64 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 



"den Koopman " (vol. i. p. 235) states 1500 busses to have 

 sailed in 1610 and 2000 in 1620, and doubtingly adds 

 that 3000 are said to have sailed a few years later. 

 According to Semeyns, Enkhuizen alone had 700 afloat in 

 1639 or thereabouts ; and this certainly was not under- 

 valuing the resources of a city whose glory and renown are 

 the author's continuous boast. The towns on the Maas 

 were then and afterwards ahead of Enkhuizen as regards 



c> 



the development of their herring shipping. Taking all 

 together, I should be inclined to tax any one with exagger- 

 ration who values the number of Dutch salt-herring busses 

 above 2000 at the time of the fishery's greatest expansion. 

 Holland and Zealand are the only provinces which under 

 the Republic owned herring-busses ; and Zealand's share 

 in them was very small. Considering that foreign trade, 

 agriculture, and several manufacturing industries have 

 always occupied the majority of the population of Holland, 

 and that some eight or ten towns at most were more 

 or less concerned in the fishery, two thousand herring 

 ships would appear to be a maximum which can scarcely 

 have been exceeded ; and it certainly is a matter of 

 wonder that such a number should ever have been attained. 

 A herring buss in Semeyns' time cost {1.3150, hull and 

 standing rigging ; and the " equipment," by which name 

 the author designs tackle, nets, salt, barrels, and crew's 

 hire and food, in the course of a season came to fl.438o 

 more. Each buss commonly made three voyages between 

 St. John's and December, at the end of which the whole 

 inventory was used up, and nothing remained but the 

 vessel's hull, and that generally in a very deteriorated con- 

 dition. The sum annually invested in the herring-fishery 

 during its greatest expansion must, by the above consider- 

 ations, have amounted to something like fl. 15,000,000, 



