2S4 COMMON COD FISH. Class IV. 



narch afterwards gave licence to a ship of Hull 

 to sail to Iceland, and there relade fish and 

 other goods, without regard to any restrictions 

 to the contrary. Our right in later times was 

 far from being confirmed, for we find Queen 

 Elizabeth condescending to ask permission to 

 fish in those seas from Christian IV. of Den- 

 mark, yet afterwards she so far repented her re- 

 quest, as to instruct her embassadors to that 

 court, to insist on the right of free and universal 

 fishery.* How far she succeeded, I do not 

 know, but it appears, that in the reign of her 

 successor, our countrymen had not fewer than a 

 hundred and fifty ships employed in the Iceland 

 fishery. I suppose this indulgence might arise 

 from the marriage of James with a Princess of 

 Denmark. But the Spanish, the French, and 

 the Bretons, had much the advantage of us in all 

 fisheries at the beginning, as appears by the state 

 of that in the seas of Newfoundland in the year 

 1578, j" when the number of ships belonging to 

 each nation stood thus : 



Spaniards, 100, besides 20 or 30 that came 

 from Biscay, to take whale for train, being 

 about five or six thousand tons. 



Portuguese, 50, or three thousand tons. 



* Rymers Feed. XVI. 275, 425. 

 f HackluyCs Coll. Voij. III. 132. 



