no 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
to Yarmouth, three salt pans. Henry III., in 1242, purchased of 
the men of Yarmouth, for distribution in alms, herrings to the 
value of £50 (equal to about £750 of present day currency), 
which shows that the herring was not lightly esteemed then, and 
was gradually increasing in favour. 
In the fourteenth century Great Yarmouth possessed no less 
than 250 fishing boats; and for the purpose of fostering and 
promoting the Herring Fishery the famous Act of Parliament, 
known as the " Statute of Herrings," was enacted, which regulated 
the amount of profit the merchant should get on the last of 
herrings, and other matters relating to the selling and buying and 
curing of the fish. 
During the Commonwealth very little attention was paid to 
the Herring Fishery. But in the reign of Charles II., in 1661, 
an Act was passed prohibiting the Dutch and French from 
selling herrings in England. No considerable increase, however, 
took place in the Herring Fishery during the seventeenth 
century. 
The Dutch possessed at that time a very considerable fleet 
of herring boats, numbering 1500 craft of about eighty tons 
burthen, and had no less than twenty men of war to protect 
them. At the commencement of the eighteenth century, when 
war broke out between France and Holland, and when the Dutch 
herring fleet was only guarded by four ships of war, the 
French attacked them, and destroyed no less than four hundred 
of the largest of the Dutch boats — a serious blow to the supremacy 
of the Dutch Fishery which has never been recovered. 
During the latter part of the eighteenth century, our Govern- 
ment gave large bounties to the English and Scotch fishermen, 
and boat owners, and something like £316,365 was paid to 
Scotland, but the amount paid to English fishermen and boat 
owners has been kept a profound secret. At that time the 
Swedish Herring Fishery was of considerable importance, and 
strongly competed with our own fishermen. 
During the present century, and especially during the past 
thirty years, England and Scotland have far outstripped other 
nations in this important industry ; and the Scotch are now by 
far the greatest herring fishers in the world. 
The Herring Fishery is carried on by two distinct methods ; 
by the Drift Net, and by what is curiously called Trawling, 
