, made of a single tree hollowed in the middle, can hold as many as fourteen people and twenty-five hundredweight of merchandise.

As if to crown the final emergence of recognition of the home fisheries William Byrd I instructed his agent in Boston in 1689 to send him a variety of commodities in return for a bill of exchange but no salt fish: