148 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 



fishermen to cure, which prohibition their competency to 

 grant or refuse licences to all herring fishermen enabled 

 them to enforce. 



The prohibition appears to have been generally observed 

 till 1751, in which year the Stadtholder Prince William IV. 

 paid a visit to the coast village of Katwijk, and the fisher- 

 men of the locality availed themselves of the occasion to 

 petition His Highness for re-instalment in their ancient 

 right to cure herring. The Grand Fishery's self-made 

 curing monopoly being thus menaced, petitions in a 

 contrary sense were immediately sent in from some of the 

 towns concerned in the cured-herring business, and a con- 

 troversy ensued, of which a full account is to be found in 

 the periodical called ' Nederlandsche Jaarboeken.'* The 

 College of the Grand Fishery, before whom the petition 

 from Katwijk was laid, of course advised against it ; and 

 although the coast fishermen (or parlevinkers as they are 

 called in a contemporaneous Act of the States of Holland)! 

 presented another memorial to the Princess Governess! 

 after the Stadtholder's demise, the question at issue was 

 ultimately decided against them, and the College rule 

 maintained. 



The logic in this dispute was all on the side of the coast 

 fishermen, and their opponents indeed contradicted their 

 own arguments by using too many. First, said they of 

 the Grand Fishery, the herring caught in bum-boats is of 

 inferior quality and unfit to be cured. Secondly, fishing 

 boats from the coast are equipped at less risk and expense 

 than herring busses, and the former's owners are already 



* Ned. Jaarboeken, 1751, p. 1043, 1181 ; 1752, p. 481. 

 t Res. Holl. 1751, p. 318. 



% Princess Arme, as guardian of her son William V., then three 

 years old. 



