This town is particularly famous for the art of catching fish; in which trade or occupation of late they have been attended with good success, to the great advancement of their wealth and reputation. The chief inhabitants of which place were Mr. Hitchins, Mr. Trevilion, Mr. Beare, &c. In this port his Majesty hath his Custom House collector, surveyor, comptroller, and waiters, both for sea and land. Trenwith, in this parish, is the seat of an old family of gentlemen, from thence denominated de Trenwith. THE EDITOR. St. Ives has grown, since the time of Mr. Carew, into a place of considerable importance, participating in the general prosperity of the whole country; and deriving great local advantages from the extension of its fisheries, from the construction of a pier, and from the extraordinary increase of trade at the adjacent port of Hayle. Fish of almost every kind, frequenting the coast of Cornwall, are taken at St. Ives; but the fishery absorbing all the others in its magnitude is the taking of pilchards. Pilchards are taken in two different ways quite distinct from each other. The first, most ancient, most certain, and therefore of greatest importance to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, is called drifting. Boats sail in the open sea, drawing after them a great number of nets appended to each other, provided with small leads and corks at the opposite sides, and extending in all to a very great length. The meshes of these nets are made of such a size as to admit the head of a pilchard to pass through them, but not the body; in consequence such fish as strike against the net are retained suspended by their gills, acting in the nature of a barb. The second method is on a much more extensive scale, uncertain as to success; but occasionally giving fortunes to those concerned in carrying it on, by the gain of one prosperous year. This method is founded entirely on the habit common to all the clupea genus of congregating in large shoals, and coming occasionally near the shore into shallow water, and into places where the ground is free from rocks; this latter circumstance is peculiarly favourable in the St. Ives Bay, and the ground is moreover covered to the depth of several feet by a fine sand, composed entirely of shells, reduced almost to a state of powder.