58 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 



contraventions against the fishery laws, besides those 

 against the particular statute now mentioned. Nor were 

 the judicial functions of this board confined to cases of 

 breach of common law. According to a manuscript 

 " Recueil of the Grand Fishery," or register of notes 

 concerning it, kept, or owned, about 1753, by one Mr. J. v. 

 d. Lely and preserved in the Royal Netherlands Library,* 

 they have " from all old times " vindicated for themselves 

 the right of disciplinary jurisdiction against all misde- 

 meanours ("wandivoiren ") committed by the officers and 

 men serving both in busses and convoying ships. This 

 competence was officially confirmed in their hands, and 

 probably much extended, by a Resolution of the States of 



* I have no positive clue to this v. d. Lely's social position. His 

 title of " Mr." shows him to have been a graduate-at-law. The 

 Recueil under his name frequently quotes the record-books of the 

 Fishery College, and its author appears to have been otherwise 

 possessed of extensive information on the fishery subject. It is by no 

 means improbable that v. d. Lely may have been secretary to the 

 College, a post of considerable importance in the republic's later 

 years. At any rate, such information as his Recueil imparts may, 

 if not contradicted by other evidence, be accounted conclusive. 

 Unfortunately the Recueil is drawn up in a very succinct style, so as 

 often to leave some doubt about the meaning of the words and 

 abbreviations. It has evidently been composed as a private register 

 to aid the memory of the author as deeply concerned in fishery 

 matters, and has never been published. The original record-books of 

 the Fishery College appear unfortunately to have been lost ; and 

 without them no very precise idea of that body's constitution and 

 attributions can be formed. There is extant another " Recueil van de 

 Groote Visscherye" also manuscript, owned, or written, by Mr. J. van 

 der Craght, and now in Mr. Nyhoff's private collection. I have, upon 

 inspection, found both manuscripts to be literally of the same tenor, 

 and have therefore quoted the one bearing the latest date. V. d. 

 Craght's is dated 1745. Both look like copies of some original bearing 

 a still earlier date. 



