464 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 



Hitchcock to be the chief obstacle to his plan, but he did 

 not consider it insurmountable, the fishing area being 

 situated "within the Queene's Majesties Seas " and much 

 closer to the British than the Dutch coast, thereby putting 

 the Dutch at a considerable disadvantage on the markets 

 of England and Scotland. Sir Thomas Overbury's 

 'Observations in his Travels' (written 1609, printed 1626) 

 likewise contain a warning against the Dutch, and 

 represent them as being England's natural rivals on the 

 sea. 



Still, under Queen Elizabeth's reign Dutch fishermen 

 were not molested. Measures tending to alienate so 

 desirable an ally against Spain were inconsistent with the 

 politics of this far-sighted monarch. Things took a very 

 different turn soon after James the First's advent to the 

 throne. Besides considering himself personally affronted 

 by Grotius' treatise on Mare Liberum, the contents of 

 which agreed very ill with the King's passion for his 

 prerogative, His Majesty felt sorely aggrieved, and by no 

 means without reason, by the manner in which the Dutch 

 exercised and overstepped their fishing rights ; not only 

 ousting the* English from the trade by lawful competition 

 in overwhelming numbers, but occasionally offering them 

 such violence as has for centuries been usual with such of 

 the rival fishermen as chanced to be the stronger in a 

 collision.* Fishery and piracy were then, as indeed they 

 have been since, concerns closely connected together on all 

 hands. English subjects were loud in complaining, and the 

 result was the king's " Proclamation touching Fishing " 

 (May 1 6th, 1609) by which in consideration of the injury 

 done to English by foreign fishermen, and in virtue of the 

 Royal prerogative, foreigners were prohibited from fishing on 

 * For instances of this see Milller^ p. 47. 



