THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 393 



England persevered in encouraging hers by considerable 

 bounties. Prussia, besides making free with competitors 

 in the summary way described above, in 1775 prohibited 

 Dutch herring to be imported in July, August, and 

 September of each year.* The trade in Holland and 

 Zealand, as the often-quoted writer in "den Koopman" 

 picturesquely states, f had, " despite all unceasing offerings 

 up of sighing prayers and zealous heaven-solicitations, 

 aye, notwithstanding all public supplications in the 

 Reformed Churches of these countries by so many up- 

 lifted hands and hearts, come to diminish from year to 

 year, a matter of wonder as regards the one, and of sorrow 

 with respect to the other." Besides leaving the trade at 

 liberty and repealing the herring statutes, which measure 

 was never thought of by an enlightened and paternal 

 government, there was but one remedy as yet untried, 

 viz., direct bounties to fishermen out of the tax-payers' 

 pockets, besides the fiscal immunities they were already 

 possessed of. This last resource of all protective legisla- 

 tion, which as shown above had been adopted in Zealand 

 before, was accordingly sued for in Holland, in May 1775, 

 by " those interested in the herring fishery at Delfthaven, 

 Rotterdam, Schiedam, Vlaardingen, Maassluis, and in the 

 north quarter at Enkhuizen de Rijp and Noordend, being 

 the whole of those concerned in the trade in Holland and 

 West Vriesland." { No less a premium than fl. 600 for 



* Res. Holl. 1775, p. 445 ; 1777, p. 326 ; Res. St. Gen. 1775, p. 277. 



t " Den Koopman? i. p. 235. 



% It is to be noted that, according to this enumeration, the herring 

 trade had before this been entirely abandoned at Hoorn and Brielle, 

 where it was formerly exercised to some extent. The towns named in 

 the text petitioned as severally concerned in the common interest, and 

 not as members of the College, in which several of them were not 

 incorporated. 



