

JAMES I. : DISPUTES WITH THE DUTCH 177 



few months before this Carleton had brought similar com- 

 plaints to the notice of the States-General, declaring that the 

 Hollanders were daily guilty of "great outrages and insol- 

 encies on the Scottish fishermen." It was even said to be 

 the opinion in London that the prosecution of the herring 

 fishery by the Dutch under the protection of ships of war was 

 a direct challenge to and defiance of the king. 1 



The authorities in Scotland lost no time in preparing state- 

 ments recounting in detail the outrages and insolences com- 

 mitted by the Dutch fishermen ; but an impartial perusal of 

 the complaints leaves little doubt that they were greatly 

 exaggerated. The Dutch fishermen were accused of going 

 ashore in large numbers and chasing, taking, and slaying 

 sheep; they " intromitted " with growing timber, trod down 

 all the corn they could find, induced the best and ablest of the 

 native fishermen to join them, or even took them by force ; 

 entered the kirks, where they broke down the seats and 

 polluted the pulpits ; carved their names on the green pastures ; 

 took uninvited rides on the horses in the fields, " to the great 

 hurt of the owners " ; and made free with the eggs and young 

 of seafowl on the uninhabited isles, to the hurt of the pro- 

 prietors. In the long catalogue of their supposed outrages 

 on land, two were more important. It was alleged that 

 they gave refuge to thieves and malefactors, so that justice 

 could not reach them ; and that some years before they seized 

 an honest young woman who was selling stockings among 

 them and held her head-downwards on an eminence in sight 

 of the whole fleet, owing to which she died later. Among 

 their offences at sea they were charged with shooting at 

 native fishermen, "catching of their small netts and lynes 



themselves in their fishing, and whether they understand that they may fish where 

 they list, near or far off, or that they may be confined to any reasonable bounds, 

 for thereupon will depend a great part of that resolution which may be taken 

 hereafter in a matter of so great moment as this is, and the answer you shall 

 receive you may either advertise by writing, or bring with you, as you shall find 

 Or fervice to require." State Papers, Dom. Collections, Chas. II., vol. 339. In a 

 later communication to the States-General Carleton described the land-kenning 

 thus : " Ce qui est une limite bien entendue par gens de Marine, et appellee en ces 

 quartiers la The Kenning of the Land, et icy de kermis vant landt." Dr P. P. C. Hoek 

 informs me that " het land verkennen " is even now the technical Dutch expression 

 when a sailor comes near the coast without knowing at what point he approaches it. 

 1 Muller, Mare Clausum, 114. 



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