22 THE DUTCH GRAND FISHERY 



vyding of the said island with comes and other necessars 

 for their sustentation and intertainment, that they be not 

 exposed to the miseries of famine and desolation." Moved 

 by this petition, the Lords granted permission for the 

 foreigners to trade for one more year with the islanders. 



The presence on the coasts of the much maligned Dutch- 

 man was, therefore, often productive of good much more 

 than of evil. When, indeed, at a later date, some 

 Scotch traders decided to make an attempt to estabhsh 

 the fishing industry on a proper footing, we find them 

 gladly enlisting the services of Dutchmen who were to teach 

 them " the way of the Hollanders making and dressing of 

 these fishes," and " the most convenient and expedit way 

 of fishing." ^ Dutchmen were thus called in to show Scot- 

 land that road to wealth which Holland had so long success- 

 fully followed. Even from the encroachments of the Dutch 

 good eventually came, since the most apathetic was bound 

 to feel that the fishing grounds so much sought after by 

 foreigners, must be of considerable value, and that it was 

 of national importance that Britain should no longer neglect 

 that source of wealth which lay at her very doors. 



The Dutch, as the pioneers of deep-sea fisheries, had shown 

 the way to reap the harvest of the sea, and, as the reward 

 of hardihood and enterprise, had become the strongest 

 maritime power in Europe. The seventeenth century saw 

 them gradually ousted from their position of pre-eminence, 

 until, by the end of that century, they were, compara- 

 tively speaking, merely onlookers where once they had 

 been supreme. This gradual dechne of the Dutch fishing 

 industry was due, however, neither to any falhng off in 

 enterprise on their part nor to any superiority in com- 

 mercial instinct on the part of their rivals. As a matter of 

 fact, the first attempts of the British to found a national 

 fishery which should rival that of the Dutch, were singularly 



^Reg. Privy Cone. Scotland, vol. i. (3rd series) p. 271. 



