66 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 



Such sums as fl. 100,000, borrowed by the Grand 

 Fishery College in 1647,* and fl. 187,95 8, exhibited by the 

 Admiralty of Rotterdam in 1641 as convoying expenses,! 

 do indeed show that, if the requirements for the herring 

 fishery's safety were heavy both on the hands of the State 

 and the parties concerned, the latter were able to meet, 

 and Government found it worth while to cover them. The 

 first serious check to the trade's expansion appears to have 

 been the first war between the Republic and England in 

 1652 ; and from that year downward, for more than 60 years. 

 War, Convoy and Prohibition are the words in which the 

 Grand Fishery's history might not improperly be resumed. 

 The Dutch fisherman's most redoubted foes under the 

 Republic were the English man-of-war and the French 

 privateer ; and during the greater part of the period 

 between 1652 and 1713 the Republic was at war either 

 with England or France, or both. 



Some time before the war of 1652, complaints of Dutch 

 fishing vessels being taken or plundered by English were 

 frequent, and peculiar activity in the equipment of convoy- 

 ing ships was accordingly recommended by the States to 

 the Admiralty boards. Tromp's encounter with Blake off 

 Dover, in May, 1652, having determined the formal opening 

 of hostilities, the herring-fleet were the first sufferers, and a 

 considerable number of busses, together with eleven con- 

 voyers, were taken by Blake in July. The States of Holland 

 at first seriously considered the advisability of calling home 

 the rest of the fleet, and stopping the fishery till better 

 times ; but the measure was ultimately rejected, and 

 twenty-four fishing vessels were armed as convoying ships 



* Res. Holland,, 1647, p. 164. 

 t Ibid. 1641, p. 146. 



