6 THE FISHING INDUSTRY 



Baltic herring fishery, carried on by the Hanseatic 

 League, dominated the markets of Europe. But the 

 new method of curing, exploited by the Dutch, improved 

 the quality and keeping powers of the fish to such an 

 extent that, by the end of the fifteenth century, the 

 Dutch fishing industry was supreme, and had become 

 a powerful and valuable national enterprise. In the 

 sixteenth century, as many as two thousand Dutch 

 herring " busses " (as the boats were called) would 

 gather on St. John's day at Brassa Sound, in the Shet- 

 lands, to begin the summer herring fishery. The fish 

 were caught with drift nets, were salted and packed in 

 barrels, and carried home by the fast-sailing, attendant 

 " y a gg ers -" Ashore they were re-packed in fresh 

 salt in new barrels. Over a million barrels were 

 packed in a year. When caught, the fish would be worth 

 about a million pounds, and when retailed about two 

 million pounds. Contemporary illustrations of the 

 methods of curing and salting then in use reveal the 

 astonishing fact that even to the smallest detail the 

 methods that were employed in Holland in Elizabeth's 

 day are identical with those that are employed at 

 ^Yarmouth to-day. 



\ As a direct result of the great development of their 

 trade in salted herrings, the Dutch gradually gained a 

 naval and maritime supremacy in Europe which they 

 maintained until it was wrested from them by the 

 English.] 



English sea-power in the early years of the sixteenth 

 century was in a decadent condition. The ports and 

 harbours had been neglected, and had become silted up, 

 so that the condition of the shipping industry in general, 

 and of the Navy in particular, had reached a very low 

 ebb. In 1561, Mr. Secretary Cecil, alarmed by the 

 growing menace of the Dutch naval ascendancy, proposed 



