114 CHARLES II. 
company had been purchased in Holland, and were not 
only Dutch built but also Dutch manned. The natural 
result was that these vessels were seized as lawful prizes 
by the French. 
The company had thus scarcely begun its work before it 
had to provide itself with a new fleet. The strain upon its 
capital was so great that, in 1682, the council of management 
declared that a capital of £30,000 or at least of £20,000, should 
be raised as quickly as possible. The minds of men, however, 
were already beginning to be agitated by the Romanist 
sympathies of the Duke of York, and no cause could hope 
for much popular sympathy which had him at its head. 
The proposal, therefore, met with no hearty response, and 
as a means of interesting a greater number of gentlemen in the 
enterprise, the Council now agreed that the company should 
consist of not more than forty-five and not less than twenty- 
eight members. 
The members of the company now set themselves to the 
task of placing the affairs of their society on a sound basis, 
but while they were thus labouring Charles II. died. The 
position of the company was now almost exactly similar 
to that in which the first Association for the Fishing had 
found itself in 1642. The kingdom was seething with 
discontent, no man knew what might be the upshot of the 
king’s mad quarrel with his people. It was certainly not 
a time in which men would be willing to risk capital in a 
a company which depended for its very existence, to a con- 
siderable extent, upon royal patronage. The fate of the 
dynasty was trembling in the balance, and it was to be 
expected that the establishment of the Fishery Company 
should be looked upon as a matter of little importance. 
Men put the question into the background until brighter 
days should dawn, and the endeavour to found a national 
fishery was once more abandoned until a stable government 
should be established in England. 
