GOVERNMENT HELP 131 



pamphlets were written dealing with the 

 various plans suggested, bitter complaints being 

 made of the salt restrictions imposed by the 

 Act of 1704 which hampered the progress of 

 the fisheries. We shall hear more of these 

 restrictions when we come to the public- 

 spirited appeals of Lord Dundonald. 



The attention of the House of Commons 

 being thus directed to the subject, a body 

 of London merchants proposed to form a 

 joint-stock company with a capital of £500,000 

 provided the Government would guarantee in- 

 terest at 4 per cent, on the capital. Pamphlets 

 were published advocating that an attempt 

 should be made by Great Britain to win the 

 herring fishery from the Dutch, an Act being 

 actually passed with this object. A bounty 

 was granted spread over a certain number of 

 years and payable to British fishing vessels 

 built in and sailing from any British port and 

 carrying British crews : such vessels were to 

 meet at the Shetlands on or before June 11th 

 in each year, but were not to shoot their nets 

 or wet them before June 13th. They were to 

 continue fishing, following the herrings south 

 till October 1st, or they might meet at Camp- 

 beltown in Argyllshire on September 1st, 

 and might continue fishing till December 31st. 

 A journal was to be kept of their proceedings, 

 with a record of the quantities of fish sent to 

 foreign markets in tenders before the vessels 

 came to port and of the numbers of fish brought 



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