108 CHARLES II. 



fall to ruin. In 1670, a pamphlet appeared, entitled The 

 Royal Fishing Revived, which contains many interesting 

 particulars concerning the state of trade in England at this 

 time.i The writer acknowledges that the Dutch have posses- 

 sion of the fishing trade. The reasons for this he summarises 

 thus : TheY have multitudes of men, cheapness and conven- 

 ience for building ships, advantages in barter and exchange, 

 and an admitted excellence in packing and curing aU kinds 

 of fish, with the one exception of red herring. They give 

 facihties for trade to all nations and have low customs 

 duties. England, on the other hand, suffers from lack of 

 population. This he ascribes to the peopling of the American 

 plantations, the re-peopling of Ireland after the great 

 massacre, the Great Plague of 1665, the law against 

 naturahsation, and finally, to the corporations, which 

 restrict trade to those who are freemen of them. Enghsh 

 ships, he affirms further, are dearer than Dutch ships, 

 a Dutch ship being built for half the price of an Enghsh 

 one of equal dimensions. This he attributes first to the 

 deamess and scarcity of timber in England, and, secondly, 

 to the Act of Navigation, " which not only restraines the 

 importation of Timber, Pitch, Tar, Hemp, and Iron, to 

 these dear built ships, and the ships of the natives of the 

 places from whence they are had, whether they have ships 

 or not, but also it gives freedom to the Dutch to import all 

 sort of Manufactories made of these Growths, which they 

 acquire for half the price the Enghsh can ; whereby the 

 Enghsh have wholly lost the Trade for fitting up ships for 

 this or any other Trade." 



The Enghsh ship, moreover, the writer says, is not of 

 convenient size, a Dutch ship of equal size being manned 

 effectively with half the number of hands. This he ascribes 

 to the fact that the building is confined to Enghshmen, 



'^ The Royal Fishing Revived: Cal. S.P. Dom. Car. II., vol. 281a, 

 No. 244. 



