But here, as in England, such works have been
abandoned, from the greater facility of communication between distant
places, and of obtaining salt by other means.
At present the only manufacture on the beach is that of kelp, for which
a large quantity of the coarser sea-weeds is burned; but the fisheries,
which are not carried on with equal energy in any other port of France,
are the chief support of the place. The sailors of Dieppe were not
confined to their own seas; for they used to pursue the cod fishery on
the coast of Newfoundland with considerable success. The herring fishery
however was a greater staple; and previously to the revolution, when
alone a just estimate could be formed of such matters, the quantity of
herrings caught by the boats belonging to Dieppe averaged more than
eight thousand lasts a year, and realized above L100,000. This fishery
is said to have been established here as early as the XIth century[13].
From sixty to eighty boats, each of about thirty tons and carrying
fifteen men, were annually sent to the eastern coast of England about
the end of August; and then, again, in the middle of October nearly
double the quantity of vessels, but of a smaller size, were engaged in
the same pursuit on their own shores, where the fish by this time
repair.
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