FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 191 



The first Act of this kind was passed in Elizabeth's Outrages on 



fishermen 



reign (13 Eliz. c. n), and might very well be taken, but for at sea. 

 its quaint language, for a measure introduced in the present 

 year of grace to deal with certain outrages alleged, appa- 

 rently with too much reason, to have been committed by a 

 certain class of foreign marauders in the North Sea. " For 

 the avoiding of lewd outrages committed and done upon 

 the sea coast of Norfolk and Suffolk by the catchers, 

 mongers, and picards, pretending to buy fresh herrings, 

 and which do cut in sunder divers pieces of fishermen's nets 

 travelling the high seas to take fresh herring, to the utter 

 undoing of the said poor fishermen," this Act provides that 

 " no boats in the time of common fishing, from September 

 1 4th to November I4th, from sunset to sunrise, shall 

 anchor upon the main sea or close to where the fishermen 

 use to drive." 



The regulation requiring all fishing boats to bear a dis- The duties of 

 tinctive mark, specifying the port to which they belong, 

 and their own individual number, was framed for, among 

 other things, facilitating the prosecution of offenders of this 

 class, as well as for the better ordering of the traffic on the 

 high seas generally. But a local enactment, enforcible 

 only in one country and against the subjects of one State 

 becomes little less than useless among a vast congregation 

 of fishing boats to say nothing of an incessant stream of 

 merchant ships gathering, often in a comparatively limited 

 area, from half-a-dozen different nations. It is greatly to 

 the credit of the fishing community generally that com- 

 plaints of the kind heard in Elizabeth's time have been so 

 rare. The general peace has, however, been broken in 

 recent years by a few ill-disposed persons who failed to see 

 that considerations of their own safety, as well as of that 

 of others, demanded mutual forbearance and good-will. 



