UNDER THE TUDORS 95 



this realme shall be utterly undone, for that the fishermen 

 Flemynges this yeire have so spoyled and mysused all the 

 coaste men, that it hath so discomforted them " that they feared 

 "the whole avoyadaunce of fysshing both for herring and 

 other fysshing upon all the north coast of this realme." 1 

 Whether or not this complaint referred to the outrages de- 

 scribed in the Act quoted above is uncertain, but probably 

 it did not, as the Hollanders and Zealanders fished for them- 

 selves, and they were now becoming rather numerous. It does 

 not appear that any special action was taken regarding the 

 petition. It was Cecil's aim to increase the use of fish within 

 the realm and to foster the native fisheries, but he had no 

 desire to interfere with the liberty of fishing enjoyed by the 

 Hollanders. Such action would have been contrary not only 

 to the treaties but to the' international policy of England at 

 that time. On political and religious grounds the aid of the 

 Dutch was needful in the struggle against the common enemy, 

 Spain. 



That the English people had become interested in the con- 

 dition of the fisheries and somewhat jealous of the fleets of 

 foreign vessels which fished along their coast may be inferred 

 from the appearance at this time of two works one by Captain 

 Kobert Hitchcock, and the other by the learned and unfortunate 

 Dr John Dee. It is a curious circumstance that those authors, 

 who wrote at the same period, should each have advocated one 

 of the two lines of policy adopted in the next century. Hitch- 

 cock was all for freedom of fishing, for strangers and natives 

 alike. His remedy was the creation of a great English fishery 

 organisation to oust the Dutch from our seas. Dee, on the 

 other hand, was emphatic in claiming mare clausum and an 

 exclusive fishing for Englishmen, and in urging heavy taxation 

 of foreigners who fished in the British seas. 



Hitchcock was a gentleman and a soldier who, in 1553, 

 as he himself tells us, while serving the Emperor Charles V. 

 in his wars in the Low Countries, had observed with astonish- 

 ment that the wealth and shipping of Zealand and Holland 

 were due to their sea fisheries. Pondering on his discovery, 

 he thought out a plan some years later by which a great 

 national fishery might be established in England to supplant 



1 State Papers, Dom., Eliz., Ixxv. 16. 



