10 THE DUTCH GRAND FISHERY 
Gradually, however, they had encroached upon this, with 
the result that the complaints of the Scotch fishermen 
became very bitter against the usurpers. The Hollanders, 
indeed, seem to have oppressed the native fishermen in 
many ways. They “cut their nets and offered violence to 
their persons, and in the end they drove them from their 
own seas and forced them to seek their fishing upon the 
Isle of Fara in Denmark.”! This led to a remonstrance 
on the part of the Danes, and on March 12th, 1618, to the 
forbidding of the Scotch fishermen to fish there. Naturally 
the Scots clamoured for a like prohibition against the Dutch, 
and on April 4th, of the same year, presented their petition 
asking this. The king, on 7th November, answered that 
commissioners must be appointed to treat on the matter. 
The Scots sent as their commissioners Lennox, Hamilton, 
Lord Binning, and Sir George Hay.? The Hollanders 
refused, however, to abide by the treaty which followed, 
and insisted upon the freedom of the sea to all; James, 
while willing to allow the Dutch the privilege of fishing in 
what he asserted to be British waters, maintained, never- 
theless, that they must abide by the ancient custom, fixing 
the prohibited fishing area for foreigners as being the part 
“within kenning of land, as seamen do take a kenning,” 
a custom recognised in England also.? Ultimately, in 1618, 
Sir D. Carlton was instructed to make proclamation to the 
Dutch fixing the limit at 14 miles, “this year or at any 
time hereafter.” + 
In that year, 1618, the Dutch, as we have seen, went to 
the fishing on the coast of Scotland with a double convoy, 
1 Cal. S.P. Dom. Car. II., vol. 339, p. 161, and Cal. S.P. Dom. Car. I., 
vol. 229, No. 78. 
2Cal. S.P. Dom. Car. I., vol. 229, No. 78. 
3 Cal. S.P. Dom. Car, II., vol. 339, p. 147. King James to Sir D. Carlton, 
4th May, 1618. : 
4Cal. S.P. Dom. Car. II., vol. 339, p. 161. 
