Note 12 — JOURNAL. (continued 2)

The fish of these waters may be excellent in the water; but owing to the want of care and niceness with which they are kept after being caught, they are very seldom worth eating when brought to table. They have no turbot or soles, a great national misfortune: their best fish are rock-fish, bass, shad (an excellent herring, as big as a small salmon), and sheep's-head. Cod and salmon I have eaten; but from the above cause they were never comparable to the same fish at an English table. The lobsters, crabs, and oysters are all gigantic, frightful to behold, and not particularly well-flavoured: their size makes them tough and coarse.