8 NORTH SEA FISHERS AND FIGHTERS 



dozen ladies, and there were womenfolk of lesser rank 

 included in the dead. 



The loss of the French was 25,000; that of the 

 English was only 4000 ; so that about thirty thousand 

 dead was the cost of that early sea-fight which made 

 Edward in. the sea-lord of the world. Six years later, 

 at Crecy, with his son the Black Prince, he gained 

 another far-reaching victory at small cost to himself, and 

 a loss to the French of 1 1 princes, 1 200 knights, 

 and 30,000 of lesser ranks more than Edward's entire 

 army on the field. 



" Thus God our Lord has shewn abundant grace," 

 wrote Edward piously, in his letter to his son describing 

 the affair the earliest dispatch in existence containing 

 an account of an English naval victory. To the North 

 Sea, therefore, belongs the double distinction of bearing 

 on its waters the first of the English race and giving to 

 the nation the earliest, and one of the greatest, of her 

 naval triumphs. 



There is scarcely any part of the east and north- 

 east coast which has not some stirring and historic 

 association with the distant past. South of the H umber 

 there is interest of a kind which is singularly different 

 from the attraction of the country north of that great river. 

 Each locality has its special charm and fascination ; each 

 is for all time closely connected with the North Sea 

 fishing industry as it is carried on to-day. To the east 

 coast belongs the honour of beginning the deep-sea 

 revolution, and to the north-east coast, with its enter- 

 prising, far-seeing business men, the credit of raising the 

 operations to their present gigantic dimensions. From 

 Yarmouth and other east coast ports went forth the 



