THE SHETLAND HERRING-FISHERY. 161 



The Shetland herring-fishery must next engage our 

 attention. As originally carried on by the Dutch, it 

 was, for them, an undertaking of truly national import- 

 ance, and yielded annually a revenue of 3,000,000. A 

 trustworthy authority asserts, that while it flourished in 

 their hands they drew from the waters washing the coast 

 of Shetland not less than 200,000,000. In 1633, Cap- 

 tain Smith, who was employed by the English Govern- 

 ment to report on the extent of the Dutch fishery, 

 recorded that it employed as many as 1500 " herring- 

 busses," each of 80 tons burden with 20 armed ships, 

 carrying 30 guns each and a fleet of " dogger-boats" to 

 the number of 400, each 60 tons burden. Indignant and 

 amazed that his countrymen could remain 



" Shamefully passive, while Batavian fleets 

 Defraud us of the glittering finny swarms 

 That heave our friths, and crowd upon our shores," 



he exclaims : " If the king would send out such a fleet 

 of vessels for the fishing-trade, being in our own seas, and 

 on our own grounds, and all strangers were discharged 

 from fishing in those seas, that the subjects of the three 

 kingdoms only may have it, it would make our king rich 

 and glorious, and the three kingdoms happy, not one 

 would want bread, and God would be praised, and the 

 king loved." His advice, however, which would hardly 

 approve itself to political economists, was not followed, 

 and the Dutch continued their fishery. But owing to 

 the great wars in which Holland was afterwards engaged, 

 and the rapid decline of her naval power and commercial 

 pre-eminence, the fishery ceased to be prosecuted with the 

 same vigour. In 1774, the number of Dutch vessels 

 engaged in it was only 200. Then came the wars of 



