96 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 



spirit of Frederick the Great's downright politics, ordered 

 the sovereign magistrate of the Free City of Hamburg to 

 admit early herring from Embden at whatever period such 

 herring might have been caught ; and when the order was 

 protested against, vouchsafed no answer. Hamburg 

 excused herself to the Republic " as being unable to with- 

 stand a powerful neighbour ; J: and the States, who at this 

 period of their government were as a rule very anxious to 

 keep out of harm's way at any price, did not venture any 

 opposition. The herring treaty of 1609 being thus virtually 

 annulled, there was now, if ever, good reason for Holland 

 to allow her fishermen to fish as early as the Embdeners ; 

 the more so, as the Dutch ambassador Hop had recently, 

 in 1770, strongly impressed upon his Government the 

 stringent necessity of being early in the market at 

 whatever cost, since the first herring, 'whether good or bad, 

 English, Dutch or Danish, was sold there at fabulous 

 prices. But once more the States were deaf to the most 

 urgent expostulations, and though every shadow of observ- 

 ance of the treaty of 1609 was now withdrawn, still kept 

 their St. John's rule upright.* It would indeed appear 

 from such facts as these, that some notion at the time 

 prevailed to the effect that it was better to catch herring 

 after St. John's and find no market for it, than to 

 catch it earlier and sell it at good prices. The system was 

 maintained with the more obduracy in proportion as its 

 powerlessness to do any good to the fishery became more 

 strikingly apparent on all sides. 



The Grand Fishery was now indeed beset on all sides. 

 Denmark, in 1767, chartered a herring fishery, and, in 1774, 

 prohibited all importation of foreign fish. Austria did her 

 utmost to promote the fisheries of Nieuwpoort and Ostend. 



* Res. Holl. 1770, p. 1272 ; 1773, p. 485 ; 1774, p. 496; 1775, pp. 155, 

 193. Res. St. Gen. 1775, p. 419. 



