380 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 



in futile representations to Hamburg, to the effect that 

 admitting early herring in the market was tantamount to 

 ruining Hamburg trade. Hamburg traders by their conduct 

 manifested a contrary opinion ; but to such evidence Dutch 

 legislators were blind, being accustomed since long years 

 to consider the trade's regulation as their exclusive business, 

 and their supreme wisdom as the only safe guide for all 

 parties concerned. 



The course of events strikingly belied this policy of self- 

 ' importance and obduracy. While the Dutch Ambassador 

 was memorialising the Government of Hamburg upon his 

 principals' instructions, his colleague of England succeeded 

 in concluding a convention relative to the importation of 

 British herring in Hamburg, which, when a copy of it had 

 after some fruitless efforts been obtained and sent to the 

 Hague, was there judged irreconcilable with the treaty of 

 1609, and gave rise to fresh protests on the Dutch side, 

 and high-toned rejoinders from the Hamburg senate, in 

 the course of the spring of 1719. As a conclusion the 

 States acquiesced in the convention between England and 

 Hamburg, "readily believing the latter city to have had 

 good reason for concluding it," but at the same time 

 instructed their ambassador to strictly supervise the 

 application of the treaty of 1609 to British herring as well 

 as to Dutch. It may be doubted whether this control 

 was exercised with adequate vigilance, or whether it was 

 possible so to exercise it. At any rate for the next ten 

 years the matter seems to have occasioned no further 

 difficulties. 



In 1722, Dutch dealers indeed complained of their 

 herring being re-packed by their Hamburg correspondents, 

 and considered the expediency of transferring their staple 

 importations to Bremen, whereupon the governor of the 



