165 



CHAPTER V. 

 JAMES i. continued. DISPUTES WITH THE DUTCH. 



IT would probably be too flattering to James to suppose that he 

 had any well-considered plan for extending his authority over 

 the foreign fishermen frequenting his coasts, or for extracting 

 from them a tribute for their liberty of fishing. But the exist- 

 ence of the tax of the assize-herrings in Scotland clearly 

 offered the best means for bringing that about if it was to be 

 brought about at all. It has been explained that in the nego- 

 tiations which followed the issue of the proclamation of 1609, 

 Sir Noel Caron laid his finger on a weak spot in the English 

 case, by pointing out that the assize-herring had never been 

 levied on the native fishermen who fished where the Dutch 

 fished at the North Isles. The special ambassadors in 1610 

 also mentioned that their fishermen had never been asked to 

 pay it, though they naturally did not lay stress on the point. 

 James resolved that those omissions should be remedied. In 

 1610 he granted the assize-herrings to Captain John Mason, 

 who was employed with two ships of war in that and in the 

 following year on the coast of Scotland. Mason accordingly 

 made strenuous efforts to collect the tribute. The fishermen 

 of Fifeshire, who carried on a herring fishery at Orkney and 

 Shetland, resisted the unaccustomed tax, and in 1612 raised an 

 action of absolvitor before the Lords of the Privy Council 

 and gained their case. 1 The Lords of the Council decided that 

 the " adventure " of the fishermen at the Northern Isles was of 



1 Records of the Convention of the Royal Burghs of Scotland, ii. 455. Anstruther 

 Easter, one of the Fife villages, asked that the costs (400 Scots) should be 

 reimbursed to them for obtaining the decree against Mason " for exacting of thame 

 certane excyse hering and fishes at the fishing in Orknay and Zetland. " 



