CHAPTER IV. 
CHARLES I.: THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE FISHING ; 
ITS WORK IN THE LEWIS. 
CuaR.zs had by 1632 finally achieved his purpose of estab- 
lishing an Association for the Fishing. It now remained to 
equip this Association with vessels and all necessary materials 
for fishing, and to appoint a governing body to manage its 
affairs. It was agreed that England should provide 200 
“busses,” or large fishing vessels, while Scotland was to 
furnish about forty similar vessels, paid for at English rates 
and “provided with salt, victuals, and casks,” the total 
cost of building and in every respect outfitting a bush of 
forty lasts being at this time £835.1 The fleet of the Asso- 
ciation, however, does not seem at any time to have ap- 
proached within measurable distance of the numbers thus 
agreed upon. The first operations of the society were con- 
ducted with a few vessels, and amidst circumstances of some 
difficulty ; those entrusted with the management of affairs 
wisely resolved to defer the augmentation of their fleet 
until more favourable conditions should present themselves, 
and these conditions never came. 
On July 19th, 1632, a commission was addressed to the 
Lord Treasurer Weston, the Earl of Arundel and Surrey, 
and many others, constituting them the Society of Great 
Britain and Ireland, of which Charles himself was to be 
“perpetual protector.” A council of management was 
1 Cal. S.P. Dom. Car. I., vol. 206, No, 47; Ibid. vol. 229, No. 97. 
