1 8 A. D. 1499. 



Wherefor, on account of the great advantage which thereby might be 

 had, and to caufe idle men and vagabonds to labour for their livings, 

 for the common profit and univerfai welfare of the realm, the Parlia- 

 ment appointed, that filhing fliips and buffes, of twenty tons burden oj- 

 upwards, fhould be made in all [fea-port] towns of the realm, m pro- 

 portion to their ability. 



Such regulations brought their fifliery, and confequently their naval 

 llrength, as well as feveral other improvements, to a confiderable height ; 

 but their fubfequent ill-judged laws of reftraint and prohibition threw 

 all things retrograde. For, by the 98th ad: of the feventh Parliament 

 of king James V, 1540, they enabled, that none fliould fend any white 

 fifh bevond fea ; but that ftrangers be permitted to come and buy them 

 of merchants and freemen of burghs with ready gold and lilver or mer- 

 chandize. And the 60th ad of the 4th Parliament of king James VI, 

 enjoins all fifliers of herring, or other white fifh, to bring their fiih to free 

 ports, there to be fold, firfl: in common to all fubjeds, and afterward the 

 remainder to freemen; that the king's own fubjeds may be firfl ferved ; 

 and that if abundance remain, they may be faked and exported by free 

 burgeffes, under forfeiture of fjiip and goods. How much wifer would 

 thole law-makers have been, had. they permitted the fifh to be imme- 

 diately exported by any perfons whatever, as it leems had formerly been 

 pradiied, and without any particular regard either to free ports or free- 

 men ? Thus the Scots now entirely loll to the Netherlanders their former 

 exportation of fifh, which imprudence was firfl begun by the reflrain- 

 ing by-laws of what they call their royal burghs about 70 years before, 

 which they now at length got confirmed by Parliament. 



I-Cing Henry VII now concluded a new commercial treaty or inter- 

 courfe with the archduke Philip, fovereign of the Netherlands ; in 

 fubftance as follows, viz. 



I. That, for twelve years to come, a duty of only half a merk (inflead 

 of one merk as hitherto) fhall be paid by the Netherlanders, on every 

 lack of wool fold to them at the flaple at Cakis ; unlefs it fliall at any 

 time happen that there may be a great mortality amongfl the flieep in 

 England (of which certificates, properly vouched upon oath from Eng- 

 land, fliall be produced), in which cafe the whole duty of a merk fliall 

 be taken. 



II. On the other fide, the archduke remits, in favour of the Englifli 

 merchants, the one florin per Englifli woollen cloth imported into the 

 Netherlands. 



III. The Englifli fhall not, as formerly, be obliged to bring all their 

 woollen cloth to the flaple of Antwerp or Bruges, and no where elfe, 

 there to be fealed before removed ; but they fhall now be at full liberty 

 to carry their cloth, and to fell it in every part of the archduke's do- 

 minions, Flanders alone excepted. 



