30 CHARLES I. 
branded according to quality by Government inspectors.! 
These regulations had been instituted by the Dutch Govern- 
ment, in order that the reputation of Dutch cured herring 
might not be injured by the sale of inferior fish. 
The English being anxious to protect the native fisher- 
men, likewise sought to discourage the Dutch from landing 
their fish in England, and therefore, from motives of their 
own, endeavoured to make Dutch fishermen abide by Dutch 
law; the English regulation was, that if the Dutch landed 
fish in any town on the coast of England, they were required 
to sell the fish to the freemen of the place; they were not 
permitted to barrel them on shore, or to sell them to any 
except the free burghers—that is to say, there was to be 
no interference with the trading privileges of the free towns. 
A fishing engaged in apparently exclusively by the English 
was the pilchard fishing, which took place in the west country 
from Dartmouth and Plymouth to Land’s End ; this fishing 
went on during July, August and September, and some- 
times continued into October, “‘ Plymouth is ye pryme place 
of that fishing and Pincens in Cornwall.” ? 
In the seventeenth century, both English and Scotch 
companies sent vessels regularly to the Greenland whale 
fishing. This fishing had, by patent, been granted to the 
*“Muscovie’’ Company, with the result that there had 
been disputes between this English company and a Scotch 
company established “upon a Scott patent,” the consequence 
being that Scotland had been “disapoynted of Oyles.” * 
It is thus evident that, although Englishmen and Scotch- 
men were both jealous of the common rival, Holland, 
they had not yet come to look upon themselves as 
one united people. Scotchmen were anxious that English- 
1 Beaujon’s Essay, p. 37 et sequitur. 
2MSS. 32.1.16, Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh. ‘Memorandum con- 
cerning the fishing along the coast of England, Cornwall, etc.” 
3 Ibid. 
