THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 227 



Government regulation under the reign of King William 

 the First limited to the herring fisheries. Coast fishery for 

 plaice, flounder, sole, &c., shared the general reinforcement 

 of old rules, and close attention to their observation. Laws 

 against trawling, for the protection of fish-life under the 

 Dutch coast had, as related in a former part of this work, 

 been enacted in 1676 and relinquished in 1689, as un- 

 necessary vexations. A statute of this nature was once 

 more set up by Royal decree dated January I2th, 1820.* 

 Trawling was not prohibited altogether by this edict ; but 

 it was forbidden to trawl within view of the coast in 

 November, December, and January, and at any time to use 

 trawls or any other nets narrower than the " eight-and- 

 twenty ' size of old, i.e. a width of three (Netherlands) 

 inches and nine-tenths, or about one inch (English) and 

 a-half, for each mesh. Another decree of November I5th, 

 1825, | prescribed that the reglet, or spatule (spaait] deter- 

 mining the meshes' width of nets for the coast fishery 

 should be made of copper, and subject to assay. The use 

 of trawls for fishing herring along the coast was altogether 

 prohibited by this Edict of 1825 ; but, at the same time, the 

 general prohibition of all trawling was limited to the period 

 between November I5th and February I5th. The latter 

 date was afterwards shifted to February ist by Decree of 

 August 29th, 1837 (Staatsblad No. 56). It is worthy of 

 note that the Decree of 1825 was only enacted for the 

 province of Holland, whose States held it to be necessary ; 

 whereas the provinces of Antwerp, Zealand, and Occidental 

 Flanders,J whose inhabitants, like those of Holland, exer- 



* Staatsblad, No. 2. 



f Staatsblad, No. 75. 



4! It should be remembered that, from 1815 till 1830, the provinces 

 now forming the kingdom of Belgium were part of the kingdom of the 

 Netherlands. 



