THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES, 341 



about this period is testified to by many more credentials. 

 In 1581, the States thought it worth their while to des- 

 patch an embassy to Bremen,* in order to obtain the 

 removal of certain edicts there issued, prejudicial to the 

 Dutch herring trade's interest ; and let it be remembered 

 that the Provinces were at this very time occupied by so 

 very momentous a plan as the abjuration of their Sove- 

 reign the King of Spain, and their constitution as a free 

 republic in the face of the world. It is likewise a fact 

 not to be overlooked that at this most critical juncture of 

 their history, while weighed down on all sides by cares 

 innumerable of war, finance, and politics, the Province of 

 Holland never once let her herring-fishermen lack convoy, 

 when imminent danger from the enemy at sea did not 

 force them to prohibit the fishery altogether. 



The fishers fully responded to their government's care 

 and energy ; for though many of their busses were taken 

 year by year, either by the enemy's cruisers or by Dunkirk 

 privateers, they never lost heart, but still continued the 

 trade, under protection generally insufficient, and in the 

 face of the enormous financial liabilities laid upon them 

 by their disasters, and borne by them in common, under 

 their self-appointed commissioners' administration. The 

 name of Grand Fishery, f which in 1580 and afterwards was 

 generally applied to the cured-herring concern to indicate 

 its being " the chief industry of the country and principal 

 gold-mine to its inhabitants," is indeed justified at the period 

 now spoken of, by the splendid pluck and untiring tenacity 

 displayed by the men who exercised it, under circumstances 

 which reduced to insignificance many industries less directly 

 exposed to the war's calamities than theirs. 



* Res. Holland 1581, pp. 579, 732, 766 ; 1582, pp. 240-1. 

 t " Groote Visscherye." 



