96 THE HERRING IN HISTORY 



8,000 and 9,000 lasts at £18 per 

 last (and we none at all) is . . 162,000 

 8. The Hollanders and others carried 

 of all sorts of herrings to Roan 

 (Rouen) alone in one year, be- 

 sides all other parts of France, 

 5,000 lasts (and we not 100 lasts) 

 is 100,000 



' Total sterling money . .£1,759,000 



Over and above these, there is a great quantity 

 of fish vended to the Straits. Surely the stream 

 is necessary to be turned to the good of this 

 kingdom, to whose sea-coasts alone God has 

 sent these great blessings, and immense riches 

 for us to take ; and that any Nation should 

 carry away out of this kingdom yearly great 

 masses of money for fish taken in our seas, 

 and sold again by them to us, must needs be a 

 great dishonour to our nation, and hinderance 

 to this realm." 



In 1613 an arrangement was made by which 

 Great Yarmouth was paid 3^. 4>d, per barrel for 

 sixty barrels of white herrings, and 6s. 8d. a 

 cask for ten casks of full red herring of " one 

 night's death," for the use of the King's house- 

 hold; and in 1614 a farsighted citizen of the 

 same town, Tobias Gentleman, by name, wrote 

 a tract pointing out how great profit could be 

 brought into England by the " erecting, build- 

 ing and adventuring of Busses to sea, a fishing." 

 He estimates the annual value of herring caught 



