OF ALL COUNTRIES. 495 



when the number of vessels sent from Holland had risen 

 to 1 80, and those of Bremen and Hamburg to 52 and 24 

 respectively, the British trade had left little behind it 

 except incessant and well-merited lamentations on the part 

 of the British public. 



Very shortly after the Restoration we find these same 

 industries occupying the anxious attention of Court and 

 Ministry. Before Charles II. had been seated two years 

 upon the throne of his father, Lord Sandwich took advantage 

 of a great assembly of naval officers at Jermyn Hall gathered 

 at the funeral of Sir R. Stayner, to announce that the King 

 had determined to give 200 to every man who would 

 undertake the equipment of a new-made English buss, or 

 fishing smack, by the middle of the following June. Two 

 years afterwards a Royal Fishery Company was formed, one 

 of its governors being Mr. Pepys, secretary to the Admi- 

 ralty, to whom we are indebted for many a glimpse into the 

 political and social life of that period, and whom we most 

 unjustly and ungratefully call a gossip in return. That Mr. 

 Pepys was no mere trifler but a very good man of business, 

 is shown not merely by such a suggestion as that the Com- 

 mittee should refrain from limiting the number of bankers' 

 assignments to the various ports until they had some idea 

 as to the number of persons desirous of responding to the 

 invitation, but by several of his observations in regard to 

 this matter. It seems that a proposal had been made to 

 raise money for the undertaking by the coining of farthings, 

 and to this measure he readily gave his consent ; but he is 

 much displeased with another suggestion that lotteries 

 should be established for the same purpose. "I was 

 ashamed to see it," he writes indignantly, " that a thing so 

 low and base should have anything to do with so noble an 

 undertaking." His quaint accounts are, as usual, so full of 



