136 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



at lower freights than English vessels could afford to do, 

 and thus we were " eaten out of all trade and the bread 

 taken out of our mouths in our own seas, and the great 

 customs carried from his Majesty's coffers to foreign princes 

 and states." The Hollanders were accused of trying "to get 

 the whole trade of Christendom into their own hands, as 

 well for transportation as otherwise for the command and 

 mastery of the seas." Yet the king was " Lord Paramount 

 of those seas" in which the foreigners caught the fish that 

 made them so rich and powerful : surely " he would not, 

 without question, allow strangers to eat up the food that 

 was provided for his children ! " l 



Such was the national spirit and sentiment that had been 

 developing during the closing years of Elizabeth's reign and 

 the early part of the reign of James, and was well expressed 

 by Sir Walter Raleigh when he said that " whosoever com- 

 mands the sea commands the trade ; whosoever commands 

 the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, 

 and consequently the world itself." 2 England was to become 

 powerful and rich by shipping and maritime commerce, and 

 the first step in the struggle was to secure the fisheries for 

 herself. Opinions varied as to how this was to be accom- 

 plished. Some recommended the establishing of a national 

 fishery on the plan recommended by Hitchcock in the pre- 

 ceding generation and tried by Charles I. in the next. Others 

 suggested the institution of a commission of " State Merchant," 

 which would have trade and commerce as well as fisheries 

 under its charge. A few spoke, more faintly, of the potency 

 of fish -days and the strict observance of Lent. But all 

 or almost all agreed that foreigners, and in particular the 

 Hollanders, should be either prohibited from fishing in the 

 British seas or allowed to do so only under license and regu- 

 lations and the payment of a tribute to the crown. 



The proposal most commonly mooted was to build a fleet 

 of herring -busses for ourselves, and, in short, to imitate the 

 Dutch system in all particulars. The natural advantages we 



1 The Trades Increase. Keymer, Observations on Dutch Fishing, <fce. Observa- 

 tions touching Trade, iL-c., Raleigh's Works, viii. 374. State Papers, Dom., xlviii. 

 114. 



2 A Discourse of the Invention of Ships. Works, viii. 325. 



