158 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH 



" hostelers," are " so much grieved and delayed in the 

 gathering of their money, that they should demand of so 

 many persons, that they lose their mart (tide) and the 

 advantage of their calling " ; and that the enactment that 

 all fish should be sold between sunrise and sunset was " to 

 the great loss of fishers and appairing of the herring and 

 damage of the people that shall buy the same ; for the fish- 

 ing is more by night than by day, and often it chanceth that 

 the fishers be so long and so charged that they come to the 

 town after sun going down, or little before, so that they 

 cannot sell their herring in the time for the sale limited, so 

 that they must abide all the night and the day after upon 

 the sale of their herring, and so lose many marts (tides) 

 and the profits of their fishing." Parliament, perceiving 

 The law all these " mischiefs and grievances," repealed the pro- 

 visions of the Act which had led to them, and, while still 

 insisting that herrings should be sold "openly and not 

 privily," ordained that the price should be agreed upon 

 between buyer and seller, providing, however, that "no 

 man enter in bargain upon buying of the same till he that 

 first cometh to bargain shall have an end of his bargain 

 agreeable to the seller, and that none increase upon other 

 during the first bargain upon pain of forfeiture to us the 

 double of his proffer." 



Thus Parliament in its well-meant, but ill-judged, efforts 

 to stand between buyer and seller, between producer and 

 consumer, over-reached itself, and we do not hear much 

 more of the machinations of " forestallers " and their like till 

 the reign of Henry VI II., when the buying of fish for re- 

 sale at Sturbridge, St. Ives, and Ely was forbidden. This 

 law, however, lasted only ten years. An Act of Edward 

 VI. (5 & 6 Edw. VI. c. 14) gave fresh sanction to the old 

 laws against " forestallers," and defined and prohibited 



