CHARLES I. I FISHERIES AND RESERVED WATERS 235 



lands)," and of other strangers, from Hamburg and Bremen, 

 resorting to Orkney and Shetland. At the very least, they 

 said, he ought to free the seas of the Dutch busses or fishing- 

 boats "for the space of twenty-eight or fourteen miles, and 

 to discharge them to have any fishing near the coasts of the 

 said mainland or isles." If the king would do this, the burghs 

 promised to further to the utmost of their power " his Majesty's 

 most royal work of fishing," to supply the proportional number 

 of busses that might fall to their part, and to consent that 

 liberty should be granted to Englishmen and Irishmen to fish in 

 all the waters around Scotland, except the Firths of Lothian, 

 Moray, and Clyde, and those reserved for salmon-fishing ; but 

 they would only agree to this on the condition stated and not 

 otherwise. They also asked that the buss-fishing should not 

 be allowed at the Lewes, that it should begin on the east coast 

 on 24th June and the fishing at the Isles on 1st September, 

 and that they should receive equal liberty to fish in the seas 

 of England and Ireland for pilchards and white fish. 1 



In the debates between the Scottish and English commis- 

 sioners in London, at most of which the king was present, 2 

 Coke exerted himself to reconcile the differences that existed. 

 He adroitly pointed out that, as the complaints from Scotland 

 showed, strangers now possessed their fishings, and said they 

 would be able to oust them only by degrees and by making 

 the most of the natural advantages on the sea which both 

 nations had. And while claiming that all the fisheries in the 

 British seas (and even in America) belonged to the crown, 

 and that there could not therefore be, strictly considered, any 

 right to "reserve" certain of them, still the king, by the 

 undoubted right of sovereignty he had in all his seas, had 

 power to give license of fishing within them, either to subjects 

 or foreigners as he might think fit, and by his royal prerogative 

 alone he could establish the proposed company "whereby all 

 his subjects which are brethren thereof may enjoy that fishing 

 by right which strangers have by usurpation in our seas. 3 By 

 this time the Scottish commissioners were becoming reconciled 



1 Rec. Conv. Roy. Burghs, iv. 534, 535. 



"Whereat we ourselff for the most part were present," king to Council, 

 15th July 1632. Stirling Letters, ii. 604. 

 3 State Papers, Dom., ccvi. 46. 



