38 FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN 



considered of such importance that a proposal was made 

 for the establishment of a fleet around England for its 

 protection. Some quaint Dutch plates still preserve for us 

 the full details of the occupation, and illustrate with a 

 minuteness worthy of a number of the Graphic each par- 

 ticular scene connected with this special industry, from the 

 seaside cottage of its pursuers, and the preparing and 

 victualling of the buss, up to the grand junketing festival 

 and congratulation banquet, with the proprietor and his 

 wife looking, like the immortal Mrs. Fezziwig, " one vast 

 substantial smile." In the succeeding reign the Dutch 

 fitted out in a single season 900 vessels and 1500 busses 

 for the benefit of cod and herring, and each of these 1500 

 busses employed three more vessels to supply them with 

 salt and empty barrels, and to transport the take, so that 

 the number of vessels engaged amounted to little short of 

 7000. At the zenith of their prosperity, the Dutch, it is 

 said, sold herrings in one year to the value of ;£"4,795,ooo, 

 besides what they themselves consumed, 12,000 vessels 

 being engaged in this branch alone, employing about 

 200,000 men in their service. Well might they deck the 

 steeple of Vlaardingen and ring a merry peal upon the bells 

 when the first vessel came in sight of harbour. At this 

 time, as we learn from a manuscript account, our own port 

 of Barrow-in-Furness possessed a small fleet of five ships — 

 two of them, it is curious to remark, being the Vanguard 

 and the Siviftsiire — maintaining together a crew of 660 

 men, whose pay and rations amounted to about ;^i 3,000 

 a year. 



Sir Walter Raleigh, the Paladin of Elizabethan and 

 Jacobean adventure, did not allow so tempting an oppor- 

 tunity to escape his notice ; and he pointed out to James 

 the immense number of foreign vessels and men who took 



