rivals.  This and the making of lace are the principal employments of such of the natives as are not engaged in the fishery.  In the earlier ages of the Duchy, the inhabitants of the Pays de Caux found a more effectual and important employment in the salt-works which were then very numerous on the coast, but which have long since been suffered to fall into decay.  Ancient charters, recorded in the Neustria Pia, trace these works on the coast of Dieppe, and at Bouteilles on the right of the valley of Arques, to as remote a period as 1027; and they at the same time prove the existence of a canal between Dieppe and Bouteilles, by which in 1390 vessels loaded with salt were wont to pass.  But here, as in England, such works have been abandoned, from the greater facility of communication between distant places, and of obtaining salt by other means.

At present the only manufacture on the beach is that of kelp, for which a large quantity of the coarser sea-weeds is burned; but the fisheries, which are not carried on with equal energy in any other port of France, are the chief support of the place.  The sailors of Dieppe were not confined to their own seas; for they used to pursue the cod fishery on the coast of Newfoundland with considerable success.  The herring fishery however was a greater staple; and previously to the revolution, when alone a just estimate could be formed of such matters, the quantity of herrings caught by the boats belonging to Dieppe averaged more than eight thousand lasts a year, and realized above L100,000.  This fishery is said to have been established here as early as the XIth century[13].  From sixty to eighty boats, each of about thirty tons and carrying fifteen men, were annually sent to the eastern coast of England about the end of August; and then, again, in the middle of October nearly double the quantity of vessels, but of a smaller size, were engaged in the same pursuit on their own shores, where the fish by this time repair.  The mackerel fishery was an object of scarcely less importance than that of herrings, producing in general about one hundred and seventy thousand barrels annually.  Great quantities of these fish are eaten salted and dried, in which state they afford a general article of food among the lower classes in Normandy.  Surely this would be deserving of the attention and imitation of our merchants at home.  During the war with England this branch of trade necessarily suffered; but Napoleon did every thing in his power to assist the town, by giving it peculiar advantages as to ships sailing under licences.  He succeeded in his views; and, thus patronized, Dieppe flourished exceedingly, and the gains brought in by the privateers connected with the port, added not a little to its prosperity.  Hence to this hour the inhabitants regret the peace, although the town cannot fail to be benefitted by the fresh impulse given to the fisheries, and the quantity of money circulated by the travellers