94 THE HERRING IN HISTORY 



the policy of a strong Navy, and of urging the 

 importance of the naval question to the future 

 of England. One of the arguments put forward 

 was that whereas the merchant adventurers of 

 England were willing to take sporting chances 

 in piratical adventures and in voyaging to 

 America, where the profit was often problemati- 

 cal, they were ^upidly blind to the certain 

 profit and national benefit that would accrue 

 from the English herring fishery by strengthen- 

 ing it so as to oust the Dutch and at the same 

 time provide a national Navy. As regards the 

 blind indifference of the merchant adventurers, 

 the truth of Dee's indictment can be verified 

 from another source. 



In 1603 Sir Walter Raleigh, with whom the 

 English fisheries were a favourite subject, 

 laid before King James a small MS. essay 

 called " Observations concerning the Trade 

 and Commerce of England with the Dutch 

 and other Foreign Nations." " The greatest 

 fishing that ever was known in the world," 

 he says, " is upon the coasts of England, 

 Scotland, and Ireland, but the great fishery 

 is in the Low Countries, and other petty States, 

 wherewith they serve themselves and all 

 Christendom. 



1. Into four towns in the Baltic, viz., 

 Konigsberg, Elbing, Stettin, and 

 Dantzick, there are carried and 

 vended in a year between 30,000 

 and 40,000 lasts of herrings, 



