"Departure of Boats.--In the early part of this week, a number of the boats here have left for the herring-fishery at Kinsale, in Ireland. The success attending their labours last year at that place and at Howth has induced more of them than usual to proceed thither this year." It may not be generally known that Cockenzie is a little fishing village on the Firth of Forth, in Scotland, where the fishermen have provided themselves, at their own expense, with about fifty decked fishing-boats, each costing, with nets and gear, about 500L. With these boats they carry on their pursuits on the coast of Scotland, England, and Ireland. In 1882, they sent about thirty boats to Kinsale[8] and Howth. The profits of their fishing has been such as to enable them, with the assistance of Lord Wemyss, to build for themselves a convenient harbour at Port Seaton, without any help from the Government. They find that self-help is the best help, and that it is absurd to look to the Government and the public purse for what they can best do for themselves. The wealth of the ocean round Ireland has long been known. As long ago as the ninth and tenth centuries, the Danes established a fishery off the western coasts, and carried on a lucrative trade with the south of Europe. In Queen Mary's reign, Philip II. of Spain paid 1000L. annually in consideration of his subjects being allowed to fish on the north-west coast of Ireland; and it appears that the money was brought into the Irish Exchequer. In 1650, Sweden was permitted, as a favour, to employ a hundred vessels in the Irish fishery; and the Dutch in the reign of Charles I. were admitted to the fisheries on the payment of 30,000L. In 1673, Sir W. Temple, in a letter to Lord Essex, says that "the fishing of Ireland might prove a mine under water as rich as any under ground."[9]