OF ALL COUNTRIES. 499 



advantage of our coasts, adding significantly that twenty 

 busses of herrings were sufficient for the maintenance of 

 8000 souls, including women and children. M. d'Aitzana, 

 President of the Hanse Towns at the Hague and his- 

 toriographer of the United Provinces, as well as the 

 learned Du Moulin, testify to the Hollanders having 

 drawn 300,000 tons of herrings and other fish for salting 

 annually from the sea in these parts ; and to the tripling of 

 the returns between the accessions of James I. and that of 

 Charles II. Under the latter monarch, Dr. Worsley, whose 

 position may best be described as that of Secretary of 

 State for the Department of Trade and Plantations, was 

 sent to Holland to enquire into all matters connected with 

 the question ; and on his return reported to the King that 

 the Dutch herring fishery, at the lowest computation, 

 yielded an annual revenue of three millions sterling. In 

 support of this estimate he adduced the number of busses 

 employed, the quantity taken by each, the Custom House 

 accounts of Holland, Zealand, and Friesland, and the prices 

 of each export market ; and he affirmed that the value of 

 the herrings and cod yearly taken by the Dutch greatly 

 exceeded the produce of the manufactures either of France 

 or of England, and more than equalled the sum then drawn 

 by Spain from her rich colonies in America. 



Herrings, in truth, were as profitable to the whole people 

 of Holland as the great goddess Diana to the silversmiths 

 of Ephesus. Portugal and Spain furnished them in return 

 for this prolific export with wine, oil, honey, wool, lemons, 

 and golden ingots, then familiar to the Spanish Empire. 

 Salt, too, was procured in the same way, itself no incon- 

 siderable item in the expenses of curing. From the 

 Mediterranean came in exchange for the same commodity, 



raisins, oil, silk, velvet, satin, and all that brave apparel 



2 K 2 



