CHARLES I. : FISHERIES AND RESERVED WATERS 241 



were administered, two silver seals were ordered (and never 

 paid for) at a cost of 12, and Captain John Mason was 

 made "Admiral of their fleet" of busses. Differences of 

 opinion soon arose in the Council, and the Society split up 

 into two branches or associations, one under Weston (now Earl 

 of Portland), that " man of big looks and of a mean and abject 

 spirit," as Clarendon describes him, and after his death, under 

 the Earl of Arundel ; the other branch under the Earl of Pem- 

 broke, the Lord Chamberlain, who appears to have been almost 

 the only one, besides the king and Coke, who took a sincere 

 .personal interest in the Society. Portland's society had its 

 headquarters at Lewis, while Pembroke's was more particularly 

 designed to carry on operations at Shetland and the east coast, 

 but also had a station in the Lewes. The total amount of the 

 subscriptions to the Society up to 3rd February 1636 was 

 22,682, 10s., of which only 9914, 10s. was paid up, and the 

 company had been forced to borrow 3550 at interest to set the 

 scheme afloat. The stock of Portland's association amounted 

 altogether to 16,975 up to and including the year 1637, while 

 the losses in the same period reached 21,071, 5s. 7d. 



Ground was acquired and houses and magazines for salt and 

 casks erected at the Lewes, 1 and several busses were purchased 

 in Holland by both associations, ready for fishing and manned 

 entirely by Dutchmen. Agents despatched to Shetland and 

 Lewis sent favourable reports of the prospects. " We hope," 

 said the one at Lewis, "to furnish London with some plenty 

 against the hard times of winter " ; yet the total quantity of 

 herrings cured at the island in that the first year of the 

 Society's fishing was only 386 lasts, and the price obtained 

 for them was so low that the loss amounted to 4261. This, 

 according to the agents, was due to want of proper means of 

 curing them (salt, casks, hoops, &c.), otherwise they said they 

 might have obtained 1000 lasts or more. A great effort 



1 Martin, who visited the Hebrides about the year 1695, saw the foundation of a 

 house, which, the natives told him, had been built by the Society as a store for salt 

 and casks, on Hermetra, a small island in the Sound of Harris ; and he saw a 

 similar relic on a small island called Vacksay, in Loch Maddy. He was informed 

 by the natives that " in the memory of some yet alive," as many as 400 sail had 

 been loaded with herrings in Loch Maddy in one season : at the time of his visit 

 the fishing had been abandoned, though herrings were plentiful. A Description of 

 ttie Wetterne Islands of Scotland, pp. 51, 54, 55. 



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