THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 323 



and owners ; whence the North Sea has for centuries been 

 the theatre of a bellum omnium contra omnes^ which the 

 legislation of all countries has till now never succeeded in 

 thoroughly restraining. The constant presence of con- 

 voying ships with the busses did not prevent abuses of 

 the above nature ; nor was this end attained by a more 

 stringent measure enacted in most of the placards just 

 named, viz. the skippers' obligation, when home from a 

 voyage, to have three or four men out of their crews 

 examined upon oath by the competent magistrate as to 

 damage done to others or suffered at their hands, or other 

 breach of statute committed. 



Besides police and working rules, taxes were frequently 

 applied to the herring fishery by the Austrian lords of the 

 land. Last-money, which we have seen exacted by a 

 proceeding little short of actual compulsion towards the 

 end of the first half of the sixteenth century, and which 

 was then reluctantly granted, " in the hope of its being for 

 the last time this year,"* became, on the contrary, a 

 perpetual tax, the amount of which was determined 

 annually, and varied accordingly as the Government's 

 wants were greater or lesser, or the occasion for convoying 

 ships more or less pressing. The tax, however, never 

 exceeded two florins (or " pounds of twenty pence *') till 

 the end of the century. To this tax, originally a retribu- 

 tion for convoy, an excise duty on herring was added in 

 I57i,t amounting to twopence on the barrel, to be paid by 

 the last seller. A third tax, the exact nature of which I 

 have not been able to ascertain, is mentioned about 1555 

 by the name of tithe or tenth penny (" tiende penning"} 



* Res. Holland, 1550, p. 172 and following. 

 f Ibid. 1571, p. 512. 



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