308 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
answerable therefore. He was not to charge rent, but to be 
recompensed by a moiety of the moneys the town ought to receive 
thereon. 
And in 1575 there was another very sweeping enactment, that 
no one should buy wine, commodities, or merchandise coming to 
the town by water, without having made the mayor privy thereto, 
in order that, if they so desired, the mayor and his brethren might 
buy for the town. If they did make a purchase, then every free- 
man had to take the share of goods apportioned to him. I fancy 
that this could hardly have been operative, or at least that it must 
have fallen into desuetude; for in 1597 it was further enacted 
that no merchant or other inhabitant should “bargain for deal 
boards, corn, grain, salt, or other victuall, wyne only excepted,” up 
to £5 value in all cases except deal boards, and then to the value 
of £10, until the mayor had been apprised, and decided whether 
he would deal for the profit of the town generally. 
It is quite certain, however, that these regulations were of some 
weight. In 1603 fines, &., were inflicted on the parties offending, 
because Pascowe Pepperell had forestalled the market by buying 
coal at 7s. 10d. the quarter and selling it at 8s. 8d., which does 
not seem to me a very extravagant profit. In 1605, too, there 
were sundry fines and imprisonments inflicted for buying rye 
within the Cawsey contrary to rule. 
The regulations made during the sixteenth century with regard 
to fish were very numerous and important. In the mayoralty of 
Nicholas Bickford, 1565-6, it was ordered that no alien should 
lade or buy fresh pilchards above the number of 1,000 in a day, 
no man not being free to buy or sell above 5,000, unless the fish 
were “in danger of perishing.” Alien is explained by the words 
“als brytton, flemynge, Speynerde or other.” Then in Drake’s 
mayoralty, 1581-2, other orders were made. No one was to 
promise or sell any pilchards before they had them (no time- 
bargains then). Any person suspected of selling or promising to 
deliver pilchards before they were “saved” (that is, cured), or of 
having received money beforehand from any non-inhabitant to 
‘‘make” (cure) the same, was to be questioned on oath before the 
mayor, and if guilty, not allowed to “ make” any more pilchards that 
year. No woman, whether wife, widow, or servant, was to set or. 
make a price for or upon any pilchards brought to the town, under 
penalty of 10s. fine (to be paid by the husband or master, if no 
