JAMES I. : DISPUTES WITH THE DUTCH 171 



decreed that the assize - herrings should be paid not only 

 by the native fishermen but by foreigners who came to fish 

 on their coasts. 1 The latter were furthermore prohibited 

 from approaching the coast nearer than they could see the 

 land from the top of their masts, whereas of late they came 

 within ten, eight, six, and even four miles of the shore, which 

 had caused much murmuring in the country, particularly as in 

 that year between 1500 and 1000 of their busses were there in 

 June. Sir Noel Caron, however, continued to protest against 

 what he said was an unjust innovation, and he closed the 

 interview with the important declaration that, be the conse- 

 quences what they might, the States would not allow a single 

 herring to be paid in future, as it might be regarded as a 

 precedent for further demands. 2 



Notwithstanding this strong protest from the Dutch am- 

 bassador, and a request he made to the king to forbear the 

 right he claimed pending the appointment of a special embassy 

 to treat of the matter, Brown was again sent to the North Isles 

 in the next year to collect the king's dues from the herring 

 fishers. This he attempted to do as quietly and inoffensively 

 as possible, but his mission had an abrupt and dramatic ter- 

 mination. Immediately on his arrival among the busses, 

 Captain Andrees Tlieff, the commander of one of the convoying 

 ships from Rotterdam, formally refused the payment in the 

 name of all the Netherland fishermen, handing to Brown a dec- 

 laration to that effect in writing. Brown professed himself 

 satisfied, and was about to leave TliefFs vessel to proceed, as he 

 said, among the fishermen of other countries, when the captain 

 of the conveyer from Enkhuisen, Jan Albertsz by name, who 

 had spoken to Brown in the previous year, came on board. He 

 asked Brown if he was the person who had levied the tax in 



1 By the Scots Act, 1 James I., May 1424, regarding the "custome of horse, 

 nolt, scheepe, had furth of the realm, and of herring," it was ordained that the 

 following should be j>aid : "of ilk thousand of fresche herring sauld, of the Sellar 

 one penny, and of ilk last of herring, tane be Scottis-men barrelled, foure schil- 

 linges, of ilk last be strangeris taken, sexe schillinges. " 



2 Caron to the States-General, ^^f', ^ Sept., ^ Sept. 1616. Brit. Mus. Add. 



MSS., 17,677, J, fol. 152-166. The statement of Lennox that the tax was a 

 barrel of herrings or ten shillings agrees with the statements of the Dutch skippers, 

 who, however, added twelve cod-fish (" Een tonne harinck van elcke buy"sse oft 

 een Angelott daervooren met twelff cabillauwen "). 



