THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS 439 



out and hindered in their usual fishing. The Dutch busses 

 occupied a space of more than forty miles adjacent to the 

 coast, and the English fishermen were afraid to use their nets 

 lest they lost them. When they remonstrated with the 

 foreigners for coming so near the shore, they were vilified, and 

 muskets and " great guns " were shot at them. 1 By the direc- 

 tion of Cromwell and the Council, the complaints were trans- 

 mitted to the ambassadors, who were still in London, and they 

 requested the States -General and the commanders of the ships 

 guarding the busses to make every effort to avoid giving 

 cause for complaint. In the inquiry which followed, the 

 Dutch fishermen denied the charges against them, and in 

 turn accused some of the Englishmen of shooting at them, 

 cutting their ropes, and calling them dogs, rogues, and devils. 

 They stated that they had carried on the fishing in the old 

 accustomed way, the English usually fishing peacefully along 

 with them. 2 



Under the Commonwealth and Protectorate very little was 

 heard of schemes for establishing fishery societies, such as 

 appeared and disappeared so frequently in the preceding 

 reigns and afterwards. That the Puritan spirit was not an- 

 tagonistic to projects of the kind was shown by proposals 

 made in 1649. One of these contemplated the employment 

 of Dutchmen to establish "a fishing trade" in England. It 

 was referred by the Council of State to Sir Henry Vane and 

 Alderman Wilson, with what result does not appear. Another, 

 briefly described, was to set up a fishing trade for the English 

 nation ; :J and about this time the attention of some writers 

 on commercial matters was directed to the same end. The 

 only thing apparently effected was the gift to the Corpora- 

 tion of the Poor in London of some of the Dutch busses 

 captured in the war, to be used in fishing on the English 

 coast. During this period of our history the Government 



1 The Information of William Gunnell, and others, of Great Yarmouth, 25th 

 September 1654. Verbael of the Ambastadors, 600, 601. 



2 Ibid., 612, 614, 646, 689, 711. From the sworn depositions made before the 

 Burgomasters of Enkhuisen, it appears that that town had at least 246 busses at 

 the Yarmouth fishing in 1654. 



4 Brit. Mitt. MSS. Stmoe, 152, fol. 135. 



