It is impossible to arrive at the exact sum of money which FitzGerald brought into the partnership between him and Posh, but it must have been something like five hundred pounds. The lugger cost £360 to build, and, in addition, Posh was paid £20 for his services (see Letters, p. 309), and various payments had to be made for “sails, cables, warps, ballast, etc.” Posh brought in what nets and gear he had, and his services. The first notion was that FitzGerald should be owner of three-fourths of the concern; but on a valuation being made it was found that the nets and gear contributed by Posh were of greater value than had been supposed, and before the Meum and Tuum put to sea it was understood that Posh should be half owner with his “guvnor.” Posh is very firm in his conviction that up to the return of the boat from her first cruise there had been no mention of any bill of sale, or mortgage, of the boat and gear to FitzGerald to secure the money he had found. According to him his partner was to be a sleeping partner and no more, and the entire conduct and control of the business were to be vested in Posh. The quarrels and misunderstandings which subsequently arose on this point Posh attributes to certain “interfarin’ parties” (and especially to a Lowestoft lawyer), who were under the impression that FitzGerald had not looked after himself so well as he might have done and who thought that this omission should be remedied. Possibly they had an idea that they might “make somethin’” in the course of the remedial measures.

Early in August Posh sailed north with his crew to meet the herring on their way down south. His luck was poor, and on August 26th FitzGerald wrote him from Lowestoft:—

“Lowestoft, Monday, August 26.

“My dear Posh,

“As we hear nothing of you, we suppose that you have yet caught nothing worth putting in for. And, as I may be here only a Day longer, I write again to you: though I do not know if I have anything to say which needs writing again for. In my former letter, directed to you as this letter will be, I desired you to get a Life Buoy as soon as you could. That is for the Good of your People, as well as of yourself. What I now have to say is wholly on your own Account: and that is, to beg you to take the Advice given by the Doctor to your Father: namely, not to drink Beer and Ale more than you can help: but only Porter, and, every day, some Gin and Water. I was talking to your Father last Saturday; and I am convinced that you inherit a family complaint: if I had known of this a year ago I would not have drenched you with all the Scotch, and Norwich, Ale which I have given you. . . . Do not neglect this Advice, as being only an old Woman’s Advice; you have, even at your early time of life, suffered from Gravel; and you may depend upon it that Gravel will turn to Stone, unless you do something like what I tell you, and which the Doctor has told your Father. And I know that there is no Disease in the World which makes a young Man old sooner than Stone: No Disease that wears him more. You should take plenty of Tea; some Gin and Water every night; and no Ale, or Beer; but only Porter; and not much of that. If you do not choose to buy Gin for yourself, buy some for me: and keep it on board: and drink some every Day, or Night. Pray remember this: and do it.

“I have been here since I wrote my first Letter to Scarboro’; that is to say, a week ago. Till To-day I have been taking out some Friends every day: they leave the place in a day or two, and I shall go home; though I dare say not for long. Your wife seems nearly right again; I saw her To-day. Your Father has engaged to sell his Shrimps to Levi, for this season and next, at 4s. a Peck. Your old Gazelle came in on Saturday with all her Nets gone to pieces; the Lugger Monitor came in here yesterday to alter her Nets—from Sunk to Swum, I believe. So here is a Lowestoft Reporter for you: and you may never have it after all. But, if you do, do not forget what I have told you. Your Father thinks that you may have missed the Herring by going outward, where they were first caught: whereas the Herring had altered their course to inshore. . . . Better to miss many Herrings than have the Stone.

“E. FG.”

Here, again, the delicate solicitude of this perfect gentleman is apparent. “If you do not choose to buy Gin for yourself, buy some for me: and keep it on board: and drink some every Day, or Night.” That is to say, “If you think that you cannot afford to buy gin for yourself don’t worry about the expense. I’ll see you are not put to any extra cost. But I can’t bear to think that you may suffer for the want of a medicine because of your East Anglian parsimony.”

It must be remembered that East Anglia was notorious for the frequency of the disease in question. The late William Cadge, of Norwich, probably the finest lithotomist in the world (as Thompson was the greatest lithotritist), once told me that he had performed over four hundred operations in the Norwich Hospital for this disease alone.

But FitzGerald’s fears concerning Posh were not realised. He seems to have had an especial dread of the disease (as who has not?), for in a letter to Frederic Tennyson of January 29th previously (II, 89, Eversley Edition) he wrote (of Montaigne): “One of his Consolations for The Stone is that it makes one less unwilling to part with Life.”

Levi was a Lowestoft fishmonger, referred to in the footnote of Two Suffolk Friends, p. 108.

The Gazelle was the “punt” or longshore boat which Posh bought at Southwold, and called (by reason of her splendid qualities) The Little Wonder.

The difference between “sunk” and “swum” herring nets would be unintelligible to a modern herring fisher. Now the nets are thirty feet in depth, are buoyed on the surface of the sea, and are kept perpendicular (like a wall two miles long) by the weight of heavy cables or “warps” which stretch along the bottom of the nets. I am, of course, referring to North Sea fishing only, and not to the longshore punts, whose nets are not half the depth of the North Sea fleets.

In FitzGerald’s time if the herring were expected to swim deep the nets were sunk below the cables or warps which strung them together, and if they were thought to be swimming high they were buoyed above the warps, the system of fishing being called “sunk” in the former case and “swum” in the latter. Now all nets are “swum,” that is to say, all are above the warps and are buoyed on the surface. But the depth has increased so much (to what is technically known as “twenty-score mesh,” which comes to about thirty feet) that there is no need to alter their setting.

Posh’s wife, whose state of health is referred to in this letter, survived till 1892, but for many years suffered from tuberculosis in the lungs.

The Monitor was a Kessingland craft, and belonged to one Hutton.

But whether Posh fished with “sunk” or “swum” nets his luck was out for the season of 1867. The fish as a rule get down to the Norfolk coast about the beginning of October, and Posh had followed them down from Scarborough. About the end of September, or the beginning of October, FitzGerald wrote to his partner, addressing the letter to 8 Strand Cottages, Lowestoft, in the expectation that the Meum and Tuum had come south with the rest of the herring drifters, Yarmouth, Lowestoft, North and South Shields, and Scotch.

Strand Cottages, where Posh lived. No. 8, his cottage, is marked with a white cross

“Woodbridge, Saturday.

“Dear Posh,

“I write you a line, because I suppose it possible that you may be at home some time to-morrow. If you are not, no matter. I do not know if I shall be at Lowestoft next week: but you are not to suppose that, if I do do [sic] not go there just now I have anything to complain of. I am not sure but that a Friend may come here to see me, and also, unless the weather keep warmer than it was some days ago, I scarce care to sleep in my cabin: which has no fire near it as yours has.

“If I do not go to Lowestoft just yet, I shall be there before very long: at my friend Miss Green’s, if my Ship be laid up.

“I see in the Paper that there have been some 40 lasts of Herring landed in your market during this last week: the Southwold Boats doing best. I began to think the Cold might keep the Fish in deep water, so that swum nets would scarce reach them yet. But this is mere guess. I told you not to answer all my letters: but you can write me a line once a week to say what you are doing. I hope our turn for “Neighbour’s fare” is not quite lost, though long a coming.

“Newson and Jack are gone home for Sunday. To-night is a grand Horsemanship, to which I would make you go if you were here. Remember me to all your People and believe me yours

“E. FG.

“I see that the . . . [illegible] vessel: and, as far as I see, deserved to do so.”

Miss Green was the landlady of the house at 12 Marine Terrace, Lowestoft, where FitzGerald usually stayed when he did not sleep aboard the Scandal.

Up to the date of the letter, and, indeed, throughout the season of 1867, the Meum and Tuum had bad luck. FitzGerald thought it was time that the luck should change, for “Neighbour’s fare” is defined in Sea Words and Phrases along the Suffolk Coast as “Doing as well as one’s neighbours. ‘I mayn’t make a fortune, but I look for “Neighbour’s fare” nevertheless.’”