SHIP MONEY 111 



situation were unable to provide the ships 

 with which they were charged, permitting 

 them to supply instead an assessed sum of 

 money. 



Ship money was a tax formerly levied on 

 the maritime towns and counties in times of 

 war, and sometimes commuted by a money 

 payment. In 1628 Charles I. had extended 

 the principle to inland towns and counties 

 to secure the county against the dangers of a 

 French invasion, but the writs were withdrawn 

 in the face of violent opposition. In October, 

 1634, the tax was levied for the following year 

 in time of peace, and in 1635, as already stated, 

 Selden's treatise was issued to strengthen the 

 hands of the Government. Few people realise 

 the connection of ship money with the herring 

 fisheries, and fewer still have seen that, had 

 its form been constitutional, the policy of 

 Charles I. might have been acclaimed as the 

 forerunner of the great naval policy of Cromwell. 

 But the ships thus acquired served their 

 purpose, and the King, having forbidden 

 foreigners to fish on our coasts without his 

 licence, was enabled in 1636 to send a fleet 

 which attacked and put to flight the Dutch 

 fishing vessels that had infringed this order, 

 some of them being sunk by the English fleet ; 

 many of the rest in a crippled state were 

 K forced to take shelter in English harbours. The 

 ■ Dutch agreed to pay Charles I. £30,000 for 

 B permission to finish that year's fishing, and to 



