202 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



bounds to the fishing," and that none of the country people 

 should sell fish to them ; and they issued a proclamation 

 forbidding "all and sundry strangers" to "slay or take any 

 fish within the Isles, lochs and bays of the kingdom, and 

 that they buy no fish but salted and barrelled, and at free 

 burghs." l 



In England fresh attempts were made to establish a great 

 national herring fishery which might rival that of the Dutch. 

 Within a month of the departure of the ambassadors, Lord 

 George Carew, Master of the Ordnance, was busy with a 

 project. Along with Lord Hervey and Sir William Monson 

 who was perhaps the prime mover in the matter he had 

 several conferences with " skilful fishermen," and then he sent 

 for the city merchants to consider how the scheme might be 

 floated. To them he proposed that six busses and four doggers 

 should be bought or built at a cost not exceeding 10,000, 

 explaining, after the usual manner, how the return from the first 

 year's fishing would repay the whole of that sum and encourage 

 " all men " to adventure. The city merchants, one of whom was 

 Sir William Cockaine, were loud in their praises of the scheme, 

 " it was the best work for the public and the most profitable 

 that the wit of man could imagine," but as for the money 

 required, they were afraid that it could not be raised. Then 

 the promoters asked the Lord Mayor to propound the plan to 

 the Court of Aldermen. But the Lord Mayor curtly replied 

 that the Aldermen were engaged in other adventures, and were 

 "utterly unwilling" to enter into the project of building busses, 

 while the Merchant Companies were too much in debt to unde 

 take it. On a second appeal being made to him, he said th 

 Court of Aldermen "absolutely declined" to entertain eitlie 

 the general project for fishing -busses or the lesser scheme 

 building six busses and four doggers. They would hav 

 nothing to do with it ; 2 and this scheme was therefore nippe 

 in the bud. 



Fresh proposals were now brought forward by others, bas 



1 Rec. Convent. Roy. Burghs, iii. 142. Reg. Privy Counc. Scot., xiii. 308, 317. 



2 George Lord Carew to the Secretary of State, Calvert, 8th March 1623 

 State Papers, Dom., cxxxix. 66. The Lord Mayor to Lords Grandison, Carew, 

 and Chichester, 27th March, 3rd April 1623. Ibid., cxl. 47, cxlii. 21. 



