CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE HERRING-FISHERY. 161 



stock must be raised in contribution of adventurers, who 

 cannot otherwise be drawn into it, but by hope of great 

 and present gain, you are to show to the said lords the 

 estimate of the charge and profit, which being too long to 

 insert here, and the profits of the fish less than they were 

 in these days, shall only take notice that the charge of 

 one hundred vessels was computed at L, 72,000, and the 

 fish taken in one season is rather computed at too much, 

 in my opinion, as they are reckoned to come to L.100,000, 

 so that there is L.28,000 got clear in one season, besides 

 the vessels." 



The king began to be aware of the propriety of pro- 

 tecting the coasts, for he sent a message to the Earl of 

 Stratherne, to be communicated to the Privy Council of 

 Scotland^ " that they give orders for the removing of all 

 strangers repairing to our coasts for fishing, and others 

 trading without license ;" this was on the 13th August, 

 1632. 



In June 1633, Mr Smith was sent by the Earl of Pem- 

 broke to Shetland, to inquire as to the herring-fishery 

 carried on in that neighbourhood ; and this gentleman 

 says in his report : " I was an eye witness of the Hoi- 

 landes busses fishing for herrings on the coasts of Shet- 

 land, not far from Unst, one of the northernmost islands. 

 I was informed that the fleet consisted of fifteen hundred 

 sail, and that there were twenty wafi'ters, as they called 

 them, which were ships carrying about twenty guns each, 

 being the convoys of the fieet of busses, which said busses 

 were of the burthen of about eighty tons." * 



In the same year Charles I. granted a charter, with 

 many privileges, to a new company, for the purpose of 

 establishing a fishery at the Hebrides ; the undertaking 



* Smith's England's Improvement, revised, 257. 



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