282 A. D. 1615. 



This author finally urges the extenfion of our filheries by motives 

 drawn from the prodigious profits of the Dutch from their fifhery, in 

 which there have been numbered in fight 2000 fail of bufles, employ- 

 ing 37,000 fifliermen, going out to fea at once. 



The great Henry IV had ereded an Eail-India company in France 

 in the year 1604; and his fon Louis Xl il gave them a new charter : 

 but they remained inadive till this year, when their fhips took pofi^ef- 

 fion of the great ifland of Madagafcar, which not anfwering their ex- 

 pedations, the company and trade were wholely dro])t. 



This year, Dr. William Vaughan, calling himfelf a fervant of King 

 James, attempted a fettlement on Newfoundland, at the expenfe of his 

 own fortune. He carried thither a number of his countrymen of Wales, 

 and gave his plantation the name of Cambriol, being in the louth part of 

 that ifland. His fcheme was for the fiihery on the banks of Newfound- 

 land to go hand in hand with his plantation. In a book publiflied by 

 him, intitled, the Golden fleece, [4to, 1626] he tells us alio, that the 

 Lord Falkland and Sir George Calvert, afterwards created Lord Balti- 

 more, made a fettlement on the north tnd of that ifland at a great ex- 

 penfe in the years 1621 and 1622 : yet, as we have elfewhere obferved, 

 no permanent plantation has ever been made on that cold and barren 

 ifland to this day. In the lame year, Sir Henry Maynard, with five fi:ouC 

 fliips, was. fent thither for protecfting the fifliery, which was fo confider- 

 able that there were 170 Englifli fl\ips there together. According to 

 the acute author of the Trade's increale, publilhed in this year, our 

 trade to Spain and Portugal was very low at this time, fcarcely employ- 

 ing 500 feamen ; owing, he thinks, to our long wars with that crown 

 in Queen Elizabeth's days. 



The Rulfia company now fent out two fliips and two pinnaces to 

 Spitzbergen, fl;i]l, by our voyagers, called Greenland, and the Dutch 

 fent thither eleven, and alfo three fliips of war to proted them. At the 

 fame time, the court of Denmark fent three fliips of war thither, being 

 the firft Danifli fliips feen there ; yet they alio pretended to demand toll 

 of the Englllh fliips, but the Fnglifli refufed it, alleging that Greenland 

 (i. e. Spitzbergen) belonged folely to tise king of England. This hu- 

 mour of an exclufive claim to that remote, dangerous, and vaftly ex- 

 tended fea, where there was no land territory that was habitable, and 

 which therefor could not eafily be fupported, held on through all King 

 James's reign, and was at leafl: as unreafonable as even the Portugu fe 

 exclufive claims fouthward ; in fuch inflances, vainly copied by our own 

 and other nations, at the fame time that we condemn both Spain and 

 Portugal for doing the like ! So blind are mofl: men whilfl their own 

 immediate intereft is in queftion ! 



161 6 By the dexterity of Penfionary Barnevelt, the Dutch ambaf- 



fador extraordinary in England, and of Caroon their ambaflador in or- 



