86 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 



Fishery had better do their utmost to keep the Hamburgers 

 in their present favourable mood." 



There was but one way of following this sensible advice, 

 viz., to take measures in order to stock the Hamburg market 

 in time, and not keep the dealers waiting for Dutch herring 

 till the time required for lawful catching, packing and 

 branding of the fish had elapsed. But the college as yet 

 would not be brought to give up their habits of leisurely 

 observing the placards to the letter ; and of course the 

 Hamburgers, treaty or no treaty, went on dealing in early 

 Scotch herring, to the Dutch exporters' incalculable pre- 

 judice. In 1750, the then Dutch Ambassador Buys once 

 more reported considerable imports of Scotch herring with- 

 out a certificate, and in the course of the next two years, 

 upon the States-General's instructions, delivered several 

 remonstrances to the Senate and was answered by the 

 usual " extractus protocolli," containing promises, the ful- 

 filment of which never came. The Republic, time after 

 time, let herself be silenced by these stale promises, and 

 still kept up her worn-out belief that the treaty of 1609 was 

 for Hamburg's good, and could conveniently be observed 

 there. At last, in July, 1752, it appeared from one of Buys' 

 despatches that a cargo of English herring had been sold 

 at Hamburg without a certificate before Dutch herring had 

 been heard of by anybody upon the market. And now, after 

 some forty years' steady perseverance in a rotten system, 

 and fruitless and futile efforts to enforce that system upon 

 others whose interest was opposed to it, the College at last, 

 upon Buys' most pressing advice, made one single tardy 

 concession which, if made in time, might perhaps have 

 prevented all the difficulties just now related. They asked, 

 and of course obtained, the States' permission to send 

 herring to Hamburg direct from the North Sea. This was 



