22 THE DUTCH GRAND FISHERY 
vyding of the said island with cornes and other necessars 
for their sustentation and intertainment, that they be not 
exposed to the miseries of famine and desolation.”” Moved 
by this petition, the Lords granted permission for the 
foreigners to trade for one more year with the islanders. 
The presence on the coasts of the much maligned Dutch- 
man was, therefore, often productive of good much more 
than of evil. When, indeed, at a later date, some 
Scotch traders decided to make an attempt to establish 
the fishing industry on a proper footing, we find them 
gladly enlisting the services of Dutchmen who were to teach 
them ‘the way of the Hollanders making and dressing of 
these fishes,” and “the most convenient and expedit way 
of fishing.” 1 Dutchmen were thus called in to show Scot- 
land that road to wealth which Holland had so long success- 
fully followed. Even from the encroachments of the Dutch 
good eventually came, since the most apathetic was bound 
to feel that the fishing grounds so much sought after by 
foreigners, must be of considerable value, and that it was 
of national importance that Britain should no longer neglect 
that source of wealth which lay at her very doors. 
The Dutch, as the pioneers of deep-sea fisheries, had shown 
the way to reap the harvest of the sea, and, as the reward 
of hardihood and enterprise, had become the strongest 
maritime power in Europe. The seventeenth century saw 
them gradually ousted from their position of pre-eminence, 
until, by the end of that century, they were, compara- 
tively speaking, merely onlookers where once they had 
been supreme. This gradual decline of the Dutch fishing 
industry was due, however, neither to any falling off in 
enterprise on their part nor to any superiority in com- 
mercial instinct on the part of their rivals. As a matter of 
fact, the first attempts of the British to found a national 
fishery which should rival that of the Dutch, were singularly 
1 Reg. Privy Conc, Scotland, vol. i. (3rd series) p. 271. 
