THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 63 



Enkhuizen generously consented to deliver licenses to 

 fishing captains from this town, which was thereby enabled 

 to send herring busses to sea on its own account. Besides 

 the fishing towns of the Maas, Enkhuizen appears for a 

 long time to have been an influential member of the 

 college, in which the preponderance of each town was, 

 according to Semeyns, determined by the number of 

 vessels hailing from it. Still, as the author avers, the 

 greater member has no right " to introduce any novelties 

 into the trade," and especially to permit the sailing of 

 " sale-hunters," without the lesser's consent. It has been 

 shown above that, if such a bye-law or tradition ever 

 existed in the bosom of the college, it was often trans- 

 gressed, and that Delft and Enkhuizen were overruled by 

 the other three towns, as regards the admission of sale- 

 hunters. Still, as a general rule, Semeyns' statement may 

 be true enough ; for a reluctance to admit " novelties ' of 

 any description has always been the college's prevailing 

 disposition, much to the prejudice of the trade they were 

 called upon to promote. 



As regards the herring fishery's extension at this period, 

 no precise statement can be made out with any degree of 

 credit ; but it certainly was very considerable. Walter 

 Raleigh has certainly committed exaggeration by averring 

 in his ' Observations ' touching trade and commerce,* that 

 3000 ships and 50,000 people from Holland were yearly 

 employed in the herring fishery upon the, British coast ; 

 and other English writers of the period have given lower 

 estimates. De la Court, in his famous essay, ' Heilzame 

 Politique Gronden en Maximen,' evaluates the fleet at 

 1000 busses ; but he wrote at a period when the Grand 

 Fishery's halcyon days were avowedly over. A writer in 

 * Muller, Mare clausuni, pp. 72, sqq. 



