162 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



as to the cost and equipment of herring - busses, 1 but little 

 was accomplished. The net result in 1614 was that one 

 Richard Godsdue, Esquire, of Bucknam Ferry, in Norfolk, 

 had five busses on the stocks at Yarmouth, and Sir William 

 Harvey had built a large one at Limehouse. But all the 

 efforts made in the reign of James, and indeed throughout 

 the whole century, to form a great national fishery on the 

 model of the Dutch completely failed. It required nearly 

 two centuries of experience, and the squandering of vast 

 sums of money, to teach the people that a great industry 

 could not be suddenly created in this way by servile imita- 

 tion of a system not suited to the natural circumstances of 

 the case. It was chiefly by the gradual evolution of the 

 Scottish herring - boat, and not by the building of busses, 

 that the herring industry was wrested from the Dutch. 



James was doubtless privy to the queen's petition before 

 it was officially considered, 2 and he appears not to have been 

 satisfied with the decision of the Council. At all events, 

 the question of the fisheries was still kept alive. . In the 

 spring of 1614 we find Wotton writing from The Hague 

 to Secretary Win wood, saying that he still had his Majesty's 

 commission regarding the fishings, and that it was, as Win- 

 wood said, "a tender and dainty piece," adding that though 

 he had seen Mr Barnevelt on several occasions he had not 

 mentioned the matter to him, and was waiting for a suitable 

 time to speak of this " dainty and delicate business." 3 Later 

 in the year, the Keeper of the State Papers was requested 

 by the Lord Chancellor and the Archbishop of Canterbury 

 to search the records in his custody relating to the king's 

 jurisdiction on the sea and his right to the fishing. " Whereas," 

 they said, "there is occasion for his Majesty's special service 

 to look out such precedents and records as concern his Majesty's 

 power, right, and sovereign jurisdiction of the seas and fishing 

 upon the coast; and that we are informed there are many 



1 Gentleman, Englands Way to Win Wealth, &c. ; E. S. , Britaines Buss ; The 

 Trades Increase. 



2 In 1609 Sir Nicholas Hales told the king that he had been informed " the 

 Hollanders were petitioners to the Queen to grant them a term of years in the 

 seas for the fishing of herring, cod, and ling." State Papers, Dom., xlv. 23. 



3 Wotton to Sec. Winwood, Hague, 20th March 1614. 



