DOMINIUM MARIS 69 



The Dunkirk privateers meanwhile continued to prey 

 upon English and Dutch alike. In September, 1634, the 

 buss Salisbury was captured by the Dunkirkers off New- 

 castle, the fishermen being taken prisoners, stripped of their 

 clothes and given some " contemptible rags " in exchange. 

 A prize crew was put aboard the Salisbury to take her to 

 Dunkirk. On the voyage thither the ship was recaptured 

 by a vessel from Flushing, 1 the crew of which demanded 

 two-thirds of the value of the vessel for having thus saved 

 it. Only after considerable difficulty and delay, and not 

 till direct representations on the matter had been made 

 to the king of Spain, was the vessel finally returned to 

 its owners. 2 It is some index to the extent of the depre- 

 dations of these Dunkirkers to observe that in the balance 

 sheet of the Association for the Fishing, issued on June 20th, 

 1635, the damage received at the hands of Dunkirk priva- 

 teers is estimated at 2,000. 3 



But although the Dunkirkers were a source of annoyance 

 to all shipping in the North Sea that could not be over- 

 looked, it was still the magnitude of the Dutch fishing fleet 

 and the wealth derived by the Hollanders from their deep 

 sea fisheries that Charles felt to be a lasting reproach to 

 Britain. All that he heard concerning the Dutchmen served 

 but to establish him the more in his determination to develop 

 British fisheries in spite of apathy at home and opposition 

 abroad. In answer to enquiries concerning the extent 

 of the operations of the Dutch in the North Sea, he had 

 been informed by Sir Nicholas Halse that he had ascertained 

 the yearly profit of the Hollanders from the fishings on the 

 British coasts to be six million pounds. 4 This, indeed, was 

 a somewhat lower estimate than that of Sir John Burroughs, 

 who, in his Soveraignty of the British Seas, written in 

 1633, had fixed the amount at ten million pounds, and 



1 Cal. S.P. Dom. Car. I., vol. 303, No. 75. 2 Ibid. vol. 312, No. 88. 



3 Ibid. vol. 291, No. 25. 4 Ibid. vol. 279, No. 67. 



