462 



THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



naval officers delivered an official letter to the Bailiffs of that 

 town, intimating that orders had been given to all their 

 admirals, commanders, and captains at sea that no English 

 fisherman was to be molested, and expressing a hope that 

 a similar Christian forbearance (medelijdentkeyt) might be 

 shown to Dutch fishermen on the part of England. No 

 answer was returned, but an emphatic response was made 

 a week or two later when the Sapphire seized several Dutch 

 fishing vessels and brought them into port, a circumstance 

 which also shows that the embargo had not been strictly 

 observed. 1 In the following year the embargo was officially 

 continued, the " small " or fresh - herring fishery carried on 

 along the coast being excepted; 2 but after the defeat of the 

 English fleet in the beginning of June, the deep-sea fishing 

 appears to have been partially resumed. Early in August 

 reports reached London from Yarmouth and Whitby that the 

 Holland busses and doggers were fishing off the land, and had 

 been seen by our fishermen. They were said to number 400 

 and to be guarded by eight conveyers, and it was rumoured 

 the English fleet had gone in pursuit and sunk eighty busses ; 

 and a few doggers were in reality brought in. It was again 

 reported later that a fleet of busses was fishing off the coast 

 of Suffolk, attended by seventeen ships of war. 3 If the 

 retaliation of the Dutch was less effective, it was because the 

 English fishermen carried on their industry close to their 

 own ports; to which, moreover, they were often confined by 

 fear of the Dutch privateers, which boldly hovered about 

 the coast, and the sight of a sail was enough to frighten them 

 back. 4 After Van Ghent had burned the English ships in 



1 Resd. Hdl., ^ Jan. 1665, p. 54. HMantsche Mercurius, 15th Oct. 1665, p. 143. 



State Papers, Dom., 4th Nov. 1665, cxxxvi. 35. 



2 Oroot Placaet-Boeck, iii. 295, 296. 



3 State Papers, Dom., clxvi. 8, 46, 77, 100 ; clxvii. 148 ; clxxv. 146 ; clxxxi. 113. 



4 Ibid., clxxi. 30 ; clxxii. 7, 41. At the Yarmouth fishing this year (1666) " the 

 sea was fuller of herrings than was ever known " ; no sooner were the nets in the 

 water than they were full of fish, and many herrings had to be thrown overboard, 

 so that it was locally rhymed, " twelve herrings a penny fills many a hungry belly." 

 The exceptional abundance was attributed by the fishermen to the war having 

 practically put a stop to the Dutch fishing off our coast, so that the shoals came to 

 the inshore grounds in a body and not broken up. The herring fishing was also 

 unusually successful during the third Dutch war. In 1666, however, the herring 

 fishing in Ireland was likewise uncommonly productive. Ibid., clxxiv. 52, 100, 

 129, 156 ; clxxv. 49. 



