130 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



only 40, and they did not go so far north as the Hol- 

 landers. 1 Spanish, Portuguese, and French vessels fished for 

 mackerel on the Irish coast and to the south-west of England, 

 as well as for cod in the North Sea. Those from Hamburg, 

 Bremen, and Emden took part in the herring fishery on the east 

 coast, but they appear to have mostly confined their operations 

 to the northern parts of Scotland. French and Flemish vessels 

 also visited the western lochs of Scotland, both for fishing and 

 for the purchase of fish. 2 The total number of foreign vessels 

 thus fishing in the British seas at the time in question must 

 have been large. In both of Keymer's treatises it is stated 

 that there were 20,000, with 400,000 people. This estimate is 

 obviously greatly exaggerated ; but making all due allowances, 

 it is certain that the fleets of foreign fishing vessels frequenting 

 our coasts in the reign of James were of formidable extent. The 

 great herring - busses, while fishing along the east coast of 

 Scotland, were described in 1608 as occupying an area of the 

 sea of at least 45 miles in length by 22 miles in breadth, 

 within which space they allowed no others to shoot a net. 3 



1 State Papers, Dom., Jas. I., xlvii. 114. 



2 Keymer, Observations on Dutch Fishing ; Gentleman, op. cit. ; Buchanan, Rerum 

 Scot. Hist., lib. i. c. xlix. ; Leslie, De Origine Moribus et Rebus Gestis Scotorum, 39 ; 

 Register Privy Council of Scotland, ii. 656; MSS. Advoc. Lib., 31. 2. 16. 



3 State Papers, Dom., xxxii. 31. Other accounts are as follows. In 1609 the 

 Earl of Salisbury wrote (erroneously) that while fifty or sixty years before only 

 one or two hundred foreign vessels came to fish on the east coast, they then 

 numbered two or three thousand sail (Winwood, Memorials, iii. 50). Sir William 

 Monson in the same year placed the number of Hollander busses at 3000 and the 

 number of men at over 30,000 (State Papers, Dom., xlvii. 112, 114). Sir Nicholas 

 Hales also estimated the number of men at 30,000 (Ibid., xlv. 23; cclxxiv. 67). 

 In the following year the Dutch ambassadors admitted that 20,000 men were em- 

 ployed in the great herring fishery, as well as other 40,000 in connection with it 

 on shore (Ibid., Ixvii. 111). A little later, in 1616, the Secretary to the Duke of 

 Lennox told the Dutch ambassador that in the previous June, 1500 or 1600 Hol- 

 lander busses were at Shetland (Add. MSS. Brit. Mus., 17,677, J, fol. 160). 

 In 1618 the number fishing on the east coast of Scotland sometimes exceeded 2000 

 sail (MSS. Advoc. Lib., 31. 2. 16). Malynes in 1622 placed the number of busses 

 from Holland and Zealand at 2000 (Consuetude vcl Lex Mercatoria, 89). Two years 

 later a Spanish agent described them as consisting of 2400 vessels, guarded by 40 

 men-of-war, and scattered over an area of 200 leagues (State Papers, Dom., dxxi. 

 30). In 1629 Secretary Coke, who derived the information from a Scottish source, 

 said the Hollander busses sometimes amounted to 3000 sail ; three years later he 

 put the number in connection with the fishery off Yarmouth at "above a thou- 

 sand " ; at this time the French vessels numbered 40 (Ibid. , Chas. I. , clii. 63 ; 

 ccxxix. 79). Beaujon (op. cit., p. 64) expresses the opinion that 2000 busses were 

 the maximum number. 





