DOMINIUM MARIS 69 
The Dunkirk privateers meanwhile continued to prey 
upon English and Dutch alike. In September, 1634, the 
buss Salisbury was captured by the Dunkirkers off New- 
castle, the fishermen being taken prisoners, stripped of their 
clothes and given some “ contemptible rags” in exchange. 
A prize crew was put aboard the Salisbury to take her to 
Dunkirk. On the voyage thither the ship was recaptured 
by a vessel from Flushing,’ the crew of which demanded 
two-thirds of the value of the vessel for having thus saved 
it. Only after considerable difficulty and delay, and not 
till direct representations on the matter had been made 
to the king of Spain, was the vessel finally returned to 
its owners.?. It is some index to the extent of the depre- 
dations of these Dunkirkers to observe that in the balance 
sheet of the Association for the Fishing, issued on June 20th, 
1635, the damage received at the hands of Dunkirk priva- 
teers is estimated at £2,000. 
But although the Dunkirkers were a source of annoyance 
to all shipping in the North Sea that could not be over- 
looked, it was still the magnitude of the Dutch fishing fleet 
and the wealth derived by the Hollanders from their deep 
sea fisheries that Charles felt to be a lasting reproach to 
Britain. All that he heard concerning the Dutchmen served 
but to establish him the more in his determination to develop 
British fisheries in spite of apathy at home and opposition 
abroad. In answer to enquiries concerning the extent 
of the operations of the Dutch in the North Sea, he had 
been informed by Sir Nicholas Halse that he had ascertained 
the yearly profit of the Hollanders from the fishings on the 
British coasts to be six million pounds.4 This, indeed, was 
a somewhat lower estimate than that of Sir John Burroughs, 
who, in his Soveraignty of the British Seas, written in 
1633, had fixed the amount at ten million pounds, and 
oe 
1Cal. S.P. Dom. Car. I., vol. 303, No. 75. 2 Ibid. vol. 312, No. 88. 
3 Ibid. vol. 291, No. 26. 4 Ibid. vol. 279, No. 67. 
