A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



so. 43 In 1606 the men of Rye complained of 

 the French boats for fishing at unlawful seasons 

 and with illegal nets, and in December, 1607, 

 Sir Thomas Waller wrote to the mayor and 

 jurats to warn them that fishermen of Tre'port 

 and Dieppe intended to fish again in spite of pro- 

 hibition. 43 He added that if the men of Rye 

 would protect their own fishery they might take 

 half the boats, nets, and fines of those captured, 

 but they replied that they were not strong 

 enough, there only being sixteen boats which 

 would go out that winter ; they therefore desired 

 that a pinnace might be sent to assist them, which 

 was the more necessary as the French were 

 already taking twenty horse-loads of soles and 

 plaice daily into Dieppe. 44 Whatever right the 

 French boats may or may not have had, they 

 clearly had might on their side, for they fished 



in great barkes, and our men fysshynge by them in 

 small boats, they may (as heretofore they have done) 

 spoyle their nettes by ronninge over them, and so 

 utterlye overthrow their fysshinge for that Vermouth 

 season and leikwise for the Scarborow voyage. 4 * 



One of the chief points of dispute was the use of 

 the fishing ground called the Sowe ; this was 

 admitted to be English, but the French evaded 

 the point by calling it by other names, so that in 

 1609 the Rye fishermen were ordered to take 

 careful soundings and obtain the exact bearings 

 of the Sowe, 46 while next year an armed ship 

 was fitted out to prevent the French fishing this 

 ground. 47 A certain number of licences were at 

 this time granted every year to French boats 

 working for persons of political importance; thus 

 in 1616 nine licences were granted for servants 

 of the French king, three for the Duchess of 

 Guise, and one for the late French ambassador. 48 

 These licences, however, were often abused, as 

 when a boat had been filled with fish it would 

 sell its licence to another. 49 Moreover the 

 foreigners used nets of unlawful scale, and in 

 1622 a number of vessels were seized and their 

 crews fined for unlicensed and illegal fishing. 60 



Besides this unfair competition the Sussex 

 fishermen had from time to time to reckon with 

 the actual enmity of armed privateers. In 1626 

 the fishermen of Brighton petitioned for assistance, 

 stating that they used to have from twenty-eight 

 to thirty barks every year going to the North Seas, 

 but owing to danger from the Dunkirkers they 

 had now only eight." Another undated petition, 

 probably some years earlier, put the number of 

 fishing boats formerly employed at fifty-five, but 



a L. and P. Hen. mi, xviii (2), 259. 



43 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 136. 



"Ibid. 137. "Ibid. 139. 



46 Ibid. 143. 



" Cal. S.P. Dora. 1603-10, p. 620. 



48 Ibid. 1611-18, p. 409. 



"Ibid. "Ibid. 1619-33, p. 352. 



61 S.P. Dom. Chas. I, vol. 32, No. 90. 



this had fallen for the same reason to thirty-five 

 boats with 400 men. 62 A third petition of the 

 Brighton men put the yearly profits of their 

 fishing at from 7,000 to 8,000, but stated 

 that for the last three or four years they had been 

 kept from their trade by the French and Dun- 

 kirkers to their loss of 30,000, fourteen of their 

 ships having been captured, so that they begged 

 for ships of war to defend them ; 63 this may have 

 been either about 1665 or twenty years earlier. 

 The latter date was certainly a period of peril, as 

 in August, 1644, the mayor and jurats of Rye 

 petitioned Parliament for convoys to protect their 

 fishing fleet to Yarmouth, as they had already 

 lost one profitable voyage to the North Seas for 

 fear of the king's men-of-war, 64 while in October of 

 the following year they begged Colonel Morley to 

 procure a frigate, as two men-of-war were lying 

 in the bay, and had already taken several boats, so 

 that the whole Yarmouth fleet was in danger. 65 



All these causes combined to depress the 

 industry, and in 1619 the mayor of Rye men- 

 tioned that the fishing boats of the town had 

 fallen from forty to sixteen or eighteen, 66 while 

 about the same time it was stated, with some 

 exaggeration, that 'thousands' of the Rye fisher- 

 men had been reduced to beggary and starvation.' 7 

 The Yarmouth fleet of Rye in 1630 consisted of 

 ten boats with ten men and two boys in each, 

 but in 1641 Hastings sent to Yarmouth as many as 

 thirty-three boats, ranging from twenty-two to 

 thirty tons, with 363 men and 76 boys. 



During the eighteenth century the Sussex 

 fisheries, so far as one can judge, were moder- 

 ately flourishing, but the fishermen were probably 

 more prosperous than they deserved to be, for a 

 very large proportion of them combined smug- 

 gling with their legitimate trade. The centre of 

 the latter at this time appears to have been 

 Brighton, where the mackerel fishery in particular 

 brought in large sums of money. During an 

 especially good season in the spring of I79 1 one 

 boat alone in four successive nights took mackerel 

 to the value of ii5 68 and, though this was an 

 exceptional catch, the total yield for the season 

 was calculated to be about io,OOO. 69 The 

 quality of the fish was as remarkable as its 

 quantity : 



The peculiar delicacy of mackerel caught on the 

 Sussex coast is such as to command in London from 

 1 8i/. to 2f. each, when those brought by water from 

 the westward are hawked about the streets at 3</. 

 and 4^. eo 



Coming down to modern times one may notice 



a Horsfield, Hist. of. Suss, i, 1 26. 



B Ibid. 



64 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 215. 



"Ibid. * Ibid. 136. 



67 Holloway, Hist, of Rye, 338. 



58 Suss. Weekly Advertiser, 2 May, 1791. 



58 Ibid. 30 May,' 1 79 1. 



60 Ibid. 2 1 April, 1 794. 



268 



