236 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



suggested that all the fisheries should be rented out for the benefit of 

 the royal treasury. Governor Juel was that same year obliged to resign 

 and could do no more in this matter. The thought of reutiug them out 

 was again given up, as the new governor could not advise such a step; but 

 sometime afterward the question began to be asked whether the country's 

 own merchants might not derive some advantage from this trade, and 

 whether they might not reap the great profit which had hitherto fallen 

 to the share of the Dutch. The export of lobsters was quite considerable 

 at this time, as the district of Bergen was annually visited by eight ships, 

 and more than twenty took their cargoes in the districts of Lister, Manda, 

 and Stavauger. There is no information as to the size of these ships, or 

 how many lobtsers they took, but each took a cargo twice a year ; and 

 even if they were not as large as those mentioned about the middle of the 

 century which could hold 4,000 to 6,000 lobsters, the quantity of lobsters 

 exported was, nevertheless, very considerable, and the Dutch traders 

 must certainly have enjoyed a good income from this trade, as on every 

 occasion they showed themselves so eager to retain it. As lobster-fish- 

 ing had become much easier since the introduction of baskets, and 

 more profitable through the higher price which the peasants got, the 

 lauded proprietors wanted to have the exclusive right to fish near their 

 grounds and forbid all others to do so. This they thought could best 

 be done by haviug their grounds solemnly consecrated. I find such a 

 consecration of a farm near Lister, spoken of as early as 1689, but on 

 the island of Karrno not till 1720. In some places, such a consecration 

 was respected ; while in others this was not the case, the people haviug 

 an idea that fishing in the sea should be free to all. A law-suit in 1725 

 resulted in the confirmation of this ancient law of free fishing in the sea 

 by a royal decree, which also affected the lobster-fisheries. David Hal- 

 vorsen Vraa and Jacob Olsen Vidoen, of the village of Staengeland, on 

 the island of Karmo, in 1725, brought a law-suit against some fishermen, 

 who, in spite of the consecration of their ground, had placed some lob- 

 ster-baskets near some small islands belonging to them. Judge Leth 

 gave judgment on the 29th of August of the same year in favor of the 

 plaintiffs, on the ground that the law, book 5, chapter 11, article 2, con- 

 firmed by book 3, chapter 13, article 1, gave the owners the right to 

 use all the profits that might be derived from their property. After 

 this judgment had been passed, all the owners of islands began to forbid 

 the fishermen from catching lobsters not only on those portions of the 

 coast that were very near to their farms, but also on islands that lay at a 

 distance of three or four miles from the coast. The poor fishermen, who 

 at certain seasons of the year lived entirely off the lobster-fisheries, saw 

 themselves deprived of this means of making a living, and complained 

 bitterly to the highest authorities, maintaining " that the lobsterrfisher- 

 ies have never before been forbidden them, and that now they were de- 

 prived of their only way of making a living;" they pointed out that the 

 king's own sailors were especially hurt by this judgment. Through the 



