104 THE HERRING FISHERY 



So flourishing an industry as the herring 

 fishery was a natural temptation to neighbour- 

 ing rulers, who from time to time exacted, or 

 tried to exact, a tax on the fish taken on their 

 coasts. In 1541, for instance, the Duke of 

 Burgundy imposed a tax on herring at Sluys ; 

 the citizens of Ghent refused to pay, and the 

 dispute resulted in a war in which the burghers 

 were defeated and afterwards had to pay a 

 heavy fine for their contumacy. 



Guicciardini in his description of the Nether- 

 lands in 1560, referring to the herring fishery 

 of the maritime provinces of Friesland (of which 

 Groningen then formed part), Holland, Zeeland, 

 and Flanders, states that these provinces 

 employed about 700 vessels, each of which 

 made three voyages in the herring season. 

 Each vessel captured on an average 70 lasts 

 of herrings per season ; each last contained 

 twelve barrels, of from 800 to 1,000 fish per 

 barrel ; each barrel was worth about £6 

 sterling ; so that the value of the year's fishing 

 in these four provinces alone was about 

 £300,000 sterling. 



In the first quarter of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury the practice of using jag(g)ers, or " vent- 

 jag(g)ers " ^ came into use among the Dutch 

 for distant as well as local fisheries. The busses, 

 being slow boats, had been obliged to sail home 

 directly their cargo was complete, so that the 



* Pronounced '* yagers " ; whence the word " yacht." Jager = the 

 German jager, hunter or courser, and ventjager = wind-racer, 

 yacht. 



