THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE FISHING 39 
the time, form an interesting commentary! as showing 
current contemporary Scotch opinion. 
The writer says that the king seems to think the fishing 
of Ireland, Scotland and England, common to all his sub- 
jects, but that it is to be remembered that although the 
“fishings upon the coasts of Ireland and England has been 
enjoyed peaceably by ye natives of Scotland past memory 
of man without interruption,” the “land fishing ” in Scot- 
land had always been reserved for the merchant traders of 
Scotland “and strangers debarred therefrom.” The sea 
fishing off the west coast and in the islands of Orkney and 
Shetland he admits to be prosecuted for the most part by 
strangers, but “It is to be remembered that when either 
ye Dutch or English anchore in any sound of Shetland or 
Orkney, they pay certain duties for libertie of their anchorage, 
as strangers.” 
This same desire to retain the “land fishing’ for the 
Scotch traders without interference from strangers, is 
apparent from the report of their objections to the pro- 
posals of the king given in, on November 30th, 1630, by the 
Scotch burghs. On three points they were very definite ; 
they insisted that the “land fishing ”’ should be reserved 
for the Scots themselves; they maintained that if, as the 
king had proposed, the English members of the company 
were to be given the privilege of “ denization ”’ in Scotland, 
the Scotch adventurers of the society must be naturalized 
in England, “seeing the denizatioun which the English are 
to have in Scotland is equivalent to naturalizatioun in Eng- 
land”; finally they asserted that to erect free burghs in 
the Lewis was directly against ‘‘ the standing right of regall 
burrowes.”’ ? 
To all this, the English commissioners, who had been 
appointed by the king to meet the Scots and answer their 
1MSS. 32.1.16, Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh. 
2 Act, Parl. Scotland, vol. v. p. 228. 
