THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 387 



succour from the public poor-houses.* But no laws, however 

 severe, could withhold the vital elements of the Dutch fishery 

 from taking refuge abroad in their present state of decline, 

 as is shown by an extensive correspondence carried on in 

 1727 and 1728 about a Dutch vessel arrested for smug- 

 gling nets, &c., to Nieuwpoortf The Nieuwpoort business 

 does not appear to have been prosperous, but Dutch com- 

 petition certainly was no party to the scantiness of its success ; 

 for, in 1736, its further encouragement was considered by 

 the Belgian authorities, mainly upon the plea that Dutch 

 herring was not imported into the Austrian Netherlands 

 in sufficient quantities to supply the fast-day requirements 

 of the Catholic population.! And this, again, is not a matter 

 of wonder, for the Grand Fishery was by this time reduced to 

 about one-tenth of what it was a century earlier. In a 

 Paper contributed to the often-mentioned periodical " den 

 Koopman," in I768, it is stated that only 219 herring- 

 ships and 31 sale-hunters sailed in 1736. This precise 

 statement, being the first instance of herring statistics 

 during the trade's decline, is sufficient proof of what it had 

 been brought to in the course of a century, by frequent 

 naval wars, and by its inability to compete with foreigners 

 at a time when peace allowed the fishing interests to be 

 actively pursued abroad. 



The renewed war with France in 1743 does not appear 

 to have greatly affected the Dutch herring fishery. Be- 

 yond a renewal of the subsidy of fl. 30,000 formerly granted 

 for convoying purposes, || and which had not been sued for 



* See Res. Holl. 1727, pp. 844,994, 1012, 1042. 



t Ibid. 1727, pp. 1029, 1031 ; 1728, pp. 53, 281, 325. 



\ Ibid. 1736, p. 666. 



" Den Koopman? vol. i. p. 236. 



|| Res. Holl. 1744, pp. 380, 391. 



2 C 2 



