The _Brill_, the vessel on which William came to England, had a strange after-history. She was re-christened _Princess Mary_, and converted into a yacht. So she remained through the reign of Queen Anne; but when the Hanoverian line began, and sentiment was cut off at the main, she was sold to some London merchants, who re-christened her the _Betsy Cairns_ and sent her trading to the West Indies. From that condition the poor old vessel declined to that of a collier, and so continued for an incredible number of years, being wrecked on the Black Middens, off Tynemouth, in quite recent times. CHAPTER XVIII BRIXHAM—THE FISHERY—ROUND THE COAST TO DARTMOUTH The statue of Dutch William makes the background of Brixham Harbour picturesque, and the fishing-fleet and the houses climbing up, tier above tier, confer a nobility upon the statue: they re-act upon one another, in short, in a most admirably pictorial way. There are over three hundred vessels in the trawling fleet of Brixham, and all are sailing-boats. The largest, known technically as “dandies,” are of fifty tons burthen, and cost about £1,000. The intermediate, and most numerous class are “bumble-bees,” and the smallest are merely “hookers,” “hukers,” in the Devon inflection, of twenty-five tons. The cost of a “bumble-bee” is £450. It carries a crew of three men, who work according to the custom of the Brixham fishery, on rarely changing lines. Brixham, unlike the great fishing port of Grimsby, where steam-trawling and highly costly vessels owned by corporations are the rule, conducts its industry on more individual and joint-stock lines. Here we find the captain and the owner usually one and the same person, working with his two men on the partnership principle. He is, of course, by virtue of his ownership a capitalist in his way, and for the purpose of getting a return for his venture, as well as for his labour, the shares of the boat are divided into five parts, of which he takes three; one for self, one for the boat, and one for the nets and general gear, leaving one each for the crew, who contribute only their labour. The takings are divided every week, and, like the fortunes of war, they vary extravagantly. If you conceive a bag forty to fifty feet in length, you will have some approximate notion of the size of a trawl-net. The mouth of it is stretched wide apart by a pole like a builder’s scaffold-pole, heavily shod at each end with iron, for the purpose of weighing down the mouth of the net as it is drawn, or “trawled,” along the bottom of the sea. Sailing out of harbour, the trawl-net is “shot” the length of some seventy fathoms, necessary to reach the bottom of the fishing-grounds in Torbay, and thus, going with the wind for six to eight hours, the smacks drag their exaggerated bags along the bed of ocean, scooping up whatever lies in the way. It may thus justly be supposed that the bed of Torbay is a pretty well-swept floor.