452 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 



of course could never be carried far inland in those days of 

 slow locomotion ; and accordingly, when protective duties 

 against foreign fish were resorted to in the Austrian 

 provinces about 1725, the Dutch " neeringe van den versche" 

 were the principal sufferers. Remonstrances against the 

 Austrian tariffs were tried several times, but found un- 

 availing ; and although under the Republic statistical 

 accounts of the fresh fishery do not appear to have been 

 kept, the gradual closing of the Southern market may be 

 safely assumed to have occasioned its lasting decline in the 

 course of the eighteenth century. The " embargo " of 

 1781 of course contributed to hasten the downward move- 

 ment ; and when the sea was reopened in 1783, only ten 

 bum-boats or " pinken" are stated to have sailed from 

 Scheveningen for fresh fish. The trade's utter insignificance 

 towards the end of the Republic may also be deduced from 

 the fact that, of all the several branches of North Sea 

 fishery, it is the only one which never was encouraged by a 

 bounty. The phenomenon might indeed be accounted for 

 by a very flourishing state of the Fresh trade in the year 

 1788, when premiums were lavishly dispensed to all other 

 fisheries, and all of them were in a prostrate condition. 

 But if the " verschvaart " had made such a favourable 

 exception, there is not a doubt but the fact would have 

 been mentioned on all hands ; whereas the history of this 

 trade is simply a blank at the period when sea-fisheries in 

 general were distinguished by an ardent competition for 

 bounties. Fresh fishery from the " side " might even be 

 believed to have come to a complete stand-still at the close of 

 the republican period, if some mention of it were not made a 

 few years later, as will be shown in another part of this work. 



The fisheries of the Zuider Zee have, as has been said 



