222 



THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



by Parliament, no doubt under the inspiration of the opposi- 

 tion of the burghs, reported against the association with 

 England in the fishings. Such a course, they said, would 

 be "verie inconvenient to the estait; and tuiching the land 

 fishing, whilk consists in fishing within loches and yles and 

 twenty aucht myles frome the land, and whilk is proper to 

 the natives, and whairof they have been in continuall posses- 

 sioun and neuer interrupted thairin be the Hollanders," a 

 statement inconsistent with the frequent complaints made 

 by the burghs in the reign of James. The burghs, they 

 said, were able and content to undertake the "said land 

 fishing " by themselves, without " communicating " therein with 

 any other nation ; and as for the buss - fishing, to which the 

 king's proposals specially referred, they stated that the season 

 for it that year was passed, and that as it was a matter of 

 great importance, it required time for consideration. The 

 burghs reported to Parliament in the same sense. 1 



Thus Charles, in endeavouring to carry out his laudable 

 desire to create a great national fishery to oust the Hollander 

 from his seas, had suddenly raised against him a Scottish 

 claim of mare clausum, which he found very provoking. 

 Not only did the Scottish Parliament declare that a great 

 extent of the sea around Scotland pertained exclusively to 

 the natives so far as concerned fishing, but they coupled 

 this with the request that the king should exclude foreigners 

 from fishing within that area. It must be said that, apart al- 



1 Acta Part. Scot., v. 226. Rec. Conv. Roy. Burghs, iii. 322, 323. The 

 Earl of Seaforth, writing to the Earl of Carlisle on August 17th, said that the 

 Lord Chancellor and the Lord Treasurer had left no argument unuttered which 

 might induce their countrymen, and especially the burghs, to concur in the king's 

 desire about the fishing. The burghs would not admit any association either with 

 countrymen or strangers; "they like not," he said, "that noblemen or gentry 

 .-should understand matters of industry," and they would do what they could to 

 move the king to delay. State Papers, Dom., clxxii. 78. In another account of 

 the proceedings of the Convention, it is said the burghs claimed as "absolutely 

 theirs " the fishing within bays and lochs, and at sea for a distance of " two 

 kennings" from the shore, and stated that they would admit no partners, either 

 natives or strangers ; that buss-fishing was distinguished by them to be " without 

 two kennings from the land"; and they would not "on any condition" allow 

 .any busses to participate in the " land fishing" within two kennings, or to land at 

 all, but only to "make" their fish (cure them) on shipboard, as the "Flemings" 

 did. It is added that those who would have hazarded some means in the project 

 were " absolutely discouraged " by the attitude of the burghs. Ibid., ccvi. 45. 



