MARITIME HISTORY 



In July, 1570,3 general embargo was ordered, and the vice-admiral 

 reported that he had stayed nine ships of 30 tons and upwards, and 435 ship- 

 masters and men ; many others, he said, were abroad. Here, three vessels 

 of Lyme Regis, of which one was of 50 tons, are scheduled, one of 100 tons 

 belonging to Melcombe, and one of 90 tons owned at Poole ; interesting 

 details of the number of seamen and fishermen living in the villages along the 

 coast are also given/" In 1572 Thomas Colshill, surveyor of customs at 

 London, compiled a register of coasting traders belonging to the ports.^^* The 

 Dorset section may be thus arranged : — 



Poole 



Weymouth 



Melcombe 



Charmouth 



Lyme 



Chideock 



From 



20 to 50 



tons 



20 tons 



and 

 under 



+ 



10 



2 



In 1576 a list was prepared of ships of 100 tons and upwards built since 

 1 57 1, in which no Dorset port appears. A year later there was another 

 survey of 100-ton ships, from which we find that Poole possessed two and 

 Weymouth one, just reaching the limit ; they must, therefore, have been 

 older than 1571.'^^ The agents here of Philip II reported, almost with 

 alarm, the rapid increase of shipbuilding in England, and the next return of 

 1582 supports the information they sent to Spain. ^'^ Poole possessed six 

 vessels of 100 tons and upwards, of which one was of 140 tons and another of 

 130 tons, and Weymouth and Melcombe three, of which one was of 150 

 tons. Of between 80 and 100 tons there was one at Poole ; of between 20 

 and 80 tons there were ten at Poole, 15 at Weymouth and Melcombe, and 

 14 at Lyme. Those belonging to other places in the county were of 

 under 20 tons. Of men there were 85 shipmasters and 560 seamen, com- 

 paring with 150 and 1,913, respectively, in Devon. Allowing for the smaller 

 craft omitted in this enumeration, the number for Lyme is in substantial 

 correspondence with a return of 1586, which gives it 23 vessels of all kinds, 

 while 18 masters and 108 men lived in the town, and 80 others dwelling 

 within a radius of four miles were employed in Lyme ships. ^" The last 

 Elizabethan list is for Poole in 1591 ; there were then 21 vessels, of which 

 the largest was of 70 tons, but this is probably only of ships then at home.'^^ 



The recovery of Weymouth and Melcombe, and the continued progress 

 of Poole, were mainly due to their share of the Newfoundland fishery, which 

 for many of the western coast towns was replacing the mediaeval over-sea 

 trade soon to be engrossed by London and other of the great ports. It would 

 be impossible to overrate the national value of this new school for the pro- 

 duction and training of seamen which, with the previously existent North 

 Sea and Iceland fisheries, largely created the marine which overwhelmed Spain 

 in the sixteenth and the Dutch in the seventeenth centuries, thus clearing the 

 way for trans-oceanic expansion. The Newfoundland trade not only employed 



"' S.P. Dom. Eliz. Ixxi, Nos. 56, 56 (i). 



'" Ihid. AJd. xxii. He excluded fishing craft, and, inferentially, vessels engaged in over-sea trade. 

 '" S.P. Dom. Ellz. xcvi, fol. 267. '=« Ibid, clvi, No. 45. 



'" Harl. MSS. 368, fol. 124. "» S.P. Dom. Eliz. cxxxviii,No. 142. 



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