THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 389 



export duty on Dutch herring, which duty then amounted 

 to fl.2-io (i.e. two florins and a half) per last on St. James' 

 brand-herring, and to fl.4 on the Cologne (also called 

 St. Bartholomew's or Elevation Brand) and the great Rouen 

 brand.* Both exemptions were granted to last three 

 years, and were renewed every three years till the end of 

 the Republic. At the same time the placards against 

 exporting herring barrels and gear and taking service on 

 board foreign fishing-vessels were once more renewed,f 

 and this furbishing up of old and worn armour was believed 

 to be sufficient precaution against the now stimulated 

 concurrency of English fishermen. The trade fared ill in 

 1750, notwithstanding its new privileges. A paragraph by 

 a contemporaneous writer states the condition of the 

 Grand Fishery to have been such, that " most busses sailed 

 money overboard, some returned neither gain nor loss,t 

 and a very few brought a small clear profit." As for the 

 number of herring-ships sailed, it will be found in Ap- 

 pendix A to this work, for this and the following years, and 

 will show the quondam Grand Fishery's now reduced and 

 still further declining condition. The table is taken from 

 the Committee's Report of 1854, who compiled it from the 

 contemporary yearly statistics to be found in the "Ned. 

 Jaarboeken." The figures are certainly exact, or very 

 nearly so, and are the first regular herring statistics ever 

 compiled in the country. 



Further encouragement was obtained by the salt-herring 

 fishery in 1758, when France, as a reward for the fidelity 



* Groot Placaetboek, vii. p. 1592. A supplementary exemption from 

 a peculiar duty on salt, known as " round-measure duty," was granted 

 for herring-ships in 1754 (Gr. PL Boek, viii. p. 1077-1080). 



f Groot Placaetboek, vii. pp. 1 593-4. 



\ "Speelden Kamp? see Ned. Jaarboeken, 1750, p. 723. 



