UNDER THE STUARTS: JAMES I. I A NEW POLICY 125 



Dutch. But early in the seventeenth century this motive 

 had lost its force. James had promptly concluded peace 

 with Spain, and even spoke of the Dutch as rebels. 1 Thus, 

 during his reign arose that bitter rivalry and keen emulation 

 of the Dutch which continued throughout nearly the whole 

 century, and of which the English claim to the sovereignty of 

 the sea may be looked upon as an important phase. It was 

 against the United Provinces that the claim was directed, and 

 as the Dutch themselves openly boasted that the sea fisheries 

 were the foundation of their shipping, wealth, and power, it 

 was to the sea fisheries that England first turned in her efforts 

 to cripple them. 



Those fisheries had greatly increased towards the end of the 

 sixteenth and in the early part of the seventeenth century. An 

 official account of the fisheries of Holland, Zealand, and 

 Flanders in 1562 estimated the number of busses and fishing- 

 boats at 700, of which Holland had 400, most of them being 

 " great " busses of about 46 lasts burden. 2 Guiccardini, who 

 visited the Low Countries about the same time, placed the fleet 

 of busses at 700, each of which made three voyages, bringing 

 back on an average 70 lasts of herrings, or a total of 588,000 

 barrels, valued at 441,000 sterling. 3 Another author of the 

 period gave a list of towns whose prosperity and even existence 

 depended upon the fishery ; 4 and a little later Hitchcock, and, 

 following him, Dee, stated that 400 or 500 busses came every 

 year from the Low Countries to fish for herrings on the east 

 coast of this country. 5 Those figures referred to the fisheries 

 of the Netherlands as a whole, including Flanders, but during 

 the war of independence, after the United Provinces threw 

 off' the yoke of Spain and secured command of the sea, the 

 Flemish fisheries withered away. At Dunkirk, for example, 



1 Gardiner, Hist. England, i. 103. 



2 Declaratie van de visscherijen in Holland Zeeland en Vlaanderen. Fruin, 

 Tien Jaren uit den Tachtigjariyen Oorlog, 1588-1598, p. 186. 



3 Descrittione Di M. Lodovico Gvicciardini Patritio Florentino, Di Tvtti i Paesi 

 Basyi, Altrimenti Detti Germania Inferiore, Antwerp, 1567, p. 21. The value of 

 the cod caught was placed at 150,000 sterling per annum. 



4 Hadrianus Juniua, Bataria, p. 203. The work was written between 1565 and 

 1569, and published in 1588. 



5 Hitchcock, A Pollitique Platt. The author says that when he was at the wars 

 in 1553, more than 400 busses were set forth from twelve towns in the Low 

 Countries. Dee, General and Rare Memorials. 



