JAMES I. I DISPUTES WITH THE DUTCH 203 



on Government support, and a plan was propounded similar to 

 the old one of Hitchcock and Dee in the reign of Elizabeth, but 

 to be carried out under an Act of Parliament. Each city, 

 county, and seaport town was to be encouraged to equip 

 fishing-busses at their common charge and for their common 

 benefit, with power to employ their idle inhabitants in man- 

 ning them. For the security of the h'shing fleet the king was 

 to provide twenty ships of war, five of which were to belong 

 to the royal navy, and they were to continue at sea from the 

 beginning of April till the end of September. To meet the 

 cost of this guard the king was to receive the tenth fish taken 

 both by English and foreign fishermen, the promoters think- 

 ing that the latter would be quite willing to be taxed when 

 the tax was demanded by an " Act of the King and King- 

 dom," and when they knew they would be protected by a 

 squadron of men - of - war. 1 It was a pretty scheme, well- 

 intentioned, but innocent of information as to the actual state 

 of affairs. 



Scarcely anything more was heard about the herring fishery 

 or the taxation of Dutch fishermen during the brief remainder 



o 



of James's reign. Another embassy came from the Netherlands 

 in 1624, but it was to conclude a defensive alliance against 

 Spain, and in the shadow of this new alliance the Dutch fisher- 

 men quietly reaped the harvest of the sea without fear of 

 English interference. James's policy of the assize - herring 

 had thus completely failed. All his efforts to induce or to 

 force the Netherlands' fishermen to acknowledge his right 

 were baffled by the superior diplomacy of the States, their 

 " artificial delays, pretences, shifts, dilatory addresses, and 

 evasive answers." The only immediately practical result of 

 the king's policy was that the herring-buases kept for a time 

 farther from the coast of Scotland. But a new weapon had 

 been forged for the contest with the United Provinces for 

 supremacy at sea, and one which was to be used by his 

 successors with much more skill, if with little greater ultimate 

 success. 



1 A Project for the Encouragement of Fishing by passing an Act of Parliament 

 for Building fishing-vessels, to be protected by a Fleet Royall of 20 ships, the 

 expense to be defrayed by a Tribute of every Tenth Fish. Ibid., clvii. 46. 



