THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 215 



provincial regulations on herring-fishery subsequently issued 

 under the Royal approbation, not one permitted coast- 

 fishermen to cure until long after King William the First 

 had ceased to reign ; and the privilege was thus maintained, 

 which prevented them from making above fl.io or fl.12 for 

 a quantity of herring, to which their concurrents imparted 

 by curage a value of fl.5O and sometimes more. 



The details of the system, as regulated under the law 

 of March I2th, 1818, fully responded to the legislators' 

 rigorously conservative spirit in fishery matters. No change 

 was at first made in those details. For four years and a 

 half, in virtue of a Royal decree dated June 9th, 1818 

 (Staatsblad, No. 27), the working rules laid down in the 

 law of 1801 were continued in vigour, while a new set was 

 under consideration with the Provincial authorities, now 

 appointed legislators, under the royal approval, for all such 

 working details as were rather vaguely defined by the 

 law of 1818 as "internal police' 1 of the herring-fishery. 

 " Provincial authorities," of course, meant those of the 

 province of Holland, now, as in former centuries, the only 

 one where herring-fishery was exercised on a considerable 

 scale. On December 3 1st, 1822, the royal approbation was 

 given to a set of rules drawn up by the Provincial States of 

 Holland, relative to herring-fishery in their province.* 



Two Regulations were made in 1822 ; one on the Grand 

 and one on the Fresh-herring Fishery. They were mainly a 

 repetition, in a more prolix wording, of such details of the 

 law of 1 80 1 as had not been transferred to the law of 

 March I2th, 1818. Very little was added to the virtual 

 contents of the statute ; and that little tended to make the 

 rules even more stringent than before. A minimum size 

 for herring busses had been determined in 1815 ; the 

 provincial regulation added that such busses should carry 

 * Bijvoegsel op het Staatsblad, 1822, pp. 1018 sqq., 1358 sqq. 



