The poor mackerel season ended in the second week of July. Why, when mackerel were so scarce, the Meum and Tuum did not give up the fishing and try for “midsummer herring” it is difficult to understand, and Posh does not remember the reason, if there was one. Possibly the change of nets, etc., etc., was too much trouble. Anyhow, the season was unprofitable for the mackerel boats. On Monday, July 13th, FitzGerald was still on the Scandal at Lowestoft, and wrote from there to Mr. Spalding (Two Suffolk Friends, p. 113): “Posh made up and paid off on Saturday. I have not yet asked him, but I suppose he has just paid his way, I mean so far as Grub goes. . . . Last night it lightened to the South, as we sat in the Suffolk Gardens—I, and Posh, and Mrs. Posh. . . .”

The “making up” may require some little explanation. The “drift” fishing—i.e. the herring and mackerel fishing (for though sprats and pilchards are caught by drift nets, it is unnecessary to consider them when dealing with the great North Sea drift fishing)—is carried on on a system of sharing profits between owners and fishermen. Trawlers, i.e. craft that fish with a “trawl” net for flat fish, haddocks, etc., etc., are managed differently.

“Making up” is the technical term for balancing profit and loss of a season, and ascertaining the sums which are due to owners and crew respectively.

In the days when Fitzgerald was a “herring merchant,” the systems of Yarmouth and Lowestoft were different. At Yarmouth the owner of the boat took nine shares out of sixteen, and bore all losses of damaged or lost nets, etc., the remaining seven shares being divided among the crew in varying proportions. For instance, the skipper took 1¾ or two shares, the mate 1¼ or 1½, and so on down to the boy with his one-half or three-eighths share. At Lowestoft the shares were also divided into sixteen; but the owner took only eight, and the crew the other eight. The losses of gear, nets, etc., however, were borne equally between the two lots of eight shares, and, on the whole, I believe the Yarmouth system was more favourable to the men, though the Lowestoft system made the skipper and crew more careful of the nets and gear than they might have been did not they suffer for any loss of them. The introduction of steam drifters has made the shares complicated in the extreme. The owners take so much as owners of the boat, so much for the engines, etc., etc., and, in fact, the owners get the share of a very greedy lion. However, the prices rule so high nowadays, and the catches are occasionally so large (the other day a steam drifter brought in over £200 worth of fish to Grimsby as the result of one night’s fishing), that the great Martinmas fishing of the east coast has become a gamble in which fortunes may be made and lost. Many a boat earns over £2000 from October to December. A lucky skipper may take £200 for his share of the home fishing alone. But such figures would have sounded fantastic in FitzGerald’s day, for I have been assured over and over again by herring fishers that in the sixties and seventies, ay, even in the eighties of last century, £20 was a “good season’s share” for a prominent hand of a successful drifter.

Posh, as half owner, would take four-sixteenth shares, and as skipper would probably take another two-sixteenths, so that he would draw more than any one else.

Some time during the spring or summer of 1868 there was great excitement amongst the fishing-boat owners of Lowestoft and other ports on account of an Act just passed regulating the building of vessels, having especial regard to the ventilation of the cuddy, forecastle, or the men’s sleeping quarters. Posh tells me that many owners of drifters considered that the Act applied to all craft, including fishing boats, and that great expense was undergone by some over-conscientious owners in fitting ventilating drums and shafts in accordance with the Act. If the statute applied to any drifter it would apply to the Meum and Tuum, and FitzGerald evidently thought that the intention of the Act was that fishing boats should be exempt. He proved to be right, for the regulations were never enforced on fishing boats. He wrote to Posh:—

“Woodbridge, Saturday.

“Dear Posh,

“You must lay out three halfpence on the Eastern Times for last Friday. In that Newspaper there is a good deal written about that Act for altering Vessels: the Writer is quite sure—that the Act does not apply to Fishing craft; and he writes as if he knew what he was writing about. But most likely if he had written just the contrary, it would have seemed as right to me. Do you therefore fork out three halfpennies, as I tell you, and study the matter and talk it over with others. The owners of Vessels should lose no time in meeting, and in passing some Resolution on the Subject.

“I have not seen Newson, but West was down at the Ferry some days back and saw him. For a wonder, he [Newson] was Fishing!—for Codlings—for there really was nothing else to do: no Woodbridge Vessels coming in and out the Harbour, nor any work for the Salvage Smacks. He spoke of his Wife as much the same: Smith, the Pilot, thought her much altered when last he saw her.

“You will buy such things as you spoke of wanting at the Lowestoft Sales if they go at a reasonable price. As to the claim made by your Yawl, I suppose it will come down to half. The builders are coming to my house again next week, I believe, having left their work undone.

“Now, here is a Letter for your Mantelpiece to-morrow—Sunday—I don’t think I have more to say.

“Yours E. FG.

“Mr. Durrant has never sent me the hamper of Flowers he promised.

“P.S. I post this letter before Noon so as you will receive it this evening: and can get the Newspaper I tell you of:

“Eastern Times for Friday last sold at Chapman’s.”

Posh does not remember whether he laid out the three halfpence or not. But he doubts it. “I knowed as that couldn’t ha’ nothin’ ta dew along o’ us,” says he. And he stuck to his guns and proved to be right.

“West” has been mentioned before as being an old fellow with whom FitzGerald used to navigate the river Deben in a small boat before the building of the Scandal. Newson’s wife, like Posh’s, was often ailing. Kind “Fitz” had written previously (July 25th, 1868; Letters, Eversley Edition, p. 106) to Professor Cowell:—

“. . . I only left Lowestoft partly to avoid a Volunteer Camp there which filled the Town and People with Bustle: and partly that my Captain might see his Wife: who cannot last very much longer I think: scarcely through the Autumn, surely. She goes about, nurses her children, etc., but grows visibly thinner, weaker and more ailing.”

The “Happy New Year” yawl, belonging to Posh’s beach company

The “claim made by your yawl” refers to a claim for salvage made by the company of beach men (of which Posh was a member) owning a yawl. FitzGerald (as has been seen before) always took a humorous interest in the doings of the “sea pirates,” yclept beach men or “salwagers,” and he doubtless enjoyed his little chuckle at Posh’s expense.

The builders were at work on Little Grange, which FitzGerald predicted he would never live in but would die in. However, he falsified both predictions, for he lived in the house ten years and died in Norfolk.

Mr. Durrant was still in default. I doubt if FitzGerald ever got those flowers. They were plants, Posh tells me, which FitzGerald wished to plant out at Little Grange.

I can find no record of the principal, the Martinmas or Autumn, fishing of 1868. But in the spring of 1869 the Meum and Tuum went to the “West Fishing” for mackerel, even as a large number of our modern steam drifters go now, to the indignation of the pious fishermen of Penzance, Newlyn, and St. Ives. These good fellows of the west have, I think, some reason to complain that it is unfair that they should suffer for righteousness’ sake. Looking at the point in dispute impartially, it does seem hard that the men of the locality should see Easterlings bringing in good catches of fish as the result of what the Cornishmen regard as a desecration of “the Lord’s Day.” The religious sentiment which prevents the western and southern men from putting off on Sunday is genuine and sincere enough. The Scotch herring boats, which come in their thousands to Yarmouth and Lowestoft for the autumn fishing, are always in harbour from Saturday night to Monday morning, though the local boats fish all days and nights. But by keeping in harbour the Scotchmen offend the sensibilities of no one, whereas there is much bitterness caused in the west by the refusal of the Easterlings to fall in with local custom.

On March 1st, 1869, FitzGerald wrote to Professor Cowell (Letters, II, 107, Eversley Edition):—

“My dear Cowell,

“. . . My lugger Captain has just left me to go on his Mackerel Voyage to the Western Coast; and I don’t know when I shall see him again. . . . You can’t think what a grand, tender Soul this is, lodged in a suitable carcase.”

FitzGerald thought very highly of that “carcase” of Posh’s, as will be seen from the story of the Laurence portrait, set forth hereinafter, as the lawyers, whom Posh hates so much, would say.

The sleeping partner throughout seems to have had more anxiety on account of Posh’s sea hazards than on account of business losses. How the mackerel paid I do not know, but Posh was in time to go north for the beginning of the herring fishing in July.