s

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

International Fisheries Exhibition

LONDON, 1883

THE

FISHERIES EXHIBITION
LITERATURE.

VOLUME IX.

PRIZE ESSAYS— PART II.

IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION FOR GREAT
BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

THE BEST SYSTEM OF LIFE INSURANCE FOR FISHERMEN, AND
OF INSURING BOATS, GEAR, NETS, ETC.

THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES.
THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES : THEIR PROGRESS,
DECLINE AND REVIVAL.

LONDON

WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED

13, CHARING CROSS, S.W.
1884

LONDON :
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,

STAMFORD STRKET AND CH \RING CROSS.

PRIZE ESSAYS-PART II.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION
FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. By J. C.

WlLCOCKS ....'. I

THE BEST SYSTEM OF LIFE INSURANCE FOR FISHER-
MEN, AND OF INSURING BOATS, GEAR, NETS,
ETC. ByJ. W. DECAUX .115

THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH FISHERMEN
AND FISHERIES, including all Matters dealing with their
Protection and Regulation. By C. E. FRYER . 139

THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH FISHERMEN
AND FISHERIES, including all Matters dealing with their
Protection and Regulation. By F. J. TALFOURD CHATER . 223

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES : THEIR
PROGRESS, DECLINE AND REVIVAL, especially in
Connection with the Legislation on Fisheries in Earlier and
Later Times. By A. BEAUJON 299

IMPROVED

FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

FOR

GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND,

INDICATING

THE LOCALITIES MOST IN NEED OF SUCH HARBOURS, THE
GENERAL PRINCIPLES ON WHICH THEY SHOULD BE CON-
STRUCTED, AND THE POLICY THE STATE SHOULD ADOPT
IN AIDING AND ENCOURAGING HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION
FOR FISHING PURPOSES.

STATIC MALEFIDA CARINIS^-^. C. WILCOCKS.]

VOL. IX.— E. 4.

IMPROVED

FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

FOR

GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

THE natural harbours of Great Britain and Ireland being
so very unequally distributed along the coast-line, art has
stepped in here and there in some instances to supply that
which nature has denied, and considerable benefits have
thereby accrued to the fisheries ; but a great deal yet remains
to be done, as, for want of adequate provision for the shelter
of fishing boats, very many lives are lost, and thousands of
pounds remain unearned which otherwise might be added
for the well-being of the fishing population, whilst at the
same time the food supply would be much increased for
the nation at large.

A number of our fishing harbours are dry, or nearly so,
at low water, and in consequence of this our fishermen will
not go to sea in unsettled weather, for they know too well
that after and before certain times of tide the entrance door
of the harbour is shut against them, and consequently they
must, if they go out, keep the sea at all risks until by the
flowing of the tide there is sufficient water for them to
enter.

These shallow harbours are also very dangerous to enter
in a gale, for the sea breaks often so heavily in and about
the entrance that the greatest possible risk is run when close

B 2

4 IMPRO VED FISHER Y HARBO UR A CCOMMODA TION

to the shore, and there have been numerous instances of the
loss of boats so near the land that the countenances of the
crew have been plainly recognised by their anxious friends
on land before the last fatal wave has struck the boat.

In the opening chapter of his work, ' The Design and
Construction of Harbours ' (Adam & C. Black, Edinburgh),
Mr. T. Stevenson, C.E., F.R.S.E., observes as follows :
" Many parts of the British coasts are amply provided
with natural bays and creeks, while in other districts the
accommodation and shelter for shipping have been
entirely supplied by artificial means."

Thus great portions of the coast-line of Scotland and
Ireland have good harbours, the south and west coasts of
Ireland and Scotland in particular, but the good harbours
of England, if we except Devon and Cornwall, are far apart,
and there is a great dearth of deep-water ports on the east
coasts of England and Scotland.

Although every small additional fishing harbour is an
undoubted gain to the industry of the district, the great
desideratum for the fishing population is the creation at the
most frequented districts of the fisheries, at certain centres, of
roomy harbours with deep-water entrances, which the boats
may take with confidence in bad weather, so that the crews
may not feel, as is too often the case, that the nearer they
are to safety in approaching the harbour's mouth, the
greater is the danger, owing to the shoalness of the water.

THE EAST COAST OF ENGLAND.

That part of the coast from the Isle of Sheppey to Great
Yarmouth is on the whole well supplied with harbours, as
we have the East and West Swale, the Medway, the Thames
mouth, the rivers Crouch, Blackwater, and Colne, Harwich

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 5

Harbour, Woodbridge and Orford Havens, Lowestoft and
Yarmouth.

If the latter could have a deep-water entrance provided
for it, equal in depth to that of Lowestoft, a most valuable
desideratum would be obtained.

Blakeney and Wells might also be much improved with
advantage to the fisheries. On account of the large quantity
of mussels which can be here raised, and which could be
vastly increased in supply if adequate protection by law
were given to this piece of coast and the shoal ground of
the Wash, all this district may be of future great importance
to the line fisheries as regards the provision of bait.

The H umber will probably always remain a great fishing
station, but the shoals named the Binks are certainly
embarrassments which can never be removed, and have
caused many losses.

From the* H umber to the entrance of the Forth we have
a distance of at least 200 miles, and there is no really
extensive deep-water harbour the whole distance free of
embarrassing dangers about the entrance.

The Tyne is, from the improvements of late years, the
best in this interval, but from the Humber to the Tyne we
have a distance of 123 miles, and there are dangers on each
side of the entrance. Bridlington, Whitby, Scarborough
and the Tees, being tide-havens, are shallow and mostly
dry on the recess of the tide, and therefore constantly inac-
cessible when their shelter is most required. Filey Bay, about
42 miles from the entrance of the Humber, is, the writer
believes, decided on as the most fit position for a refuge
harbour on this part of the coast. It is certain to become a
great fishery port on account of its excellent position with
regard to the North Sea fisheries generally, and the locality
has specially favourable conditions, the depth being moderate,

6 IMPRO VED FISHER Y HARBO UR A CCOMMODA TION

with gradual soundings to the shore. A reef or ledge of
rocks known as Filey Brigg, or Bridge, forms the north horn
of the bay, extending from the coast and sheltering the
anchorage, which is often used by coasting vessels as a
stopping place during an adverse wind and tide.

It does not appear that any indentation of the coast exists
more northward sufficiently deep to warrant the construction
of a work of this kind ; it is therefore pretty certain that what-
ever is done will be done here, as sundry inspections have been
made and reports sent in by Government order. It is one
of those situations which is certain to combine both a refuge
harbour for shipping and a fishing port in one, and seeing
that this is the case, it should be constructed at the national
expense without the condition of local assistance for the
breakwaters ; but as to special accommodation for fishing
boats over and above such breakwaters, assistance from
Government by loan in aid of local efforts should be afforded
at a low rate of interest, which could be raised by moderate
dues on boats discharging fish.

The largest class of boats might pay £3 per annum if
belonging to the port, but strangers merely taking shelter
should be free.

A company was proposed some years since to build a
harbour here as a commercial undertaking, but the writer is
not aware that any work has been commenced.

It is very certain Filey and its vicinity would have its
present conditions changed, for the land in the vicinity
would much increase in value, from a demand for building
sites, and to the great advantage of the landholders, who
might very well contribute to the fishing accommodation
which a refuge harbour per se, over and above shelter, does
not provide.

It is absolutely certain that a very large portion of

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 7

the North Sea trade, in addition to fishing boats, will
run for this harbour, should it be built, and, as during their
sojourn many requirements must be satisfied, a variety of
trades will spring up.

The absence from outlying dangers, which would dis-
tinguish a harbour at Filey from many others, would cause
it to be preferred to all others on this coast

The Brigg would probably be incorporated as a feature
of the work.

During the herring season a harbour at Filey would
certainly be frequented by a considerable fleet of Scotch
boats, which annually go as far south as Yarmouth for this
fishing.

That a harbour will eventually be made here may be
considered certain, and inasmuch as a very large number
of boats and vessels will frequent it, it is to be hoped a
sufficiently comprehensive design will be planned, so that
we may not fall into the same errors as at Alderney and
Holyhead, and, by constructing works on too limited a scale,
find that to alter the plan will admit re-entrant angles
on the exterior of the piers and breakwaters, so well known
to be a fatal error.

In his prize essay on Harbour Accommodation for 'Fish-
ing Boats, East and North Coasts of Scotland,' 1882, Edin.,
Mr. Archibald Young, Advocate, Inspector of Salmon
Fisheries for Scotland, page 74, draws particular attention
to North Sunderland, 40 miles north of the Tyne, and
23 south of Berwick-upon-Tweed, near which there is,
he states, a very important herring fishery carried on
in the neighbourhood of the Fame Islands by Scotch
boats which land their fish at Eyemouth and Berwick.

"In 1877" (he states) "there were 200 boats, from
Eyemouth and other stations on the Berwickshire coasts,

8 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

fishing off North Sunderland. The fishing ground is
capital, and subject to less than the usual fluctuations
which characterise the herring fishery, but it is not half
developed, owing to the want of adequate harbour
accommodation, there being no sufficient shelter between
North Sunderland and Berwick-on-Tweed, 23 miles to
the North, and between it and the mouth of the Tyne
to the south, a distance of 40 miles. North Sunder-
land is the chief seat of the kippered herring trade, but
in 1877 the harbour could accommodate only seventy-six
boats. In that year the fishery officer gave the following
evidence with regard to the harbour : — ' The present catch
of herrings is from 15,000 to 18,000 crans, worth from
£20,000 to £25,000, but by an expenditure of £10,000 on
the harbour, accommodation would be provided for from
300 to 400 boats, whose catch would be from 60,000 to
80,000 crans, worth from £80,000 to £100,000.' "

" A harbour of sufficient space would admit of the white
fishery being prosecuted, as at Eyemouth, in large-decked
boats, namely, for cod and haddock. The estimated value
of the haddock fishery at Eyemouth is £30,000 annually.
Their best fishing ground is south-east of Berwick-on-
Tweed, and more easily reached from North Sunderland
than from Eyemouth. The Trustees of the Crew Estate,
with the consent of the Charity Commissioners, were
prepared to undertake the improvement of North Sun-
derland Harbour on receiving an opinion favourable to
the undertaking from Messrs. Buckland, Walpole, and
Young, which is given in the second supplementary
report to their principal Report in 1878."

As the writer takes it for granted the jurors will have
charts at hand, he would desire to observe, that the Fame
Islands lie to the N.N.-eastward at varying distances

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 9

of from two to four miles from North Sunderland,
and that therefore they afford the means of breaking
the sea very considerably from that direction, round to
north by west westerly, when Holy Island and the coast
take up the shelter. There is great encouragement,
therefore, to extend harbour accommodation here. The
chart shows the depth to be from one to four fathoms
close to the harbour of North Sunderland at low-water
spring-tides The writer strongly recommends the
extension of harbour accommodation here to not less
than the area required for 400 boats, in conformity with
the views of the fishery officer, and Messrs. Buckland,
Walpole, and Young, and after a careful scrutiny of the
Admiralty Chart of this division of the coast.

EYEMOUTH.

This place, which not long since lost the flower of its
fishing population in one gale, requires its harbour to be
much extended. In 1877, says Mr. Young, Mr. P. Wilson,
fishery officer at Eyemouth, gave the following evidence
with regard to the harbour : "The harbour at Eyemouth
is inconveniently small, especially for the large-decked
boats. The boats are all aground at low water. They
can enter the harbour at about half-tide. It would be
important to improve the harbour accommodation."

The writer would recommend additional area to be
enclosed in deeper water, and if it could be done with-
out risk to the foundations of the quays, that the
harbour at present existing be deepened, so that the
larger boats may be able in the chief part of it to remain
afloat

Regarding provision of funds for the performance

io IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

of the work, the writer would propose that half the
sum required for both North Sunderland and Eye-
mouth Harbours be found by the nation, and that
the other half be loaned at 6 per cent., 3 per cent, to
be considered interest for the loan, and the other 3
devoted to the extinguishment of the debt. This would
render the matter easy by spreading it over a series of
years. The writer wishes to be understood to say, that
half the required sum should be provided as a free gift
from the nation, and that the interest is to be charged only
on the remaining half.

DUNBAR.

The repairs to this harbour have been efficiently
completed, but on account of the increased size of the
larger class of boats, more depth of water is still desir-
able. The writer would recommend the same course
to be adopted as advised in the two previous harbours
mentioned in regard to provision of funds. Where these
additional expensive works are carried out, it may be
necessary to charge the largest class of boats as much as
£3 annual dues for those belonging to the harbour, the
other boats so much per ton, new measurement, which are
occasional visitors.

ANSTRUTHER.

This harbour has from time to time suffered most severely
from gales, and very heavy sums of money have been
expended in repairs.

To aid in the repairs required after the gales of 1869-70,
a special grant of £7000 was made by Parliament. Much

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 1 1

money has been obtained by local energy in repairs and
improvements here as well as at Dunbar.

Mr. Young tells us, p. 76, * Fish and Fisheries ' (William
Blackwood & Sons, 1882), that from £40,000 to £60,000
have been spent on this harbour, which has an area of seven
acres, and spacious and handsome quays, but it is deficient in
depth. Outer works may be necessary before deepening the
entrance, lest higher waves be admitted, to the detriment
of the tranquillity of the interior. Regarding provision of
funds, the writer recommends the same course as before.

ROOME BAY, CRAIL.

This bay or cove near Crail is highly spoken of, and might
apparently be made into a good harbour. It is 3| miles from
Anstruther towards Fife-Ness, and has been very favour-
ably reported on by Mr. James Leslie, of ?2A, George Street,
Edinburgh, as stated by Mr. Young. Mr. Leslie states : "It
is at a part of the Firth where the shelter of a harbour is
very much wanted, to save vessels from having to run up
in easterly gales to the lee of Inchkeith, or to Burnt Island
roads, or even above Queensferry, and where it would be of
great use in westerly gales, which, although they do not
raise so heavy a swell in the Firth of Forth as those off
the German Ocean do, are nevertheless more frequent, and
often more violent, so that it is no uncommon thing for
vessels to be blown out of the Firth by a heavy south-
wester, for want of some secure place of refuge which
they might run to."

Mr. Leslie then describes two plans of different extent and
expense, and reference would doubtless be made to the same
before commencing any work here. Recommendation can
scarcely be more strongly expressed of the desirability of a

12 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

harbour here, and the writer would wish to record his
concurrence with the views of Mr. Leslie.

PETERHEAD.

This port is almost the chief fishery port in Scotland,
Fraserburgh alone being superior to it. It enters not only
into the herring and home, but also into the Arctic whale
and seal fisheries. It has two harbours connected by a canal,
and being seated as well on a peninsula, the entrance of
either harbour can be used for arrival or departure, as the
wind may render most convenient.

Mr. Young tells us the north harbour has an area of 9^-,
the south of 54- acres, there is also a third and new harbour
at Port Henry, of about 5 acres.

Great improvements have been made, but at times there
is so great an influx of boats that the harbour area is in-
sufficient. Herrings cured at Peterhead in 1880, 271,850
barrels ; 647 boats employed ; tonnage, 6874 tons ; crews,
2656 men ; curers, coopers, and fishermen ; total employed
afloat or ashore, 6723, in 1880. Boats, 311, first class over
30 feet keel ; aggregate tonnage, 5287. The first-class boats
far preponderate over the others, and by their size have
quite outgrown the harbours ; " deeper and more spacious
harbours, therefore," says Mr. Young, "are a matter of
national importance, and indeed of absolute necessity, if
full advantage is to be taken of the unexhausted and
inexhaustible harvest of the sea."

Peterhead, however, is so situated that much ad-
ditional harbour accommodation is requisite, being one
of those which from their situation should combine in
one locality both harbours of refuge and fishing boat
accommodation.

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 13

Its immense superiority, says Mr. Young, over every other
seaport on the east coast of Scotland has been again and
again pointed out and demonstrated by Government Com-
missioners, by officers of the Navy and Mercantile Marine,
by civil engineers, and by other persons of skill and
experience.

"The Commission of 1858-9 pointed out that as harbours
of refuge were not likely to be taken up as a commercial
speculation, Government should come forward and offer
inducements to harbour trustees and commissioners to
combine harbours of refuge with mercantile harbours.
The suggestion was carried out in the Act of 1861, known as
the " Harbour and Passing Tolls Act," which inaugurated
the lending of money at moderate rates of interest, for the
improvement of existing harbours, and through its operation
much good has been effected. Peterhead was one of the
places specially recommended by the Commission of 1858
for a harbour of refuge."

The following extracts from a paper read before the
Herring Fishery Commissioners in 1877, by Mr. Boyd, agent
for the Harbour Trustees of Peterhead, are given us by Mr.
Young at page 79, ' Fish and Fisheries J : — " The north-
eastern portion of the coast of Scotland, from the Firth of
Forth on the south, to the Firth of Cromarty on the north,
comprehending a sea-board of 160 miles, is throughout the
greater portion of its extent precipitous and rocky, and of
a bold and dangerous character."

" It is exposed to frequent easterly gales of great violence,
but, although much frequented by shipping, and although
it comprehends within its limits the most important stations
for the prosecution of the fisheries in Scotland, it affords no
place of safety to which vessels and boats can at all times
run for refuge when overtaken by storms. For nearly 200

14 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

years the most competent nautical authorities have regarded
the position of Peterhead, which is situated nearly midway
between these Firths, and on the most easterly promontory
of the mainland of Scotland, as possessing peculiar and
exceptional natural advantages as a site for a harbour
calculated to afford shelter and refuge on this dangerous
coast, and these advantages, have, on various occasions,
received national recognition."

"That portion of the fishing ground which lies about
thirty miles in a south-easterly direction from Peterhead is
admittedly the best and most productive on the east coast
of Scotland, and the fishery is prosecuted in its vicinity, not
only by boats sailing from Peterhead, but by those engaged
at all the other ports and creeks on the sea-coast of
Aberdeenshire, extending for a distance of fifty miles, and
including the important fishing stations of Aberdeen and
Fraserburgh. The number of boats fishing at the Aberdeen-
shire stations, of which Peterhead is the centre, amounted
in 1876 to 2098 ; they were manned by 12,600 men and boys,
the value of property involved in their safety amounted to
£630,000, and they afforded employment to 10,500 persons
on shore. Notwithstanding the inadequacy of the accommo-
dation at present available at the harbours of Peterhead,
they frequently supply means of shelter in stormy weather
to portions of this great fleet — an important advantage,
which would be greatly increased if their capabilites for
refuge purposes were to be extended." " The Select Com-
mittee appointed by Parliament in 1857 to inquire into the
policy of making further grants of public money for the im-
provement and extension of harbours of refuge, collected
and placed on record convincing evidence in favour of Peter-
head as the best site on the east coast of Scotland ; and
the Royal Commissioners appointed to complete the inquiry

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 15

reported on its eligibility in the following terms : — " Its
advanced position at the most prominent headland on the
east coast of Scotland constitutes it a turning-point to the
greater part of the traffic frequenting the Moray and Pent-
land Firths ; it is much resorted to by wind-bound vessels,
and is a favourite port of call for orders as well as an excellent
land fall, and point of departure for the passing trade ; it is
the principal port of the Scotch whalers, and is a consider-
able station for the herring fishery ; it presents the most
fitting point for the collection of convoys, and for a naval
station for the protection of the trade on that part of the
coast of Scotland."

" It was stated to us that a breakwater to convert the south
bay of Peterhead into a moderate-sized harbour of refuge
could be constructed for about £300,000, owing to the con-
figuration of the bay, and the abundance of granite lying
close at hand. . . . Under these favourable circumstances,
combined with the consideration of the natural facilities
which we have detailed, we recommend the enclosure of the
south bay at a cost not exceeding £300,000 ; and consider-
ing the proportion which the shipping trading to the port
will bear to those of the passing trade, which will resort to
it for refuge purposes, we are of opinion that the amounts
of national and local benefit conferred will be fairly repre-
sented in the proportion of one-third and two-thirds
respectively. We therefore submit that a grant of £100,000
be made in aid of the proposed harbour, to be met by a sum
of £200,000 raised in the locality, and to be applied to the
same purpose." The Harbour Trustees finding it impossible
to raise this large sum, the matter remained in abeyance,
but the Scotsman newspaper of November I, 1882, had the
following paragraph on the subject : — " With reference to
construction of harbours of refuge on the east coast, we

16 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

understand that in so far as Scotland is concerned, it has
been resolved by the Government to construct an extensive
breakwater at Peterhead, which will make a safe harbour
easy of access at all times. It is also understood that the
works, which will require a considerable number of years
for their completion, will be largely executed by Scotch
convict labour." Convict labour has been found very satis-
factory at Portland, and, where unskilled labour can be
made to perform a large part of the work, is decidedly
advantageous.

FRASERBURGH.

This is now the chief herring station in Scotland. It
has an excellent harbour, due, Mr. Young tells us, to the
enlightened liberality of Lord Saltoun, and the well-
directed exertions of the Harbour Commissioners. It is
large, deep, and safe.

BUCKIE.

A floating harbour has been here constructed, owing to
the munificence of the late Mr. Gordon ofCluny. It is con-
structed of concrete, and has an area of 8 acres. The cost
was over £50,000. It has an outer and inner basin, and ac-
commodation for 450 first-class boats. It is the only good
harbour on the south shore of the Moray Firth. The rest
are small, shallow, and require deepening and enlargement.

The Fishery Board in their report for 1880 state they
will undertake improvements at Rosehearty in Aberdeen-
shire, having entered into arangements with the Local Har-
bour Board. In their report for 1881 they say, at Rose-
hearty the works were begun in July, and were approaching
completion. On the north shore of the Firth there is not
a single good harbour, although such could be made.

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 17

HELMSDALE.

This place has a defective harbour, with abundant
fishing grounds in the vicinity ; so defective is the har-
bour that the boats cannot enter much before half-flood.
Being a bar-harbour the entrance is very dangerous, and
is, like most others of the type, most hazardous to deal
with during floods, when at the same time there may be a
heavy sea on the bar. At present there is room for 170 or
1 80 boats.

From the evidence of two fishermen before the Herring
Fisheries Commission, of which Mr. Young was a member,
it appears that improvement is badly wanted.

By a new entrance to the east of the present, Hugh
McAngus, fisherman, stated the bar might be altogether
avoided. This is a most important feature. Angus Macaulay
spoke also to the same effect. They would be willing to
pay increased dues for effectual improvements, 25^. to 30^.
per boat, which would yield about ^500 per annum. Aid
should certainly be given, half by gift and half by loan,
at 6 per cent., on the extinguishing principle, of the sum
borrowed, as previously recommended.

FORSE COVE

Is about eighteen miles from Helmsdale, and two from
Lybster. From a careful study of the chart, and Mr. Young's
notice of this cove, the writer strongly recommends its con-
version into a harbour. The chief features are its large area
and the fact of 20 ft. of depth existing within it. It is large
enough, Mr. Young states, " to shelter 700 to 800 boats ; "
would be one of the best, if not the best, on the Caithness

VOL. IX. — E. 4. C

i8 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

coast, and would also form a refuge harbour for passing
shipping on a small scale. Assistance recommended as
for Helmsdale.

LYBSTER.

This harbour, two miles to the N.E. of Forse Cove, is much
dilapidated. In 1877, when visited by Mr. Young, the har-
bour was much decayed, the pier having been breached
through by the storms. Very strong evidence of the neces-
sity of repairing the works was given before the Herring
Fishery Commissioners in 1877.

Mr. Thomson, fishery officer, stated, amongst other
matters, that the harbour is not at all adequate for the
boats. Five to six thousand pounds would be requisite to
make of it a very good harbour.

Recommendation as in the case of the last named.

WICK.

Of this very important station, Mr. Young speaks very
sadly : " More than half the breakwater has been washed
down, and the bay filled up with the debris." This was quo-
ting the late Captain Macdonald, H.M.S. Vigilant, Fishery
cruiser, who gave his evidence in 1 877. In a note to his essay,
p. 86, Mr. Young states : — " Since the above was written,
the aspect of affairs at Wick has brightened." " A new plan
of extension and improvement has been prepared by Mr. J.
Barren, C.E., and accepted by the Harbour Trustees. Salient
features : extension of the South Pier as a breakwater and
a quay, and concrete breakwater on the north shore, leaving
an entrance of 250 ft. wide ; various erections and internal
improvements, including dredging and deepening the bed of
the river. In the breakwater no concrete block less than

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. ig

200 tons to be used, and greater number to be of 800 to
1 200 tons each. Estimated cost of works, £i 10,000. The
first block was 40 ft. thick, the width of the quay, and the
side facing the harbour entrance 32 ft. in length ; estimated
weight, 1 300 tons." Mr. Stevenson states that no work at
right angles to the point of maximum exposure has been
able to withstand the fury of the sea at Wick, and that in
1873 a mass of concrete was carried away from its position
containing 1 500 cubic yards of cement-rubble ; estimated
weight about 2600 tons. Mr. Bremner, C.E., recommended
that breakwaters in very exposed positions should be very
obliquely placed, and should be laid out so as to form a
horizontal angle of not more than twenty-five degrees with
the heaviest billows. He had much experience at harbour
works at Wick.

THE NORTH COAST OF SCOTLAND.

Between Scrabster Roads, near Thurso, and Loch Eriboll,
nearly 50 miles of coast, there is no good fishing-boat harbour.

Much herring fishing was formerly done at Port Skerra,
1 8 miles west of Thurso, and a mile north-west of Melvich
Bay. Port Skerra is very small, but deep, and dangerously
narrow from rocks on each side. Melvich Bay is roomy,
with sufficient water, and Mr. Young states a much better
harbour might be constructed on the west side of Melvich
Bay than exists at Port Skerra.

There can be no question that an increased number
of boats would be owned here if this additional harbour
were constructed, which the writer concurs with Mr.
Young in recommending. Regarding funds the writer
recommends the half donation method from Government,
and half loan extinguishment 6 per cent, method there-
with, as previously mentioned.

C 2

20 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

PORT SCULLAMIE.

Here, Mr. Young tells us, a fishing boat harbour has proved
a failure, and recommends the removal of the materials
to a more promising site between Tongue House and Scul-
lamie, where a natural reef of rocks affords great facilities
for the construction of a safe fishing-boat harbour for a
moderate number of boats. A smaller reef a short distance
from it, a sandy bay between the two ; a small breakwater
and two short piers, he considers sufficient. Mr. Young also
draws attention to Tolmine, on the opposite side of the
Kyle of Tongue, where by joining a small island with the
mainland, with a pier of 100 yards length, a safe harbour
might be made for fishing boats.

Mr. Young draws the following conclusions from the
various evidence brought forward in his essay, which
may be read at length in ' Fish and Fisheries ' (Wm. Black-
wood & Sons, Edinburgh).

ist. That the harbour accommodation on the east coast of
Scotland is inadequate to the increased and increasing size
of the boats and the expansion of the fishing industry.

2nd. That, taking the various localities near the in-
exhaustible fish supply of the North Sea, that locality
which provides the best harbour will be almost certain to
have the best fishing.

3rd. That in the great fishing centres, such as Aberdeen,
Fraserburgh, and Peterhead, there is no great difficulty in
raising money for harbour improvements on the security
of the harbour dues ; and that the real practical difficulty
meets us when we come to think how to raise money for
harbour improvement in the case of smaller places near
good fishing grounds, such as Eyemouth, Banff, Cullen,
Lybster, Helmsdale, &c.

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 2 1

4th. That we imperatively need, and are entitled to
demand, from Government, considering the vast sums spent
on harbours of refuge in England and Ireland, one harbour
of refuge at least on the east coast of Scotland for
the protection, not only of the fishing fleet, but also of the
mercantile marine ; and that the proper place for that
harbour of refuge is the bay south of Peterhead, midway
between the Firth of Forth and the Cromarty Firth.

In these conclusions the writer would wish to record his
entire agreement with Mr. Archibald Young.

The report of the Scotch Fishery Board for 1880 states
the yield of herring to be 1,473,600 barrels, at 2$s. per
barrel ; this branch of fishery in Scotland yields £1,842,000.

The great increase in the average annual yield of the
herring fishery since 1866, is, Mr. Young states, "coincident
with the extension and improvement of the fishing-boat
harbours at Aberdeen, Peterhead, and Fraserburgh, and
the construction by the late Mr. Gordon, of Cluny, of
the excellent harbour at Buckie on the Moray Firth." In
a money point of view alone, a stronger point of argument
for new harbours, and the extension and improvement of
those already existing, could hardly be brought before the
attention of the Government. This is omitting any
humanitarian views and regard for value of boats and gear,
which should also likewise carry considerable weight.

WEST COAST OF SCOTLAND.

Nearly the whole of the west coast of Scotland, from
Cape Wrath to the Clyde, is so broken and indented with
fiord-like lochs at intervals, forming so many good harbours,
that there is not that extreme need for artificial shelter
which exists on its eastern and northern coasts ; the

22 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

Hebrides or Lewis Islands, Mull, Skye, Jura, &c, all
partake more or less of the same characteristically indented
outline of coast ; a few piers and quays, therefore, for
landing fish, are more frequently required than very
extensive breakwaters to provide shelter.

WEST COAST OF ENGLAND AND WALES.
ISLE OF MAN.

It may be as well, before advancing farther down the
coast, to mention the Isle of Man. The harbours of this
island are all tide-havens, having naturally no water in
them on the ebb, but the streams of fresh water at the
embouchures of which they are found. Of late years, as
elsewhere, the boats have much increased in size, and the
decked Cornish lugger is becoming more in use as a
fishing boat of the island.

They all require improvement by extension, and conver-
sion into floating harbours, at all events in their outer parts.
Their names are Ramsey, Douglas, Peel, Derby Haven, Port
St. Mary, Castleton, and Port Erin. The larger boats all
partake of the Irish and Scottish fisheries, for mackerel
and herrings. Mr. E. W. H. Holdsworth, 'Deep-sea
Fishing and Fishing Boats,' gives as the number of fishing
boats at Castleton, Douglas, and Ramsey, which include
the other places, in 1872, first-class boats 227, second-class
82, third class, 66. Herrings, cod, whiting, conger, and flat
fish, are all taken, also trawl fish, and some haddocks.

WEST COAST OF ENGLAND AND WALES.

From the Solway Firth to the Isle of Anglesey the
harbours seem adequate for the fisheries, which are not

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 23

followed so extensively as farther down the coast. From
the great improvement of the harbour of Barrow-in-Furness,
a town of quite modern creation, this may become a
trawling centre. There is much fish on the south-west side
of Anglesey, and an acquaintance of the writer's is endea-
vouring to establish a general fishery at Aberffraw Bay. A
moderate outlay here in the form of a harbour would
probably develop a considerable fishing trade.

CARDIGAN BAY.

Every harbour here having a bar at its entrance, this
bay is not regularly worked, although visited by trawlers
from Liverpool. It is frequently visited by quantities of
herrings, and being 60 miles across from Strumble Head
to Bardsey Island, very much more fishing might be done
in it if it had two good harbours. A breakwater at St
Tudwall's Road would provide a fishing and refuge
harbour which would be much appreciated ; it requires
protection from the south-east.

FlSHGUARD.

Fishguard, near the southern termination of Cardigan
Bay, between Strumble Head and Newport, has a con-
siderable bay, and has received much attention from
the fact of the good shelter it affords from west, south,
and east gales ; roughly speaking, it forms three sides of
a square, and is only open to the northern quarter of the
compass.

The western horn of the bay of Fishguard runs well to
the northward, and within the bay there is in general a
sufficient depth of water for large ships, and a good bottom

24 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

consisting of sand mixed with clay beneath, without stones.
With the exception of a few rocks near the Cow Rock, always
itself above water, within Anglass Point, the bay is clear
of hidden dangers. There is a small inner harbour or tide-
haven.

On account of its general advantages it has been recom-
mended as an excellent site for a harbour of refuge by the
Commissioners on the subject. A very considerable trawl and
drift-net fishery might doubtless be carried on from here.

THE BRISTOL CHANNEL.

Tenby is a dry harbour, with much trawling ground in
the vicinity ; if extended and converted into a floating
harbour the fishing could doubtless be more extensively
followed ; drift-net fishing for herrings also would increase.

BIDEFORD BAY.

Crossing the Bristol Channel to Bideford and Barnstaple
Bay, we arrive at a great autumn and winter resort of the
herring, but without any good harbourage for fishing
craft. Notwithstanding the capacious apparent area
on the map of the rivers Taw and Torridge, which
unite at Appledore in a spacious estuary, they form a very
dangerous harbour, having a very bad bar, entirely exposed
to the N.W. — i.e. to the ground-swell from the Atlantic.
This sometimes for a whole month breaks so violently on
the bar that vessels neither enter nor depart from the
harbour. This renders it almost useless as a fishing port,
in addition to which the tides of both ebb and flood run
with the strength of mill-streams.

In the Bay towards Hartland Point is the small dry
harbour of Clovelly, out of which the herring and crab

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 25

boats work ; but long before low water the harbour is left
dry, and if the boats are caught in bad weather before
the tide rises, they are exposed to great risk, as they
cannot enter until the flowing tide has considerably risen.
The herrings are accompanied by hake,' cod, and conger,
consequently in favourable weather much valuable fish can
be caught. If a good harbour were built here, accessible
at low water, a larger and more powerful class of boats
might be used, and the supply of fish very much
increased.

NORTH CORNISH COAST.

Port Isaac is a cove on the north coast of Cornwall,
but, having no artificial protection, the fishery cannot be
followed as it might be.

The enclosure of the cove by piers, and its conversion
thereby into a harbour, would allow of vessels instead of
boats being used, and much trawling might be done on
ground rarely if ever worked.

At Newquay is a dry harbour capable of extension,
from which would follow extended fishery operations if
vessels could depart and arrive at all times of tide.

PADSTOW.

In the Western Morning News, March 24, 1883, appeared
a fourth article, one of a series, on the subject of " The
Proposed Harbour of Refuge," in regard to Padstow : —

" The feature to which most importance is attached in
favour of a harbour of refuge at Padstow, is that it is so
centrally situated between Hartland Point and the Land's
End. Having regard to the stretch of rockbound coast,
a dead lee-shore during the heaviest and most dangerous

26 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

gales, the Commissioners did not hesitate to say Padstow
would make a valuable life harbour for the coasting trade
but for the dangerous nature of its entrance in heavy
weather." The danger arises from the following local
features, for the channel is bounded on the east side by a
large extent of sand, called the Doom Bar, and on the
west side by steep cliffs. Vessels lose the wind after
getting under this land, which also is very baffling, and if
late on tide they may be set on the sand and wrecked,
without power to anchor and prevent it.

" A part of the hill which causes the wind to baffle has
been lowered, and vessels are thus able to have longer
benefit of the wind, so that they can by its aid fetch in
seventy fathoms further ; several thousand pounds have
been spent in reducing the height of this bluff, and to
complete this work, and otherwise improve the Channel
to the harbour, ^"40,000 are estimated as requisite."

" Admiral Washington was very emphatic in his report
on this harbour. ' It was the only harbour, he pointed out,
in a long line of coast, that offered a depth of 16 ft. at
low water, with a rise of 22 ft. at springs, so that there
are few vessels which navigate the Channel for which it
might not be considered a refuge harbour accessible
at all times of tide. This, said the Admiral, was an
advantage that no harbour could boast of on this coast
from the Land's End to Bristol ; and again on the coast
of Wales, from the Severn to Milford Haven, where all are
tidal harbours.5 "

The writer strongly recommends the further improve-
ment of Padstow Harbour, both in the interest of
humanity and in regard to the fisheries, for boats or
vessels which find themselves to leeward of St. Ives may
fetch into Padstow.

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 27

ST. IVES.

In the Western Morning News of March 22, 1883,
appeared the following remarks on the fishing industry of
St Ives : " The existence of the residents is almost wholly
dependent on the fishing industry. The boats number
closely on 300, and the total value, including the nets, is set
down at not less than ;£ 70,000."

" With this capital at stake, and with an enforced reliance
on what the sea provides them with for their subsistence,
it can be well understood that, failing adequate harbour
accommodation, the fishermen are not unequivocally happy."

From the Western Morning News of March 21 the
writer extracts the following : " Among the eleven places
recommended by the Royal Commission of 1859 as eligible
sites for harbours of refuge were St. Ives, on the north
coast of Cornwall, and Filey, on the coast of Yorkshire."

" The Commission further suggested that for the provision
of these two harbours money should be advanced from
the Consolidated Fund without any repayment from local
sources, the amount named in respect of St. Ives being
£400,000. The fact that it was stipulated as desirable
that no local support should be asked towards the proposed
structures specified — as distinct from other sites — was
universally interpreted as meaning that the Commission
regarded the St. Ives and Filey harbours as so important
that they would serve a national and not merely a local
purpose. In support of this attention is directed to the
report of the Commission, where it is pointed out that
St. Ives is contiguous to the great highway of all ships
entering or leaving either the English, or the Irish, as well
as the Bristol Channel."

" This being the case, it is held that to vessels from Liver-

28 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

pool and to the Irish ports, bound southward, disabled and
distressed, a harbour at St. Ives would prove a valuable
asylum, and to vessels bound either up or down the Bristol
Channel caught with a north-west gale, on a lee-shore, as is
often the case, St. Ives would be of the greatest importance.
Now, if all this were true 20 years ago, is it not equally
true now ? And has not the contention then set up gathered
force with the effluxion of time consequent upon the increas-
ing magnitude and value of the mercantile marine ? Un-
doubtedly a stronger case could be made out for St. Ives
now than 20 years ago. But, notwithstanding this, the public
will have seen that, practically, St. Ives has up to the present
time been ignored, whilst the recommendation respecting
Filey, where the Commission advised an expenditure of
;£8oo,ooo, has been accepted. Let us see how far the cir-
cumstances of St. Ives and Filey are analogous. The
authorities who have the decision of this matter are, of course,
largely influenced by the returns of the wrecks on the respec-
tive coasts. Taking these into consideration, it could be
easily demonstrated that there is a pressing need for a har-
bour of refuge at Filey or somewhere on the Yorkshire coast."

" In comparing the wreck roll of that stretch of sea-board
with the north coast of Cornwall it is a common practice to
limit the figures for the latter to the area from the Land's
End to Hartland Point, including the Scilly Isles, and for
the former to within the area from the Fern Islands and
Flamborough Head. Judged simply in this way the claims
of Cornwall do not bear favourable comparison with Filey.
But it may be argued, with much justice, that the comparison
is not a fair one."

" In dealing with the north coast it is contended that the
area to be embraced should be that within the Land's End
and St. David's Head, which is about the same distance as

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 29

that from the Fern Islands to Flamborough Head. A
special reason why it is thought the point should be fixed
at St. David's instead of at Hartland is because of the
number of vessels coming down from Liverpool, to which
the Royal Commission made particular reference."

" Taking these equal distances, how do the wreck re-
turns for 1 88 1 — the last issued — compare? The following
tabulated statement of the total losses, compiled from the
Board of Trade report, shows the desirability of a harbour
of refuge on the north coast of Cornwall : —

Fern Islands to Land's End to

Flamborough Head. St. David's Head.

1880-81 ... 99 .. 70

1879-80 . . . 16 .. 28

1878-79 ... 57 .. 61

1877-78 ... 60 .. 81

1876-77 ... 86 .. 91

" The argument on behalf of the north coast of Cornwall
is further strengthened by the subjoined returns of minor
casualties.

Fern Islands to Land's End to

Flamborough Head. St. David's Head.

1 880-8 1 ... 97 .. 260

1879-80 ... 54 .. 169

1878-79 ... 95 •• i?5

1877-78 ... 112 .. 235

1876-77 ..- 120 .. 336

" If figures are to be accepted as the criterion, the case of
the north coast is conclusively established. It may be said by
way of deprecating their force, that the Severn offers a natural
refuge for vessels coming down from Liverpool or anywhere
above St. David's ; but to this the reply is given by practical
men that such are the conditions that they are often unable
to run into the Severn. If a vessel has passed it she could not
well put back in the event of a south-westerly gale spring-
ing up, but it would be possible for her to bear up for a
harbour of refuge on the north coast of Cornwall."

30 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

" Failing such a harbour, the voyage down the Bristol
Channel is frequently of a most perilous nature, vessels
being driven at times all the way around the Land's End
and on to Falmouth for shelter."

" The geographical position of St. Ives is perhaps its main
recommendation as a site for a harbour of refuge. But
there are other advantages which the advocates of such a
harbour put forward. All the witnesses examined in 1856-
57 impressed on the Select Committee the fact that the bay
is sheltered on three sides, and that all that is wanted to
make its natural capabilities complete is that protection
against northerly winds which should be artificially provided.
The bay is three nautical miles wide, the depth to low water-
mark I J miles, to high water-mark 2 miles. In the middle
of the bay the depth of the water is 10 fathoms, with good
holding ground."

The manner in which the requisite protection might
be obtained has been defined by Captain Vetch, R.E.,
F.R.S., who gave valuable testimony for the St. Ives
project.

He has suggested throwing out a pier north and south
2,000 feet long, " which would be a complete shelter from
every wind that could blow."

" The estimates then furnished amounted to £ 174,000, but
he affirmed that if the proposal were carried out to half the
extent proposed, it would be the means of preventing many
shipwrecks."

"Captain Washington, R.N., F.R.S. ; Captain J. Sullivan,
R.N., C.B. ; Captain James Hosken, R.N., and Mr. (now
Sir John) Coode, C.E., attested with equal emphasis the
capabilities of St. Ives ; and in addition to their testimony,
it is locally submitted as a feature of considerable moment,
that extensive quarries of granite are available near at hand

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 31

suitable for the facing of quays and piers, and an abundance
of greenstone for the exterior work.

Few persons, if any, worked more continuously or more
intelligently in the hope of a harbour of refuge being con-
structed at St. Ives, than the late Mr. John Tremearne.
He devoted a great deal of the latter part of his life
towards the furtherance of the object, and, as a result of the
interest he took in the cause, we are enabled to judge of the
tidal influences of the locality."

" The tides run nine hours in a northward, and only three
hours in a southward direction, varying their courses from
north-west to north-east. The velocity at the Land's End
and the Rundle Stone is from two to four and five miles an
hour, according to spring or neap tides."

Mr. Tremearne showed that " the influence of the northern
stream extends to some distance south of Scilly Islands,
affecting vessels running to make- Scilly. When thick
weather prevails this carries them to the northward of the
Land's End, into the north channel, before they make the
land, particularly when southerly or south-east winds prevail."

" When the tide is half-ebb in Mount's Bay it turns to the
westward, altering its course to the northward as it nears the
Land's End, continuing its course for nine hours, therefore
giving every facility for vessels coming from the English
Channel to the northward of the Land's End. All this tends
to show the advantages to be derived from the construction
of a harbour of refuge in the Bay of St. Ives."

" As regards the fishermen, Mr. Ross, M.P., aptly repre-
sented their condition when he told the House of Commons
it was absolutely deplorable. In the absence of a harbour
of refuge, they are often deterred from putting out to sea to
pursue their calling. This has been a truism for years, but
the drawbacks that have been experienced have been

32 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

materially augmented by the gradual decay of the pier, a
wooden structure, apparently intended to last only for
a time, until sufficient funds should be available for the
construction of works of more abiding materials."

Mr. Edward Hain, Junior, a resident at St. Ives, wrote a
very important letter in connection with this subject, which
appeared in the Cornish Times, April 5, 1883. Amongst
other matters he states : " There are now in St. Ives pier over
100 boats, equipped for the spring mackerel fishery, equal
to £35,000, entirely at the mercy of any gale of wind from
N.E. to S.E., and should such a gale arise, the destruction
of property would be very considerable, an -i a large number
of men might be prevented from earnin^ livelihood during
the best season of the year. They are afraid in many
instances to venture to sea, lest a gale should spring up on
the low water, and find them without shelter. Thus many
thousands of pounds are lost to the fishermen themselves,
and a valuable food supply lost to the nation."

The question of harbour accommodation at St. Ives has
been agitated for nearly 1 50 years.

" In 1776, Smeaton, reporting on the practicability of
making St. Ives Harbour safe for ships in all winds, con-
cluded by saying, ' In short, every circumstance seems to
invite the completing this harbour for the safety of ships,
when nature has been so bountiful.' "

" In 1847, Captain Vetch, R.E., sent to the Admiralty a
most exhaustive and valuable report in favour of a harbour
of refuge in St. Ives Bay. Several other reports from
eminent engineers have been given to the same effect, and
the Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1858
endorsed those opinions, and recommended that a grant of
public money be made for the purpose of building the
required harbour, but nothing has yet been done."

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 33

The concluding words of the report of this Select Com-
mittee are worth repeating just now, when another Committee
is about to sit : — " Your Committee feels that it may be laid
down as an indisputable axiom, sustained by experience,
especially of late years, that while the extent of our coasts
and the natural facilities they afford for navigation are
limited, the trade of the country, and consequently its
shipping, are capable of and destined to an indefinite ex-
pansion, and that the only way, therefore, by which the former
can be rendered commensurate for the requirements of the
latter is by supplementing the natural facilities which we
possess by the construction of great national works upon
our coasts, such as your Committee have ventured to
recommend."

St. Ives refuge harbour, from the nature of its position, we
have seen would be both a fishing harbour and a port of
refuge for passing vessels, serving both a national and a local
purpose ; on this account the writer is strongly of opinion
that the enclosing breakwaters should be built at the national
expense, but that any special construction for fishing boats
should be charged as a loan at 6 per cent, interest, 3 per cent,
being esteemed interest on the loan, the other 3 to remain
payable in diminution of the loan until cleared off.

PENZANCE, MOUNT'S BAY.

A harbour of refuge has long been proposed here, on
account of the exposure of the anchorage in this bay to
the south-east gales. The numbers and size of the fishing
boats have much increased, and the small harbours are
often crowded, and dangerous to take in a gale for want
of some outside shelter to break the force of the sea before
approaching their entrances. The breakwaters of a refuge

VOL. IX. — E. 4. D

34 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

harbour, if judiciously placed, might effect this for two at
least, if not more, of these harbours, namely, Newlyn and
Penzance, and thus be of very great benefit, as well as to
shipping taking refuge only.

It is to be hoped at some future time a serviceable
breakwater may be built, but the claims of St. Ives will
probably first be attended to, on account of its deplorable
condition.

BRIXHAM, TORBAY.

This is a very important fishing station, having about 140
trawling smacks belonging to it, and as many as 100 often
arrive in one day. It has a dry harbour, and an anchorage
outside, locally called the Sedge, where the trawlers have
heavy moorings laid down, and where, being sheltered from
the prevalent south-westerly winds, they ride safely enough
unless in a gale from the east and south-east.

Torbay has always been a favourite anchorage for passing
vessels, when opposed by strong westerly winds. Being
about 4 miles wide at the entrance, of moderate depth, and
having good holding ground, it has always been much
frequented ; but being entirely exposed to gales blowing
between eastward of south and north, great vigilance is
required in watching the weather and wind.

In the winter of 1866 a most fearful catastrophe occurred
in Torbay, through a furious gale suddenly springing up
from the most exposed quarters, which caught forty-two
vessels at anchor in the bay, awaiting a change of
wind from the western to the eastern quarter. The west
wind had fallen away to a calm, and the gale from the
opposite quarter caught these vessels before they had
opportunity to attempt to escape down channel. Two
schooners only succeeded in so doing, and of the forty,

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 35

thirty either foundered at their anchors or went on shore
at different parts of the bay, some on the rocky foreshore
and a few on the sand beaches. Eight Brixham trawlers,
with the wreckage of other vessels, were destroyed at the
Brixham pier on the outside ; several persons were saved by
great exertions, but it is believed that at least 72 persons
lost their lives. Had an efficient refuge harbour existed off
Brixham, it is certain that the majority of these casualties
would not have occurred. An outer breakwater at Brix-
ham has been many years in progress by the harbour
authorities at Brixham, to shelter the trawlers' mooring
ground, as before mentioned, known as the Sedge, but their
work is frequently injured and partly undone, and if they
do not receive more assistance than the locality can afford, its
completion appears likely to be delayed to a remote future.
The late Mr. Rendel, C.E., projected in 1844 a plan for a
harbour for vessels of 14-feet draught, and its breakwater
was to have started from Shoals Point, enclosing '115
acres between 4 and I fathom depth close to the shore.
Although this would be a great boon, it is of too" limited
proportions to accommodate the large class of steamers
now in use ; and as the question is a national as well as a
local one, the funds should be provided by the nation
unless special work were required for the fishing vessels,
which, however, the harbour trustees would probably do
when required.

OTTERMOUTH HAVEN, SOUTH DEVON.

This much obstructed inlet is 4 miles east beyond
Exmouth, and a very great abundance of herrings is
frequently found in the bay to the eastward. It is a very
exposed coast, in consequence of which the boats which

D 2

36 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

resort there from the surrounding fishing towns are liable
to great risk if a gale springs up from seaward.

There are only at high-water spring-tides 7 feet 6 inches
on the bar. Some improvement has been made, but not on
a sufficient scale to deepen the entrance, which, if made
good, would accommodate inside hundreds of boats in the
estuary of the river Otter. The expense would be too
great to provide the means locally, but the writer would
recommend a Government loan, on the extinguishment
principle, at 6 per cent, 3 to be devoted to clearing off the
loan. Thousands of pounds' worth of herrings alone might
be caught here if the harbour had at the entrance 3 or
4 feet depth at the pier head at low water, the same depth
being made good to the inside ; rise of tide, 1 2 feet 6 inches
at springs. This river Otter is half-a-mile east of the
picturesque watering-place, Budleigh Salterton, and. is on
the Rolle Estate.

BOGNOR, SUSSEX.

Bognor rocks run off the coast about a mile, and form
a natural breakwater, under which coasting vessels often
anchor in west winds.

A good fishing harbour could be made here by raising
on the reef of rocks, and running out a breakwater to
afford shelter from south and east.

Every harbour along here being barred, one with a deep-
water entrance would be certain to become a considerable
fishing station.

IRELAND, EAST COAST.

Rosslare Harbour was commenced many years since,
and is situated not far from the Tuskar, off the south-east
extremity of Ireland.

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 37

There are abundance of fish off this coast, and it certainly
should be completed.

It would be a deep-water harbour, and would become
doubtless a mail packet station ; thus vessels could find a
haven without attempting Wexford, which is almost choked
up with sand. It was thought better to build Rosslare
than to attempt the improvement of Wexford.

Arklow, Wicklow, Malahide, Rush, Skerries, Balbriggan,
Drogheda, Dundalk, and Dundrum, should all be converted
into deep-water harbours. There is a great development
of fishing on the east coast of Ireland, and Ardglass is the
best fishing harbour on the whole.

At Cushendall, Red Bay, would be a good locality for a
fishing harbour.

GOVERNMENT POLICY.

The writer on this subject recommends the advance by
Government of money at 6 per cent., 3 per cent, as interest,
the other 3 to be devoted to clearing off the loan in a series
of years.

If work is commenced within two years of receiving the
money, the loan to be continued until extinguished by the
3 per cent, interest ; if not, the money must be returned.
Security for this must be found locally.

FISHERY HARBOUR BOARD.'

A regular Board should be established to deal with
application for aid in harbour construction and extension.

Two marine engineers to be members.

Two naval officers, not below the rank of navigating
lieutenants.

38 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

Two merchant commanders.

Four other gentlemen, if possible acquainted with the
usages and requirements of fishermen.

N.B. — One of the engineers, if possible, to be practically
a seaman.

Business to be legally transacted by half the number. The
applications to be forwarded to the Houses of Parliament.

Evidence as to the desirability of any harbour work to
be taken in'the locality before any two justices of the peace.

Attendance of witnesses in London not to be compulsory.

No Act of Parliament to be necessary for an estimate
under £10,000.

N.B. — Expenses of obtaining Acts of Parliament are too
great for small fishing ports.

LIMENOMETRY, OR THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF
THE SCIENCE OF HARBOUR DESIGN AND CON-
STRUCTION.

THE designing and construction of artificial harbours
is confessedly the most difficult branch of the profession
of the civil engineer, for in this work he is brought
into conflict with those two powerful elements, wind and
water, which combine together to assault, and not in a few
instances to overthrow in a few hours the results of
the labours, it may be, of years, the outcome of much
anxious thought and ingenious design.

The designing and building of harbours may be looked
on as a special branch or art of the civil engineering pro-
fession ; in the present essay, therefore, it is the desire of
the writer to endeavour to collect together as a science,
in conformity with part of the subject proposed by the
Committee, for this essay, " The general principles on which

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 39

harbours should be constructed/' as defined by celebrated
and successful engineers, together with such observations
of his own as he may have made at various localities on
the coast during many years.

For the science teaching the general principles of har-
bour design and construction the writer, if he may not be
considered pedantic in so doing, would propose the term
" Limenometry," from the two Greek words, Xt/^, a harbour,
and fjierpov, measure or proportion ; and as we have such
terms as geometry, trigonometry, &c., the writer thinks
he may venture to add the word " Limenometry " to the
English language.

REQUISITES OF A FISHING-BOAT HARBOUR.

In his prize essay on ' Harbour Accommodation for
Fishing Boats on the East and North Coasts of Scotland '
(International Fisheries Exhibition, Edinburgh, April,
1882), Mr. Archibald Young, Inspector of Salmon Fisheries
for Scotland, mentions that the requisites of a fishing-boat
harbour were defined by the Commissioners employed
on the last inquiry into the Scotch herring fishery, to
be as follows : " The requisites of a perfect fishing-boat
harbour are an entrance which will allow the boats to
have free access and egress at all times of the tide ;
perfect shelter within the entrance ; sufficient space for all
the boats that frequent the place to lie together without
crowding or jostling ; enough depth of water in every part
of the harbour to enable them to be afloat at all times
of the tide ; and proper facilities for taking in their
nets and gear and landing their fish."

Mr. Thomas Stevenson thus defines a good harbour :
" The combination of the qualities of an easy and safe

40 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

entrance and exit, with a good 'loose/ and a smooth
interior, alone constitute a good harbour." A good
"loose," i.e. a good point of departure, so that vessels
on leaving the harbour shall be able to shape their course
free of rocks, or a lee-shore (page 115, ' Design and Con-
struction of Harbours/ Adam & C. Black, Edinburgh).
Page 2 : "In making such designs, the engineer, of course,
avails himself of the advantage which is to be derived
from past experience, and endeavours, to the best of
his power, to institute a comparison between the given
locality and some existing harbour, which he supposes
to be similarly situated."

" Perfect identity, however, in the physical peculiarities
of different stations seldom, if ever, exists, and all that
can be done in deriving benefit from past experience is to
select the harbour which seems most nearly to resemble
the proposed work."

THE FEATURES OF THE PRINCIPLES OF SHELTER AND
TRANQUILLITY IN NATURAL HARBOURS.

Before entering on the work of designing harbours, it is
absolutely necessary that any engineer should have a
clear conception and definition in his mind of the principles
of shelter and tranquillity. These can be observed and
studied out first in a good natural harbour, and afterwards
it will not be difficult to recognise the realisation of these
principles in a harbour artificially constructed, and also
afterwards to embody them in the projection of any
harbour design. Different localities will, of course, require
different treatment in detail, each according to its natural
features, but the principles of tranquillity will be the same
in all, however varied may be their application, and the

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 41

required conditions of tranquillity may be briefly summed
up in the few following words : sufficient shelter from
external disturbance, and adequate internal capacity for
tJie subsidence of such amount of undulation as cannot be
excluded.

In a good natural harbour we find the principles of
shelter and tranquillity made evident to us by an elaborate
system of successive points or breaks, each followed by an
expanding area, which allows the undulation of the water
to spread, after its violence has been broken by the
preceding point.

It is manifest that we cannot in an artificial harbour
adopt that irregularity of outline which, by offering a long
succession of points and bays to the action of the advancing
swell, gradually dissipates and pacifies the disturbance of
the ocean, but we can nevertheless adopt the principles
which nature inculcates, and show their application to
artificial harbours as far as the extent of any proposed
works will permit.

As an example of a good natural harbour, the writer
has selected that of Dartmouth, as it furnishes us with
instances of those prominent features in which reside the
principles of shelter and tranquillity, and to which we will
now give our attention in the chart of that port.

We have, outside the entrance, various rocks, both islet,
smaller insulated, and sunken, either above or below the
water, the large rock or islet known as the Mewstone,
125 ft. high, the Verticles, Bear Tail, and the Froward
Points, on the east, with Combe Point and rocks, &c., on
the west side, which, when the wind is either to the east-
ward or westward of south, serve to break the force of the
waves and much smoothen the water ; but in a southerly
gale, with which we have now to deal, being the point

42 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

of maximum exposure, the effects of the features of
the locality in respect of the system of shelter, may be
said to commence with the Blackstone, Compass, and
Middle Froward Points, from whence the undulation
proceeds onwards, diminishing gradually, as it is broken
by every successive point, and expands into every succeed-
ing bay.

At the bottom *or most seaward limit we have the
largest wave, as a matter of course, the eastern end of
which, striking Middle Froward Point, parts with a small
portion of its violence ; at Inner Froward Point it loses
a little more, and again at the Blackstone Rock ; but the
forces are partly again united behind it, leaving a portion
of water under its lee in a state of less comparative
disturbance. At Compass Point we have another break to
the wave, which at its eastern end curves round towards
the deeper indentation or bay, included between a straight
line drawn from Inner Froward to Kettle Points, and
the east coast of the Range known as Mill Bay. We
are now, however, at the narrows of the entrance of the
harbour, and begin to initiate our second principle in
addition to that of protection, namely, the principle
of expansion, which is evinced by the action of the undu-
lation spreading into this bay, namely, the first inside the
Narrows.

Between St. Petrock's and Kettle Points is the narrowest
part of the channel, and from the little distance between
them they are, of course, more effectual in breaking the
force of the sea than any other features we have hitherto
noticed ; and behind St. Petrock's, in particular, the difference
in the agitation of the water is very marked from its
prominent position, jutting out as it does at right angles
to the line of maximum exposure.

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 43

Proceeding up the harbour from St. Petrock's Point, the
shores diverge greatly from each other, and offer an increased
area to the undulation, which accordingly expands itself,
curving round with decreasing force towards the shores,
right and left, beyond a line which may be drawn north from
Kettle Point, which would be parallel with a long line of
greatest exposure from the south.

At Warfleet Cove the area of this portion of the harbour
is again increased by a considerable indentation of the shore,
which the undulation at once seeks out, and expands into,
after passing the first point of the Cove.

A straight line drawn from the seaward point of Warfleet
Cove parallel to the line of maximum exposure, i.e. from the
south, would cut the shore at Dartmouth, leaving the whole
space westward of it considerably out of the line of greatest
exposure, and under the shelter of the St. Petrock's land ; the
undulation has therefore been very much broken by this
protection, beyond which it diminishes but little until
meeting with the resistance of Kingswear Point, which
opposes a most effectual obstacle to the force of the waves,
partially weakened by the preceding points, and from which,
the undulation remaining, diffuses itself over the area of the
reach of the river above the point, and opposi* the upper
part of the town of Dartmouth, which positior fs perfectly
land-locked from the fury of the line of greatest exposure
from the south.

The writer of this essay might adduce other harbours in
illustration of the principles of the natural system of shelter
offered to our observation on other positions of our coast-
line, but refrains from so doing, considering one to be suffi-
cient for our purpose ; for if we can only thoroughly analyse
the system of shelter in a good natural harbour, and com-
prehend the principles by which this shelter is obtained, we

44 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

shall not be at a loss to apply them to the projection of an
artificial harbour.

REDUCTIVE POWER IN HARBOURS.

In designing a harbour the engineer will, as a matter of
course, endeavour to make his work as perfect in shelter
and tranquillity as possible, to which end the waves should
be reduced in height with all speed after passing the seaward
extremity of the work. This feature may be looked on as
the chief requirement in harbour design, and the faculty
which any particular harbour possesses in this respect is
termed its reductive power.

The reduction of the waves when they are deflected from
their original direction, and made to diverge into sheltered
water, is particularly adverted to by Mr. Thomas Stevenson,
p. 1 1 8, 'Design and Construction of Harbours,' and he
observes : " When a wave encounters an obstacle such as a
breakwater, if we suppose the portion which strikes it to be
annihilated by the impact, or to be reflected seawards, the
portion which is neither destroyed nor interrupted will
pass onwards, and a part will spread laterally behind the
breakwater."

Again, at p. 119, he says : " When the waves are deflected
by a pier with a free end, and run along its inner side,
the reduction which they suffer will be due to the distance
passed over, and to the angle of deviation produced by the
pier."

At p. 1 20, also : "The ultimate object of every harbour is
to preserve the tranquillity of the inclosed area by lowering
the height of the waves as they enter, and this property is
variously possessed by harbours of different forms, and
depends on the relative widths of the entrance and the

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 45

interior, the depth of water, the form of the entrance and the
relation between the direction of the entrance and that of
the line of maximum exposure''

ON THE DIFFERENT CLASSES OF HARBOURS.

In this division of the subject Mr. T. Stevenson gives us
the following description, to which the writer will make a
few additions en passant : —

ist " Harbours of refuge and anchorage breakwaters^
consisting of one or more breakwaters so arranged as to
form a safe roadstead, which shall be easily accessible to
the largest vessels in all states of the weather and tide."

" A breakwater forms a barrier either complete or partial to
the progress of the waves, and is intended to shelter anchor-
age ground under its lee. It is not used directly for com-
mercial traffic as piers or quays are, and therefore a parapet
is not necessarily required for preventing the waves from
breaking over the top." Breakwaters are either insu-
lated from or connected with the land, or combine both
properties ; of the first kind we have instances at
Plymouth and Cherbourg, of the second at Holyhead, and
of the third at Portland, which has a passage through it
near the land.

2nd. " Deep-water and tidal harbours for commercial pur-
poses (Fig. I, a and b, facing p. 80). — A harbour for com-
mercial purposes is any arrangement of piers or breakwaters,
or of both, which incloses and so tranquillizes a sheet of water
that vessels may be moored at the quay walls or wharfs
which form the inner sides of the piers. Where the coast-
line lies open to a heavy sea it is often found necessary to
make a double harbour (Fig i, b, facing p. 80). In such

46 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

case the entrance to the inner basin is situated within the
sheltered area formed by the outer works."

Tidal harbours are such as can only be entered and
departed from by aid of the tide, and are either natural, being
formed in the mouths of rivers, or artificial enclosures by
one or more piers. Tidal river harbours have in many
instances been vastly improved by judicious engineering,
but in others have formed very difficult problems for the
solution of the engineer.

3rd. " Ranted or curved piers (Fig I, cy facing p. 80). —
Where there is a single pier of this kind, vessels lie under
the lee of the kant or kants, and the sheltered side of the
pier is therefore finished as a quay. The pier may have a
double kant, or cross-head, built at right angles to the main
portion, so as to give the structure the form of the letter
T ; at one side or the other of which, accordingto the direc-
tion of the wind, vessels can always find shelter." These
and the two following kinds of works about to be noticed
are for the most part erected in localities where more or
less natural or artificial shelter already exists, as it is
manifest that on an entirely exposed coast the positions
would be untenable by any vessel in gales of wind.

Regular traffic with merchandise cannot of course be
carried on from these works in the open sea, but during
summer much passenger excursion traffic may be done in
fine weather ; but the proprietors of such piers obtain much
of their returns from promenaders, where the piers have
been erected at well-frequented watering-places. "We
propose to term the seaward extremity of any single pier
its free end> as there is an expanse of open sea all round it,
in contradistinction to the seaward end of a close harbour,
where the sea-room is limited to the breadth of the entrance,
which is always kept as narrow as is consistent with the

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 47

safe passage of vessels. Both extremities of all single
isolated breakwaters are, of course, free ends, as are also
the seaward ends of all single breakwaters which are
connected with the land."

4th. " Straight piers (Fig I, d, facing p. 80). — A straight
pier generally projects, at right angles, to the coast-line, with
a free end at its seaward extremity, and, unless when the
wind blows right in upon the shore, will always afford some
shelter on its lee-side. In order to get the full advantage
of this kind of pier, both sides are sometimes finished as
quay walls, and the parapet, if there be one, is built in the
middle of the roadway."

5th. " Quay or wJiarf (Fig I, e, facing p. 80). — A quay
wall is usually built parallel^ to the line of the shore. It
affords no shelter of any kind, and the only advantage
which it possesses is that of enabling vessels to load and
unload without their having to beach, or where the shores
are steep, even to take the ground."

" The same object may also be effected by an open
framework of timber piles — by a suspension bridge, with
a wharf at its outer end — or by a floating pier, rising
and falling with the tide, and connected with the shore by
a bridge."

"It will be observed that all the kinds of piers or harbours
just enumerated differ materially from each other in the
amount of shelter which they afford, and are therefore
suitable for places having very different degrees of exposure.
In some places there are shores which lie open to the full
fury of the ocean, while other parts of the same coast are
protected in some directions by projecting headlands or
islands. Then, leaving the main coast, we have the shores
and bays of narrow sounds, whose breadths vary at
different places ; and, lastly, we have creeks so perfectly

48 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

land-locked as to afford complete shelter in the worst
weather."

" In some situations the foreshore is steep, affording suffi-
cient depth for heavy waves not only to reach the beach,
but to tear up rocks at levels far above the high water-line ;
while in others it is so flat and shallow as to form a natural
breakwater for the protection of the coast. In some districts
there are tides rising forty or fifty feet, in others not as many
inches ; and lastly, we have differences in geological forma-
tion and in the tendency to deposit. Now, it it quite as bad
engineering to adopt the cowardly and unjustifiable policy
of erecting in sheltered seas works that are heavy enough
for the open ocean, as, through ignorance or foolhardiness,
to fall into the opposite error of designing works that are
deficient in strength and efficiency. The very first step to
be taken, therefore, is to select from the different classes of
designs which have been enumerated the one which is best
adapted to the features of any given locality. The engineer,
in order to make this selection judiciously, must consider
the following queries, keeping ever in view the essential
elements of stability, expense, and convenience : — "

" First. Is the place so well sheltered naturally as to require
no artificial protection of any kind, so that a quay without
a parapet, or an open framework of timber, will be sufficient
for vessels to lie alongside without risk of damage in all
ordinary states of the weather ? Examples of such quays
may be found in rivers and creeks, even where there is a
considerable expanse of water, such as Greenock, London-
derry, and the like."

" Second. Is the place situated in a sound or estuary where
the cross waves or those which come on to the end of the
pier are small, owing to the estuary being narrow, and
where the heaviest waves are those which assail the work

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 4

on its sides, so that a straight pier will be sufficient, of which
Burnt Island in the Firth of Forth is an example ? "

" Third. Is it necessary to protect the berthage by means
of a curved or kanted pier, as may be seen in many places
where the sea is not very heavy ? "

"Fourth. Is it necessary that a space of water should be
inclosed between two piers inclined to each other till they
nearly meet, and admitting (through the narrow entrance
thus formed) only a small portion of the outside wave, which
is afterwards reduced by expansion into the enclosed area ?
Examples of this may be seen at Ramsgate, and many other
places on the coasts of Britain."

" Fifth. Must we have recourse to what may be called a
compound harbour, consisting of one harbour within another,
where the outside waves are first reduced by expansion into
the area of the outer or stilling harbour, after which a yet
greater reduction is attained by the second expansion of a
portion of the reduced wave into the area of the inner
basin ? Examples of such double harbours are common
on all such coasts as are much exposed."

" After the engineer has satisfied himself as to the
general character or class of design required, which is
undoubtedly the principal question to be settled, he must
next consider the details. Where the place is much
exposed he must arrange the different parts of the design
so as .to produce a harbour which may be easily taken and
left in stormy weather, without endangering the tranquillity
of the internal area ; for it is the combination of these two
qualities, of easy entrance and a smooth interior^ which alone
constitute a good harbour. Lastly, he must fix the width
of the piers and height of the parapets, and assign the sizes
and determine the arrangement of the constituent materials
in such proportions as to ensure the stability of the work,"

VOL. IX.— E. 4. E

5o IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

" What follows is an attempt to assist the engineer in the
solution of some, at least, of these and other questions
affecting the construction of harbours."

" The local characteristics which at the outset demand our
consideration are — ist, the geological peculiarities of the
shore ; 2nd, the exposure ; 3rd, the force of the waves
due to the exposure ; 4th, the strength, direction, and
range of the tides ; 5th, the depth of water of the bay or
sea in which the harbour is to be placed ; 6th, the
proximity of deep water to the pier itself, which of course
depends on the slope of the fore-shore ; and /th, the angle
which the coast-line makes with the direction in which the
heaviest waves come."

Although by the terms of the competition no limits are
set to the length of any essay, it is necessary that no essay
should run to an unreasonable length ; the writer therefore
is compelled to say, that extracts and remarks can alone
be made, as it would be impossible in a moderate space to
follow Mr. Stevenson or other engineers through the whole
of their observations, for on this subject of the " general
principles upon which harbours should be constructed,"
many volumes have been written.

DANGER FROM CONCENTRATION OF UNDULATIVE
FORCE OR GORGING.

In connection with this matter, Mr. Stevenson, p. u,
quotes Sir Henry de la Beche, * Manual of Geology,' p. 71.
He says : " In many situations on the southern coasts of
Devon and Cornwall, the slaty rocks dip in such a manner
towards the sea that the waves have never effected more
than the removal of some loose superficial matter, the
same that covers all the hills in the vicinity. In fact,

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 51

a skilful engineer could not have protected the coast
better than has been accomplished by the dip of the
strata."

" This remark of Sir Henry's suggests another source of
danger which ought not to be overlooked. If a sloping
direction of the strata have the effect of reducing the force
against the coast, by altering the direction of the surf, it is
equally clear that where long ledges of rock cross the line
of direction of a proposed pier, there may be expected an
intensified action at the points of junction. Long ledges
of rock, though affording useful shelter where the works
run parallel with them, are therefore sources of danger
where this parallelism cannot be preserved in laying out
the lines of the piers. All attempts to carry works across
those long narrow chasms which separate rocky ridges
(ledges), or even to cross creeks of considerable width,
must be regarded as peculiarly hazardous, and special
provisions are required for resisting the concentrated
action which is common to these and all such places where
the sea is gorged''

"It must, of course, be understood, that cases occur when,
in order to afford sufficient harbour room, or to effect some
particular object, it becomes necessary to erect sea- works
in situations where the pent-up waves must be fully
encountered."

" The sea-wall of the Victoria Harbour at Dunbar is an
instance of this kind, for the basin which had to be
enclosed occupied the landward portion of a narrow creek.
The outer wall has therefore not only to check, without
any lateral relief, the whole of the waves, which formerly
dashed into the creek, but, owing to the outline of the
coast, it has also to encounter them nearly at right angles
to their direction."

E 2

52 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

HEIGHTS REACHED BY THE SEA IN GALES AND
STORMS.

" Mistakes as to the level of the highest tides are
sometimes made by drawing too hasty conclusions from
the presence of vegetable life. I have seen the thrift or
1 sea-pink ' (A rmeria maritimd], which seems to indicate
unmistakeably the limit of the rise of the highest tide,
covered, even in calm weather, sometimes to a considerable
depth, during equinoctial springs."

" Where there is no opportunity of making tidal observa-
tions, the level of the lepas, or barnacle, which is generally
very sharp and well defined, may be adopted. The highest
level at > which this shell-fish grows is about high water
of the highest neap-tides, or of the lowest springs. Nor
must the existence of grass and other land vegetation
be regarded as any decisive proof that the surf never
reaches it."

" I would also add a caution applicable specially
to all inquiries regarding the occurrence of storms. It
is a common and dangerous mistake to trust to the
highest marks of the surf that may be visible on the
beach, and which are probably the vestiges of gales that
have occurred within the previous year or two. Any
such experience as this is greatly too limited. There
is a vast difference between a ' heavy gale ' and a
'great storm? such, for example, as that of January,
1839, when the wind assumed a force which has never
since been equalled. Storms occur but seldom, per-
haps not once in ten years, and very great storms are
of even rarer occurrence, whereas hardly a winter passes
in which one or two heavy gales do not take place."

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 53

LEVEL ASSUMED BY MUD A MEASURE OF
EXPOSURE.

" I have elsewhere referred," observes Mr. S. (Proceedings
Royal Soc., Edin., vol. iv., p. 20x3) " to another feature which
will be found of very considerable value in judging of the
exposure of a coast. This is the level below the surface of
tfie low water, at which mud reposes"

" It may appear unlikely that the disturbance of the
surface of the sea occasioned by storms should be propa-
gated to great depths, but there is no want of evidence on
this head. After easterly gales I have repeatedly seen
rounded pieces of coal, containing nearly a cubic foot, thrown
up on the beach of the Firth of Forth, near Newhaven.
Indeed, the fishing population of the adjoining village
are in the habit of turning out in search of fuel after every
heavy gale. Mr. John Murray states that in the coal trade
(of Sunderland) the ballast of the vessels returning to the
north, which sometimes consisted of chalk and flints, was
usually discharged at a distance of from seven to ten miles
from port, instead of five miles as formerly ; yet after a
violent storm the whole coast was strewed with ballast,
which had been cast into water ten fathoms at least in
depth, and the flints were easily recognised as coming from
the Thames (Inst. of Civil. Eng. Trans., vol. xix., p. 670)."

" Mr. (now Sir) J. Coode found from under water
examinations made with the diving dress, that the shingle
of the Chesil Bank, near Portland, was moved during heavy
winter storms, at a depth of eight fathoms. Mr. E. R.
Calver, R.X., states that he has seen waves six or eight
feet high change their colour from the abrasion of the
bottom, after passing into water of seven or eight fathoms.
From these statements it may easily be inferred that in

54 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

exposed situations mud cannot repose near the siirface. No
one, surely, would expect to find a muddy shore con-
fronting an open sea, where the deep water approached
closely to the shore, though he would not express surprise
at finding such a beach (or foreshore) on the borders of a
land-locked bay or of a sheltered estuary. Although the
absence of mud in any locality proves nothing, because
the tide -currents may sweep it away, or the geological for-
mation may not produce it, yet its presence seems both a
delicate and certain test of the limits of the utmost possible
extent downwards, to which the disturbance originating at
the surface has reached. Within 25 miles of Whalsey, in
Zetland, we find it in from 80 to 90 fathoms. In the
latitude of Wick it occurs in from 60 to 70 fathoms
below low water ; in the latitude of Kinnaird Head,
on the Norwegian side, in 40 to 50 fathoms ; in the
Moray Firth, abreast of Banffshire, we find it in depths
of about 35 fathoms ; while as we proceed towards the
more sheltered parts of that Firth, we find it rise within
20 fathoms of low water, and within the Dornoch Firth
we find it within 16; and close in, under the shelter of
the Sutherland shore, we find it in only 8 fathoms under
the low- water surface. In the latitude of the Firth of
Forth we find it in depths of from 30 to 40 fathoms ; and
proceeding up the Firth of Forth, we find it gradually
rising nearer the low-water level, in proportion as the
shelter increases, from 22 fathoms at Dunbar up to 3
fathoms off Leith ; while beyond Queensferry we find the
mud actually rising above low water, even although the
current gets stronger, as we ascend the estuary."

" In the northern bottom of the Firth of Forth the mud
gradually rises from 22 fathoms near Fife-Ness, up to 8
fathoms near Burnt Island ; whereas near Leith it exists in

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 55

5 fathoms, which accords well with the known fact, that
the heaviest sea passes on the north side of Inchkeith,
and not on the south. If we return to the German
Ocean, we observe that towards its southern portion mud
is found within about 20 fathoms of the surface, and under
the lee of the Dogger Bank within 15 fathoms ; and pro-
ceeding still further south, we find it on the coast of Holland
at depths of 16, 15, 13, 12, and only 8 fathoms at the mouth
of the Elbe."

" Now the violence of the waves upon the shores of the
German Ocean certainly decreases in proportion to the rise
in the level of the mud, there being a gradual decrease as
we come from Whalsey, where, as will be afterwards shown,
wonderful energy is displayed by the sea — to the coasts of
Holland, where the waves are much modified. Although the
flat-bottomed vessels of the Dutch are built purposely for
resisting a heavy surf, still the fact of their being able to take
the beach in nearly all weathers along that coast without any
protection from harbours goes far to prove that the waves
are much reduced before they reach the Dutch shore."

"In short, although in any parallel of latitude we shall
find in the German Ocean almost every gradation of depth
between the low-water margin of the shores where there is
no depth at all, and the maximum sounding in the sea out-
side, yet mud nowhere appears to exist in shoal water in
any place where there is a heavy sea."

" The same general result may be found on the west coast
of the British Isles. While on the west of Ireland mud
does not lie nearer the low-water level than from 40 to 60
fathoms, patches may be found on its eastern or more
sheltered side, to the north of Dublin, at only 20 fathoms,
and half way up Belfast Lough, where there is good shelter,
it may be found at 5 fathoms below the surface."

56 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

" If, therefore, we find in front of a proposed harbour that
mttd reposes within a few fathoms of the surf ace, I believe we
have in that fact certain ground for concluding that our works
will never be assailed by a very heavy sea"

MAXIMUM RECORDED HEIGHT OF WAVES IN LARGE
BODIES OF WATER.

" At the harbour of Lybster, Caithness-shire, the waves
attained the height of 13^ ft. ; maximum length of fetch,
600 miles. At Sunderland the waves were found to be also
about 13 ft. high at the pier-head ; but the height was no
doubt reduced by the shallow water near the shore. Com-
mander Dayman observed that the highest waves off the
Cape of Good Hope were 20 ft, and Mr. Cockburn Curtis
says that the gales which produce these rollers extend to
from 300 to 600 miles. Mr. N. Douglas saw waves of the
height of 20 ft. off the Bishop's Rock Lighthouse. In the
Atlantic Ocean Dr. Scoresby, when at sea, measured the
waves with great care and accuracy on different occasions,
and the greatest height he observed was 43 ft. (Rep. Brit.
Assoc. 1850, p. 26)."

LINE OF MAXIMUM EFFECTIVE EXPOSURE.

" It does not follow, however, that the line of maximum
exposure is in every case the line of maximum effective force
of the waves, for this must depend not only on the length
of fetch, but also on the angle of incidence of the waves on
the walls of the harbour. What may be termed the line of
maximum effective exposure is that which, after being
corrected for obliquity of impact, produces the maximum
result, and can only be ascertained from the chart by

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 57

successive trials. It should not be forgotten, in connection
with this subject, that in some cases there are qualifying
elements to which special attention requires to be given."

" The waves, for example, may often be noticed, when
approaching the land obliquely, to alter their direction when
they get close to the shore, in consequence of the depth
changing, and from this cause they strike more nearly at
right angles to the general line of the beach. Although
experimental observations are still wanted, we are not
without practical proof of the reduction of the force of the
waves where the obstacle lies obliquely to their direction.
At the harbour works of Lybster, in 1851, during the
erection of the pier-head, which stands parallel to the
waves, occasional damage took place, and during one
gale three stones, about a ton each, were thrown down,
while the wharf wall immediately adjoining, which was
parallel to the motion of the waves, was never injured in
the slightest degree, although it was of far inferior strength.
From the repeated injuries that the pier-head sustained
while it was in progress, it was found necessary to connect
together the whole of the stones with bolts. The late Mr.
James Bremner, of Wick, who had much experience in sea
works, recommended that piers should be laid out so as
to form a horizontal angle of not more than 25° with the
heaviest billows."

DIRECTION OF THE GENERAL COAST-LINE IN RELA-
TION TO THE LINE OF EXPOSURE.

" In 1857 I issued," observes Mr. S., " a series of queries
among fishermen and others at various parts of the coast of
Scotland, as to the direction from which the heaviest seas
come upon the coast Though there are some apparent

58 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

anomalies, the general result derived from the statements
of nearly 300 fishermen and others is that, at the distance
of ij miles seaward of the coast line, the heaviest waves
come in the direction of the longest fetch, which goes far
to corroborate the supposition that gales frequently act
over large extents of water."

" On the shore, however, the force is much modified by
the angle formed by the coast with the line of maximum
exposure. On the east coast it was found that, at about I \
miles offshore, the north-east is generally the worst direction ;
but for that part of the coast which extends from the Tay
to Aberdeen, the south-east waves generally break heaviest
upon the shore. This arises from the small angle which
the north-east bearing makes with the land on this part of
the coast. The most exposed coasts, therefore, may be regarded,
caeteris paribus, as those on which the waves generated in
the line of maximum exposure come dead in iipon the shore"

LENGTH OF WAVES.

" The longest distance apart, from crest to crest, of the
Atlantic waves observed by Scoresby was 790 ft., and
the following were observed, at the Bishop Rock, by Mr.
Douglas, on whose authority they are stated : —

8 ft. waves

20

35 in a mile
5 & 6 in a mile
3 in a mile

171 ft. apart
1200 & looo ft. apart
2000 ft. apart

per minute.

Mr. Mackintosh, the late light-keeper at the Calf of Man,
in the Irish Sea, informs me that he has, on three different
occasions, counted 13^ waves between the Calf of Man and
the Chickens Rock. The distance gives about 490 ft. as the
length of the waves in this comparatively land-locked sea."

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 59

FORCE OF THE WAVES.

* Smeaton, when speaking of the objection that might
be raised against the use of joggles in the masonry of the
Eddystone Lighthouse, says : — ' When we have to do with,
and to endeavour to control, those powers of nature that
are subject to no calculation, I trust it will be deemed
prudent not to omit in such a case anything that can
without difficulty be applied, and that would be likely
to add to the security.' This statement of our greatest
marine engineer indicates the propriety of carefully
collecting any facts that may help us to a more accurate
estimation of those forces which he regarded as being
' subject to no calculation.' We shall therefore state a
few facts which have been recorded of the destructive
power of the waves in inland lakes and in the open ocean."

" At Port Sonachan, in Loch Awe, where the fetch is
under 14 miles of fresh water, a stone weighing a quarter
of a ton was torn out of the masonry of the landing slip
and overturned."

" Mr. D. Stevenson, in his * Engineering of North America,'
describes the harbours in Lake Erie as reminding him
of those on our sea-girt shores, and mentions having seen
at the harbour of Buffalo one stone, weighing upwards of
half a ton, which had been torn out of its bed, moved
several feet, and turned upside down."

"At the Bishop Rock Lighthouse a bell was broken
from its attachments at the level of 100 ft. above the
high water-mark during a gale in the winter of 1860
(Nautical Magazine, vol. xxi. p. 262) ; and at Unst a door
was broken open at a height of 195 ft. above the sea.
To these facts may be added, that I know, from the
testimony of an eye-witness, of a block of 50 tons weight
being moved by the sea at Barrahead, one of the Hebrides."

60 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

REMARKABLE DESTRUCTIVE EFFECTS AT WHALSEY
SKERRIES.

" At Whalsey, in Zetland, blocks of stone of 6 tons
weight have been quarried or broken out of their beds in situ
on the top of the Bound Skerry, which is elevated 70 ft.
above high-water spring-tides, and there is every reason
to believe that one mass of 13 tons was in like manner
dislodged at a spot which is 74 ft. above the sea. Though
there are probably few places where the waves are so
violent and dangerous as at Whalsey, still it is well for
the reader to be able to recognise the characteristic
appearances of similar dangerous localities, and to be put on
his guard by a description of the place and the phenomena
it presents ; for it must be clearly understood that in such
places the ordinary methods of construction cannot be
applied. The Bound Skerry is the most eastern of the
Shetland group. It consists of quartz rock, forming a part
of the gneiss strata, which are here permeated to a
considerable extent by 'dries,' or seams, and with the
exception of a species of lichen that grows on the higher
parts, little or no vegetation is to be seen on its surface,
although it attains at one point an elevation of 80 ft. above
high water, and about 86 ft. above low-water spring-tides.
The specific gravity of the rock was found to be 2 • 698,
or about 13*3 cubic ft. to the ton. The calculations of the
weights are taken, however, at 14 ft. to the ton, in order
to be fully within the mark. There is no approach to
uniformity of contour, even at places very near each
other, the whole island, indeed, forming one of the most
rugged and irregular rocks that can well be imagined."

It may be well to mention that all outlying islets in
these parts are termed " skerries."

"'In 1852, when landing for the first time upon this

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 61

skerry, in order to fix upon the best site for a lighthouse,
my attention was speedily attracted by some unmistakeable
indications of a violent destructive agency which seemed
to have been lately at work upon the hard rock of which
it consists."

" These were the presence of loose blocks of a very large
size, which had been detached from the adjoining strata.
The only visible agent was the ocean, the unruffled surface
of which appeared far below the place where I stood, not
less, indeed, than 70 ft., as the levels afterwards proved.
Under circumstances so unlikely, it will not appear strange
that I did not readily persuade myself that the sea was in-
deed the agent of destruction. But, after wandering for an
hour or more over the surface of this islet, it was impossible
any longer to doubt that the remarkable effects were due to
the sea alone. I landed on the Bound Skerry with what
I thought tolerably certain and definite conceptions, but
I came away with greatly altered views."

" In order to satisfy myself fully as to the matter, I
proceeded to the adjoining islands of Gruna and Bruny,
where at almost every step similar proofs of violent
action presented themselves."

"At Bruny, for instance, the ground was covered with
large recently moved blocks, at an elevation of 45 feet
above high water."

"To return, however, to the Bound Skerry, it may be
stated that a considerable portion of the rock which
confronts the south-eastern, round to the north-eastern seas,
is in a rapid state of disintegration. On the south-east
side, about 370 feet from the low-water mark, and at a
height of 62\ feet above its level, there occurs a remarkable
beach of angular blocks, varying in size from about 9^- tons
downwards, and huddled together just as one would have

62 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

expected to find had they been elevated only a few feet
above the high-water level."

"This beach of stones was in the vicinity of a detached
block of 19*5 tons, a little farther seawards."

" Towards the north-east, at the level of 72 feet above
the sea, in addition to many smaller blocks, which had
evidently been recently detached, there was one 54. tons in
weight. Within 20 feet of the spot where it lay, there
appeared a comparatively recently formed void in the rock,
which, upon examination and comparison by measure-
ment, was found to suit exactly the detached block. Here,
then, was a phenomenon so remarkable as almost to stagger
belief — a mass of 5^ tons, not only moved at a spot which
is 72 feet above high-water spring-tides, but actually
quarried from its position in situ. But higher up still
there was another detached rock, weighing no less than 1 3-^
tons, tilted up in a peculiar position, and underneath which
numerous angular masses had been .wedged, obviously by
aqueous action. This great block, however, was unlike the
one first described, in bearing no traces of recent displace-
ment"

"Though covered with lichen, and apparently long
undisturbed, yet there can be no doubt that it too had
been separated from the parent clifif, and been tilted up
into the position which it now occupies by no other
agency than that of the sea, the high-water margin of
which is 74 feet below it." Mr. Stevenson gives also
other testimony, one in particular of a block of nearly " 8
tons driven before the waves at a level of 20 feet above the
sea, for a distance of 73 ft, over rugged blocks, and of
another block of many tons' weight, pointed out by an
inhabitant, moved upwards in a great storm some years
back, 15 to 20 on the incline to 50 ft. above sea-level.

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 63

Even in the previous winter a huge mass of stone near sea-
level was pointed out by an intelligent under officer of the
lighthouse, which stone had been wrenched out of its
bed, and moved up an incline of IOD or 12° to a distance of
1 6 feet; and with this proof," says Mr. Stevenson, "all
scepticism vanished."

In his article on Harbours in the * Encyclopaedia Britan-
nica,' Qth edition, 1883, Mr. T. Stevenson records the over-
throw of a concrete block of 1350 tons, at Wick, in 1872, and
of another block containing 1 500 cubic yards of material,
overthrown in 1873. Foundations of 18 feet below low water
have been washed out, and the bottom excavated 15 feet
lower than this by the volume of the sea. This last-named
block of concrete was estimated to weigh 2600 tons.

By the erection of dynamometers at Skerryvore,
Dunbar, and Buckie, it was ascertained "that a force
equivalent to 3^- tons per square foot, however much more,
was excited by waves under extreme circumstances ; that
this force does not act by a sudden finite impact like a
cannon-ball, but is continuous during the period that the
disc of the dynamometer is immersed in the passing wave.
In short, to make the cases analogous, it is like a con-
tinuous succession of cannon-balls."

OF CAUSES WHICH AFFECT THE FORCE OF WAVES,
AND THE FACT THAT THE TIDES IN MANY
CASES ACT AS BREAKWATERS TO THE SHORE.

At not a few points of many coasts a heavy breaking
sea is met with, even in fine weather ; such breakings of
the waves are termed by seamen, races, or roosts, or
overfalls ; thus we have the Race of Portland, the Race of

64 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

Alderney, the Roost of Sumburgh, the term roost being
the Orkney and Shetland appellation.

These, according to the currents of tides, last a certain
length of time, and are greatly exaggerated, or partially
eased, by coinciding or opposing winds. Their position
also sometimes varies with the wind, as at Portland, the
race being nearer or more distant from the shore as the
wind is off or on the land.

These races become, in fact, breakwaters to the neigh-
bouring shore during the continuance of the current, but as
they diminish the rough water being no longer broken,
comes quite home on the coast.

At Portland this is particularly evident, and seamen
constantly run inside the race, close to the Bill, and thus
avoid the race, when they have a commanding breeze, or
with a steamer. These disturbances are due to the
rapidity of the current running Over an uneven bottom,
whether it be sand or rock. At Portland, for instance, the
bottom, in the form of a ledge, rises suddenly from depths
of 12 to 40 fathoms to those of 5 and 10 fathoms, and the
currents meeting with this opposition, the water ascends
from one side of the obstruction, and, falling down the
other, collides with the bottom, and in its recoil therefrom
causes the irregular and broken sea in question. This
raging of the sea is greatly aggravated by an opposing
swell to the course of the current ; and at page 5 3 of his
work, Mr. Stevenson says : — " From careful inquiries, as
well as from actual personal experience of such dangerous
breaking waters as the Bore of Duncansby, and the Merry
Men of May in the Pentland Firth, and several others, it
appears that the true cause is. the swell of the ocean en-
countering an opposing tidal current''

As to those particular instances the writer cannot speak

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 65

from any personal knowledge, but as regards the Race of Port-
land it exists in the smoothest weather, during the strength
of the current, and when there is an entire absence of wind.
That the collision of water with the bottom will cause
these great disturbances may be seen in a large fresh-
water river, far above the level of the tide, and where
no undulation exists, as, for instance, at a weir on a river
down the incline of which the water glides with accelerated
speed, after passing the ridge or upper edge. At the foot
of such a weir the writer has seen a wave of fresh water
rise as much as 5 feet, and for a hundred yards beyond the
water is greatly disturbed, causing quite a miniature race.
This raging of the water is clearly caused by its overfalling
in the case of the river, without any swell, all disturbance
being primarily caused by the weir, answering to the ledge
off Portland Bill, and the other uneven ground in the
vicinity. When this disturbance occurs on a shoal off the land
some distance, it is known as an " overfall " instead of a
race, the overfalling of the water and recoil of the force
from the bottom resulting also in a tumultuous sea. Until
the water is carried by the current over the edge of these
banks, it is often in fine weather-almost as smooth as a river,
and the tumult rises up immediately the edge is past.
This action of the water can be daily observed at the mouth
of tide rivers on the ebb, and particularly on the flood tide
inside the bars, some distance above which the current, in
falling into the channel over the steep sides of the banks,
causes a similar disturbance on a reduced scale, and may be
seen higher up the estuary, also at the steep edges of other
banks. Although the swell of the ocean encountering and
opposing a tidal current, is a most severe aggravation of the
raging of the sea whenever it occurs, it is not the universal
cause of such races, because they exist constantly without it.
VOL. IX,— E. 4. F

66 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

The diminishing of the power of the waves by their
breaking in a race outside may benefit a harbour, and
enable the engineer to construct his works at a less cost
in dimensions of materials, and in the extent of piers in
length and contents.

Mr. Stevenson observes if a harbour work were placed in
a rapid tide the masonry would be exposed to the action
of a very trying and dangerous high-cresting sea, and he
gives as an example the harbour of Port Patrick in Wigton-
shire, where the violence of the waves is to a great extent
due to the rapidity of the tides ; if, on the other hand, the
race, or roost, runs in such a direction as to be entirely out-
side of the harbour and at some distance off, it will, while it
lasts, have a decided tendency to shelter the works, and to
act as a breakwater.

THE TIDES ALWAYS INCREASE THE SURF ON THE

SHORE.

Mr. Stevenson says sometimes this is the case, but the
writer's experience is decidedly to the effect that the dis-
turbance in strong winds always increases with the speed
of the current and height of the water, and that, as Mr. S.
says, the most damage is done from one to two hours
before and after high water. It is easy to understand this,
for the incoming tide brings the swell with it, because the
various rocks outside, or banks, are gradually becoming more
covered, each of which is a small breakwater of itself, and
the whole combined have a very decided effect, when un-
covered, in smoothening the waves. Mr. S. particularly men-
tions in another place, that very much less sea breaks on the
Skerryvore Lighthouse as the offlying rocks become un-
covered. As regarding the effects at or near high water, he
mentions " that a large body of water was thrown on the

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. • 67

lantern of Noss Head Lighthouse, February 15, 1853,
during a north-east gale. The lantern was 175 ft. above
the sea ; time, one hour before high water."

" On November 23, 1824, one hour and a half before high
water, a very alarming wave struck the Eddystone Tower,
and enveloped the house to a most unusual extent. Five
panes of glass were broken in the light room." This must
be what is known as the great November gale, when the
writer has been informed that 42 vessels were wrecked at
Plymouth, and a fearful amount of damage was done to all
the towns on the neighbouring coast.

At Lyme Regis, at this time, the water rose 40 ft. perpen-
dicularly ; usual rise of tide about 13 ft.

"At Peterhead, on January 10, 1849, a crowd of people
were down about two Jiours before high water helping to secure
the whalers and other craft, when three successive waves
bursting over the harbour, carried away 3 1 5 feet of bulwark,
founded 9^ feet above high water springs, which had
stood many years. One piece of wall weighing 13 tons
was moved 50 feet. After this the waves became more
moderate until about two hours after high water, by which
time the large whalers had taken the ground, when other
three enormous waves again swept over the harbour, sub-
merging the quays to the depth of 6 or 7 feet, and occa-
sioning the loss of 1 6 people."

CHARACTERISTICS OF COASTS, THE EXPOSURE OF
WHICH ARE MUCH AFFECTED BY THE TIDES.

From the preceding statements Mr. Stevenson deduces
the following conclusions : —

"i. As the waves approach to parallelism with the shore-
line their destructive power is increased

" 2. Their power is increased in proportion as the direction

F 2

68 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

of the main body of the tide approaches to coincidence with
the direction of the heaviest swell, and they are probably
worst at headlands on which the tide splits.

" 3. At parts of the coast where strong tide-currents set
off the shore they reduce the waves by acting as a break-
water.

" 4. Where a considerable part of the coast retires, there
will be less sea during the strength of the tide, even though
the waves come in parallel to the shore, because the tide
keeps outside, following the general direction of the trend of
the coast. But this will probably not hold good of small
re-entrant hollows of the shore.

" 5. Although the line of exposure and the tide-current
are parallel to the coast, yet if the tide runs in a line very
near the shore, as is the case in short narrow channels where
the velocity of the current is increased, there may, neverthe-
less, be a very heavy sea.

" 6. The most severely tried shores will be those where
the line of maximum exposure is at right angles to the line
of shore, and where it coincides with the direction of the
principal tide-current."

RELATION BETWEEN HEIGHT OF WAVES AND
DEPTH OF WATER.

"Another circumstance affecting the exposure of any
marine work is the depth of the sea or ocean on the shores
of which it is built."

" The great rolling billows so commonly met with in the
Atlantic Ocean cannot be generated in the shallower parts
of the German Ocean, unless, perhaps, in such peculiar
circumstances as have just been adverted to."

" I advise the reader when judging of any locality not to

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 69

confine his attention to the local depth which exists imme-
diately in front of the harbour, but to bear in mind the
general depth of the sea or ocean on the shores of which his
work is to be placed."

" If, however, the shoal water immediately in front of a
harbour extends seawards for a considerable distance, so as
to form an extensive flat beach or foreshore, that depth does
become the true limit for the maximum wave, whatever may
be the general depth of the sea outside. The small depth
over the outlying rocks at Arbroath, Mr. Leslie found, had
the effect of tripping up the heaviest seas, and thus destroy-
ing them before they reached the harbour, while it was still
sufficient to allow the smaller waves to pass over the shoals
and reach the works in an unbroken state. It thus appears
that the largest waves are not always so destructive as
smaller waves. We may also conclude that in some cases
of severe exposure, where it would not interfere with the
passage of ships, the waves might to some extent be re-
duced by dropping very large stones at some distance
seaward of the works, so as, by forming an artificial shoal, to
cause the waves to crest and break outside. On the other
hand, it is quite possible that there maybe a very consider-
able depth at low water close to the pier, arising from the
geological formation, or due -to the scouring action of a
local current, while the general character of the sea out-
side may be that of a shallow basin, encumbered with
reefs or sandbanks which render the formation of heavy
billows altogether impossible."

MR. RUSSELL'S LAW OF BREAKING WAVES.

lk It is of great importance," says Mr. Stevenson, " to be
able in all cases to ascertain the maximum possible wave

70 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

that can exist unbroken in any given depth of water.
Mr. Scott Russell, whose observations on what may be called
the marine branch of hydrodynamics are of such great value,
has stated that * he has never noticed a wave so much as
10 ft. high in 10 ft. water, nor so much as 20 ft. high
in 20 ft. water, nor 30 ft. high in 5 fathoms water ; but he
has seen waves approach very nearly to those limits.'

"It is presumed that the datum here referred to is the
mean level of the surface of the sea."

" I have had no opportunities of verifying these observa-
tions on high waves ; but as the subject is very important,
because the depth of water for some distance in front of
the work may be said to be the ruling element which
determines the amount of force which it has to resist,
whatever be the line of exposure, I will simply mention
the most satisfactory results that I have as yet obtained
on this subject, and which, so far as they go, confirm Mr.
Russell's law."

OBSERVATIONS ON BREAKING WAVES.

Total height of
Wave.

Depth of Water in
Hollow of Wave.

Ft. In.

Ft. In.

2 6

I 2

3 o

I 5

3 o

I 5

"It must, however, be borne in mind that these observa-
tions, and I conceive also those of Mr. Russell, apply only
to those short, steep, and superficial waves which are due to
an existing wind, and not to the ground swells which are
almost constantly to be found in the open ocean, which
may be the result of former gales, or are the telegraph,
as they have been called, of those which are yet to come."

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 71

OF THE RADIA TIVE MOTION AND FORCE OF WA VES,
AND OF THE MEANS ADOPTED OR SUGGESTED
FOR REDUCTION OF THE SAME IN OPEN OR
CLOSE HARBOURS.

This is a very difficult portion of the subject, so difficult,
indeed, that the writer approaches it with much diffidence ;
nevertheless it must not be shunted into a siding, so to
speak, for on the careful solution of this problem the success
of any work as a harbour must depend.

So much damage has resulted in bad weather to boats
and vessels in artificial harbours from the violence of the
undulation or run of the sea, that in forming any design
for a harbour the reduction of the waves within the sphere
of the works should be looked on as the mainspring and
regulating principle of the form of the design. The
constructive strength in form of pier or piers, both of out-
line and of face, must of course be kept prominently in
view, and it does so happen that the form of pier which
promises the greatest tranquillity within the enclosure also
promises the greatest strength in construction ; the writer
refers to convexity of outline, which relieves the masonry
where most exposed, at the points of impact, where
circumstances permit of such a form, by dispersing the
force of the waves laterally on the outside, and allowing
them also to expand in like manner \vithin the enclosed
area.

On this subject of the reduction of the waves, Mr.
Stevenson says : " I cannot but express regret that no
attempt has been made, so far as I am aware, to lead us
from mere speculation and guess to the exactness and
certainty derivable from calculations based on theoretical
or experimental data (page 118). I have been unable

72 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

indeed, to find that a single observation or experiment of
any kind has been made upon the subject, and yet the
whole benefits which are expected to result from the
erection of our great national breakwaters depend entirely
upon this reduction of the waves'' It is scarcely possible
to speak more strongly than this, and on account of its
very great importance the writer hopes he may be
pardoned for again quoting the three striking paragraphs
from Mr. Stevenson (pp. 118, 119, and 120) which he has
already quoted at page 44 of this essay : —

" When a wave encounters an obstacle such as a break-
water, if we suppose the portion which strikes it to be
annihilated by the impact, or to be reflected seawards, the
portion which is neither destroyed nor interrupted will
spread laterally behind the breakwater.

" When the waves are deflected by a pier with a free
end, and run along its inner side, the reduction which they
suffer will be due to the distance passed over, and to the
angle of deviation produced by the pier. Though far
from placing full reliance on so slender a stock of facts
as I am in possession of, and which were partly the
result of observations at sea, and of experiments made
in a brewer's cooling tank about four or five inches
deep, I may state that an unbroken wave, after being
deflected, was found to decrease in height directly as
the distance traversed, and as the square root of the angle
of deflection."

"In the subjoined table are given the heights observed at
the harbour of Latheron wheel. These observations were
made at the outer kants of the pier of Latheronwheel,
which is single, with a free end, and which acts on the
waves in a different manner from a harbour which forms an
inclosed area, to which I shall next refer."

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

73

1853- Original height

Distance passed
over.

Angles.

Observed reduced
Heights.

feet.

feet.

feet.

4'5

16

51°

3-0

5-0

,,

,,

3'5

4'5

»>

"

3'o

3-o

j >

90°

2'0

3'5

,,

,,

2'5

4-0

,,

,,

2'5

5'0

,,

,,

3-0

4'5

32

140°

2-0

5'0

,,

,,

2-5

4'5

> >

» >

2-5

6-5

"

"

3-0

REDUCTION IN THE HEIGHT OF THE WAVES AFTER
PASSING INTO CLOSE HARBOURS.

This is the third paragraph again quoted : —
" The ultimate object of every harbour is to preserve the
tranquillity of the inclosed area by lowering the height of
the waves as they enter, and this property is variously
possessed by harbours of different forms, and depends on
the relative widths of the entrance and the interior, the
depth of water, the form of the entrance, and the relation
between the direction of the entrance and that of the line
of maximum exposure''

The writer's observations have led him to fix the centres
from which the waves expand as near the middle of the
entrance ; these he would term the centres of disturbance,
and Mr. Stevenson mentions, at p. 121, that Dr. Thomas
Young, in his theory of undulation, in the year 1 807, also

74 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

determined these centres from which the waves expand,
and which, he says, " appear to be situated not far from the
middle of the entrance."

The writer will now proceed to mention the devices
adduced by Mr. Stevenson, as carried out or recommended
by several engineers, for the reduction of waves in close
harbours, after which he will venture to make some sugges-
tions of his own for the purpose of bringing about the same
result.

SIDE CHANNELS FOR REDUCING WAVES.

"At the harbour of West Hartlepool an ingenious and
novel device for reducing the height of the waves has been
carried out by Mr. R. Ward Jackson and Mr. Casebourne.
Interior expansions have been made to communicate with
narrow canals, running landwards, and which ultimately
join the sea outside the harbour. The portion of the wave
which has been detached by spreading into the lateral
channels is thus conducted entirely out of the harbour
into the open sea."

CELLULAR STRUCTURE FOR REDUCING WAVES.

" There are many situations so narrow and confined as not
to admit of the formation of lateral expansions either of
the usual kind or of that adopted at Hartlepool ; in such
situations some reduction may be effected by converting
the upper portion of the quay-walls at and near the
entrance into a series of chambers, separated from each
other by vertical diaphragms, so as to smooth the water by
forming numerous stops. This cellular structure, in some
respects similar to what is called in France ' claire voiej
might be cheaply constructed of vertical partitions of

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 75

timber. The action of the cells consists in abstracting
from the upper portion of the wave a small part of the
water, and retaining it momentarily until the crest has
passed the mouth of the cell, when the water so retained is
again discharged into the harbour on the back of the wave
from which it had been abstracted."

"Although the openings were of small width, still, it
the entrance passage were of some length, a considerable
reduction would be produced by this repeated process of
separation and detention. The equalising tendency of the
stops may to some extent be judged of by noticing the
action of vertical fenders on a passing wave."

" On a somewhat similar principle the waves are some-
times reduced by making a portion of the outer piers
of open timber- work, which allows the wave to burst
through it."

STILLING BASIN.

" As before mentioned, it is in some cases essential that
there be either a considerable internal area, or else a
separate basin opposite the entrance, for the waves to
destroy or spend themselves. Such a basin should, if
possible, inclose a portion of the original shore for the
waves to break upon, and when circumstances preclude
this, there should be a flat talus of at least 3 or 4 to I, as
recommended by Mr. Bremner of Wick. Mr. Scott Russell
has found that talus walls of i to I, or steeper, will not
allow the waves to break fully, but will reflect them in
such a manner as might in some instances make the
entrance difficult or even dangerous of access, and the
berthage within unsafe ; and I can corroborate this from
personal observation. Instances are not wanting of
harbours being materially injured by the erection of a

76 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

vertical wall across a sloping beach where the waves were
formerly allowed to expend their force."

In designing a harbour with an outer or stilling basin,
previously referred to in a former illustration amongst
others, we follow out the principles of shelter and tran-
quillity, by which these conditions are obtained in any
good natural harbour of land-locked form, as pointed out
previously in connection with the harbour of Dartmouth,
where the successive points break the force of the undula-
tion, and the bays behind each point allow the radiative
forces to expand from the centres of disturbance near each
point, until the waves are reduced to rest.

In connection with the subject of recoil or backsend from
a sloped talus, recommended as an auxiliary feature of
reductive power, the writer would add the following obser-
vations made on a very exposed coast, where he resided
many years, the beach three miles in extent, and almost
entirely consisting of shingle of various size. At the east
end of this beach it curves round so much that it faces the
prevalent winds, those from west and south-west, and the
result is that the beach has acquired along here a very
steep profile — so steep indeed is this terraced slope of
shingle that the stones rattle down from under your feet
at each step.

Inasmuch as the incline of the beach is moderate at low
water-mark of spring-tides, and very abrupt at high water-
mark, it follows that a favourable opportunity is afforded
to a resident who may wish to make observations, as the
tide rises, if he should have the opportunity of being at
such a place at low-water spring-tides, when a heavy
ground-swell sets on to the beach in calm weather, which,
as all persons know who have paid attention to the subject,
is not unfrequently the case.

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 77

The observations of the writer were to this effect, that on
a slope of eleven and a quarter degrees, there is no recoil
or backsend from the waves, which spend their violence
thereon up to a slope of nearly forty-five degrees, but with
the approach to the last-named gradient a visible recoil
commences, and increases fast between that and seventy
degrees, to which extreme steepness the shingle will often
run for ten or fifteen feet below high water-mark, when the
shingle beach is perpendicular to or directly faces the pre-
valent wind through the curvature of the shore. When
this is the case, a heavy swell breaking against the top of
the slope, is reflected back with so much violence that
the backsend may be plainly seen to travel as far as
four hundred feet, more or less, according to the power of
the undulation or ground-swell at the time, in the seaward
direction.

These observations on the angles of recoil and expen-
diture of wave-force manifestly have an important bearing
on the subject of the gradient of any artificial beach or
talus, and point to the wisdom of preserving a portion of
natural sea beach, unless a pressing necessity exists for
occupying the same by a quay, in which case it may
be necessary to resort to one of the before-mentioned
methods.

BOOMS FOR EXCLUDING WAVES.

Harbours of small reductive power are sometimes
closed by logs of timber named booms, the ends secured
by being lowered into grooves of masonry on each side of
the entrance of the basin inside. The lowest log rests
on a sill-piece at the bottom of the channel, and the logs
being continued to the level of the coping, a barrier or wall

78 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

of wood is thus formed to exclude the violence of the
waves. An iron hasp or other means are used to keep the
logs from rising. They are quite effective as long as they
stand, and the longest mentioned by Mr. Stevenson are
about 45 feet. At Hartlepool and Seaham they are
worked by aid of steam power. At Hynish Harbour,
Argyllshire, where logs of 20 feet long and 12 inches
square were used between the supports, at a small tide
basin, Mr. Stevenson states they were frequently broken
by the violence of the waves. Seven were broken within
six years at different dates. They were perfectly sound,
and would stand a pressure of 30 tons. Although
perfectly effectual, these booms are unsuited where there
is much traffic, shipping and unshipping so many logs
involving delay which might result in serious conse-
quences.

They are not used except under storm emergencies, but
could not be recommended for fishing harbours used by a
number of boats, as it would be a most serious matter for
one or more boats to arrive and find the entrance closed.
Signals, of course, are in use to warn vessels off, but might
be perceived too late to enable approaching craft to clear
the land. There is one instance of the use of a boom at a
harbour in the south of Cornwall, but it is a clay-loading
and not a fishing harbour.

Mr. Stevenson suggests for large spaces tubular booms
of boiler plate, pervious to water, so that they would sink
of their own gravity, and not require to be warped down
like logs of wood.

Storm-gates have also been used in these positions,
with more or less success, to close the entrance.

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 79

SMALL CLOSE HARBOURS MORE DIFFICULT TO DESIGN

THAN LARGER.

" Difficulties of design increase greatly as the extent of
the works diminishes. Indeed if the piers inclose a very
large area some of the elements of difficulty will nearly
altogether disappear. Little attention need then be given
to the questions which are so troublesome in small basins,
regarding reductive power, want of spend, recoil of waves,
and comparatively little as to width of entrance." With
the above last-quoted paragraph, Mr. Stevenson leaves
this part of the subject.

THE APPLICATION OF THE NATURAL PRINCIPLES
OF REDUCTION OF WAVES TO THE PROJECTION
OF ARTIFICIAL HARBOURS.

At the first glance at the accompanying diagram, the
reader may imagine that the circle and semi-circle
constitute nothing more than a fanciful conception of the
writer, but in a few words he hopes to show that they have
a very deep significance, and that the projection of a
harbour by the aid of a circle is the true method of
performing such a work, and that in fact it is the key
of the subject.

All undulation, either from a free pier-head or break-
water, or from between two pier-heads, is of a radiative
character, and provision for its reduction should be made
by the aid of a circle on this account.

Another reason is that no other figure conveys to the
mind of man so definite a conception of either proportion
or distance.

Radiation of undulation manifestly implies the existence
of a centre, which we find commences, as above mentioned,

8o IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

at pier-heads ; these the writer proposes to term centres of
disturbance.

The accompanying diagram sketch (Fig. 2) represents a
compound harbour in an exposed position, although pos-
sessed of some amount of protection from certain points.
It consists of an inside harbour, an outer or stilling basin,
and a kanted pier or breakwater, extending beyond as the
most seaward portion of the work.

There are here three centres of disturbance, the first at
the kanted breakwater head, the second between the piers
of the outer or stilling basin, the third at the entrance of
the inner harbour.

For the sake of example we will suppose the harbour to
look towards the north, and E the point of maximum
exposure. The harbour is situated in a bay, the shore
rocky, but running first west, then north, and latterly
east ; the bottom sand at the position of the harbour, a
stratum of clay beneath, overlying rock.

From the point of maximum exposure, the drift 200
miles, from the northward across the bay length of drift
five miles, in the direction of the kanted head of the break-
water greatest drift four miles, in a westerly direction
greatest drift three miles. To use the words of Mr. T.
Stevenson, a wave from the point of maxirnutn exposure
from the east strikes the breakwater at A, and a portion
is reflected seawards ; the portion not so reflected passes
onwards, and a part spreads behind the breakwater, which
has a free end, running along the inner side, and much
diminished in height as it approaches the end of the
kanted pier, near the entrance of the stilling or outer basin.
A portion of the force of the wave from the pier-head,
radiating in its progress, accompanies the first-named wave
and joins it in diminishing strength atB, between the piers

.-4

Plate,!.

Fic.l.

ea&pcsure,. E

FIG. 2.

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 81

of the outer basin, where having arrived at the second
centre of disturbance, it spreads laterally along the insides
of the quays.

The undulative force is, however, not nearly yet subdued,
and takes from the point B another departure, although
with diminished strength. But the conditions are now
altered, for the waves have entered a close harbour, that is
to say, the undulation meets with opposition from walls on
both sides as it expands to the limits of the enclosure on
either side. A certain amount of hindrance to the reduction
of wave-height is of course unavoidable ; but as the distance
from the entrance increases, so does the force of the radia-
tion diminish, so that on approaching the point C at the
entrance of the inner harbour, the run is very much
lessened.

At this point C we have the third centre of disturbance,
whence the undulation spreads as before in several directions,
but is now disarmed of its violence, so that boats or
vessels in the most violent weather can remain in safety
moored to the quays.

PROPORTIONS OF THE DESIGN.

As regards the proportions of this form, both the inner
and outer divisions of the harbour are of nearly equal dimen-
sions, and it will be at once observed that, measured by
circles, each basin contains two in the direction of the base
line, and one circle and a half on the line of the perpendicular.
The writer, where circumstances permit, would by no means
object to the addition of half a circle of additional lateral
space to the enclosed areas, as in Fig. 3, facing p. 82, but
there are a large number of localities where this could not
be done ; and he, on this account, thinks that these pro-
portions will often be found suitable.

VOL. IX.— E. 4. G

82 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

The reader will not fail to observe that the entrances of the
outer and inner harbours are placed not in a right line, but in
a diagonal line in respect of each other, the object of which
arrangement is to prevent the maximum of effective undula-
tion from the point B entering the inner basin on a right line.

The distance from the point to the inner entrance at C
is greater than if the undulation met the wall at a right line,
which is of itself a certain gain ; but the most important
feature is, that in addition to the fact of these second piers
giving successive shelter, the diagonal position of the
eastern head will divide the undulation and cause it to
diverge laterally at its back.

The diagonal position of inner and outer entrances with
regard to each other, if recognised and applied wherever
practicable, would be found a most powerful factor, the
writer would submit, in the reduction of the height of the
waves in a close harbour.

TALUS OR SPENDING BEACH.

If this does not exist naturally on the shore on which the
harbour is being constructed, and the inner base line be
required for quays, which is very generally the case, such a
beach might be provided on the right hand margin of the
inner harbour (Fig. 2, facing p. 80), or left (Fig. 3, facing
this page), on which the remainder of the undulation, after
passing the inner pair of piers, might expend itself.

Such a talus or incline is very useful, as a vessel could
be run on it and stopped without damage, to say nothing
of its availability for craft of all kinds to clean and coat
the bottoms, repair, or caulk, when required.

We are accustomed to speak of our fishing craft as
boats, but as so large a number of them have now become

Plate 11

Line of Mcuximiurv eacpasure- .

FIG. 3.

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 83

decked-vessels — not to mention our trawling and cod-
smacks — it is quite clear that special arrangements are
required for their accommodation. In outside basins the
construction of a talus is a very doubtful advantage, for
although it may undoubtedly assist in the reduction of the
undulation, it may itself constitute an element of danger
in bad weather if a vessel should drive upon it, for in outer
harbours it is extremely difficult to keep any small sub-
stances in position as a coating.

The violent action of the water holds the sand in
suspension, and deposits also the small shingle therewith
at the foot of the incline as the tide ebbs. On open
beaches especially, such as are frequently receiving acces-
sions of material from neighbouring cliffs, composed of
strata of sandstone of a friable character, and gravel, the
action of the water may be observed with much profit to
the engineer in reference to artificial beaches in harbours,
commonly known as hards, careening, or beaching places.

On a beach constantly receiving accessions, as above
mentioned, the writer has observed that in the most
exposed positions the sand will not remain upon the slope,
but is removed or sifted out from the shingle by the
action of the waves ; and the boundary just below the line
of low water is so marked at some localties of great
exposure, that the appearance is as if the whole of the
shingle had been thrown on the upper side of a line by
the hands of man.

Mr. Stevenson observes that a talus should be rough to
be efficient in reducing the height of the waves in a close
harbour, and that if smooth it is deprived of much of its
reductive power ; if however it be so placed in an outer
harbour that vessels are liable to be driven on it (and it
would be difficult to find a position where no such

G 2

84 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

liability exists), such vessels or boats would be much
damaged on their keels and bilges, possibly even wrecked
in port, through the existence of a rough artificial beach.

If a vessel or large boat parts from her fastening, or
drags her anchors in an outer harbour, she is likely to
receive less damage against a vertical or nearly vertical
wall than on a rough slope, for as soon as she falls broad-
side on, the recoil from the wall will partially diminish the
force of the shock, and her damages will probably be
confined to her upper works, or as sailors term it her
" topsides." The crew also may find opportunity of lowering
fenders between the vessel and the wall, and prevent a
good deal of damage until assistance arrives ; but on a slope
of large rubble stone she will probably remain grinding
until entirely aground.

POSITION OF THE OUTER ENTRANCE.

The position of the outer entrance, it will be observed, is
about three-fourths of the breadth of the harbour to
leeward; this position is chosen to give as much sheltered
space as possible to the outer harbour, and although a
vessel or boat, which has made good her entrance through
the outer piers, if the wind be blowing diagonally off the
land from the south eastward could not fetch through the
inner pair of piers, there will manifestly be no sea to
contend with, and this being the case she can stand on
towards the western quay, and work up either for the
weather quay or the inner harbour. All winds, from
south-east round southerly to south-west, being off shore,
we have not to provide against them, whilst all other winds
round southerly will lead boats or vessels in freely, past
each pier-head in succession.

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 85

OVERLAPPING POSITIONS OF PIER-HEADS.

This, from a nautical point of view, is a great convenience
and advantage, as it allows boats or vessels much facility
of ingress and egress in foul winds. A boat or vessel can
take her departure from the lee of a pier-head overlapping
its fellow to a certain extent, as shown in the diagrams, and
weather the lee pier-head without difficulty in working out
of the harbour, and when working into the harbour, can
then stand along the outer face wall of the inner of the
two, and fetch inside, according to her position. The writer
has seen so much difficulty and damage result from the
position of the piers vis-a-vis that, wherever the exposure
is not too great, he would confidently recommend one pier
to be placed in advance of the other.

PIERS En Avance AND PIERS Vis-a-Vis.

Piers en avance^ or overlapping, are found excellent in
bays, or where islands exist as natural breakwaters to a
long fetch, in fact wherever there is a certain amount of
natural protection. In such positions these covering piers
receive the impact of the waves from th'e point of greatest
exposure, and shoot off the chief portion of their violence
towards the shore of the bay, or free space to leeward.

The question, however, naturally arises in what length of
drift or fetch a covering-pier, i.e., en avance, ceases to be use-
ful, beyond which it may be positively prejudicial, owing to
the amount of undulation it will throw into the interior of
the harbour, during a gale of wind blowing on its inside face.

From observations made by the writer, he concludes
that about two-and-a-half miles is the longest fetch to
be allowed in most cases, where such drift would fall on

86 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

the inside face of the pier en avarice ; and this should only
be allowed where an inner harbour exists in which shelter
may be taken.

Where no inner harbour exists, the pier should be
brought round sufficiently to shorten the fetch to one mile,
when it can be so arranged without rendering the harbour
difficult of access or placing the pier-head in too shallow
water. Mr. Stevenson gives special caution on the
following matters.

CAUSES OF INCREASE OF WAVES IN CLOSE HARBOURS.

1. Removal of the spending-beach at entrance channel, or
within the harbour, by building a quay or talus wall across.

2. The. deepening of the entrance channel into the
harbour rendering it especially difficult to hold vessels on
the flowing tide.

3. The removal of an artificial breakwater, or protecting
point of land, or spit of gravel, or rock.

4. Filling up side creeks or basins in a harbour or
entrance channel.

5. Shortening the distance between the sea and entrance
to an inner harbour or dock, or by projecting a basin or
dock farther out from the shore line, so as to bring the
gates nearer the sea-entrance, or projecting the mouth of a
harbour farther seawards.

6. Removal of a jetty, or filling up an artificial chamber,
or converting talus into plumb walls.

7. Straightening an entrance channel, or an outer outside
breakwater, or walls within the harbour.

8. Widening the entrance or channel.

9. Reduction of area of the harbour basin.

10. Making smoother the surface of a natural sloping
beach within an outside harbour by pitching the surface.

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 87

11. Lowering the top of the protecting outside break-
water.

12. Converting an open staging into a close quay.

13. Lengthening a breakwater, so as to intercept a greater
portion of the waves from certain directions.

These last notes are from the article on Harbours, by
Mr. T. Stevenson, in the Qth edition of the * Encyclopaedia
Britannica/ at present (1883) in progress of publication.

CAPACITY OF OPEN HARBOURS.

Mr. Stevenson says, that " For open harbours it is not
easy to give even a good approximation. Lieut. Calver
takes it at three vessels per acre for a well-sheltered
harbour of refuge."

RAMSGATE, A TIDAL HARBOUR.

Capacity for outer harbour, 6 vessels to the acre.
Capacity for inner harbour, 14 vessels to the acre.

CAPACITY OF FISHING HARBOURS.

In the Scotch fishing harbours the number of boats
varied from 85 to 115 per acre of basin, but in consequence
of the increase of size of boats from 80 to 90. At Newlyn,
in Cornwall, from 60 to 80.

OF MATERIALS, MASONRY, ETC.

TIMBER.

The use of timber in piers and harbour works is of
remote antiquity, and were it not for its perishable
character it would be superior to all other material for
these purposes.

88 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

The weak point of masonry is that it lacks continuity,
whereas timber possesses this in an eminent degree.

Timber is very largely used now in construction,
as well as an adjunct, in many forms and features of
harbour work ; and in the form of piling, either with stone
within and surrounding the piles, or without, or in boxes
rilled with stone, is often met with at the present day.
The Romans frequently used this latter method. Mr.
Stevenson not only mentions this, but gives a long extract
from a contract in Latin, between the Abbots of Arbroath
and the Burgesses, dating 450 years since, mentioning the
stone-filled timber chest method in the construction of
harbour works.

DESTRUCTION OF TIMBER BY WORMS.

The writer has adverted already to this subject, but
some further observations may not possibly be thought out
of place here. The three great mischief-makers are the
Teredo navalis, the Limnoria terebrans, and the Chelura
terebrans. The Teredo burrows internally, the Limnorics
plough away on the exterior, in some places at the rate
of an inch inwards per annum ; and between the three
timber has a very short duration, becoming burrowed
and honeycombed to that degree, that it actually falls to
pieces.

The writer has known three flights of wooden steps
eaten in nine years, and jetties requiring rebuilding. It
was formerly thought that the damage between low and
high-water marks was not considerable, but extended
experience has proved that the worms work at all heights
between high and low water, and under low-water level
until the pile enters the sand. Mr. R. Stevenson's experi-

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 89

ments show greenheart to be more durable than any other
wood, remaining sound for 19 years, teak for 13, also
beefwood.

The various timbers of the pine and -fir tribes of trees
show the commencement of the mischief by the Limnoria
terebrans, some at 13, others at 1 8 months, after exposure.
The salter the water, the more vigorous are the worms in
their attacks. Fresh water coming down an estuary from a
river may check, but does not prevent their ravages. The
writer has even seen greenheart destroyed, and it is merely
a question of time. Greenheart being comparatively
durable, as regards other kinds of .timber, would always be
used but for its great cost.

PROTECTION OF TIMBER.

Mr. Stevenson suggests that Memel logs for inside piles
might be sheathed over with greenheart, as from their
position they would not be chafed by vessels. Copper
sheathing and scupper nailing has often been found for
a long time effective. The nails are driven in closely
together and rust into a compact surface, and the oxide
enters into the outer skin, which for a time defies the
worms. Any small aperture, however, will admit the
enemy.

The process of creosoting was confidently believed to
be effective against the worm, but every engineer now
knows it is not so, and that they will attack timber treated
with creosite, even black in colour, and smelling strongly
of the solution.

Mr. Thomas Stevenson particularly mentions that
Mr. D. Stevenson draws attention to the fact, that great
destruction happened to thoroughly creosoted timber at

90 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

Scrabster, Leith, and Invergordon ; and the writer has
observed the same destruction go on in localities at both
sides of the English Channel — on the English side where
a powerful freshwater river forms its estuary, and on the
French side, where no brook entered the harbour. At
the latter locality the destruction, as might have been
expected, was much more rapid than at the former.

ADVANTAGES OF TIMBER AS A MATERIAL.

On this subject Mr. Stevenson speaks very strongly.
" It is much to be regretted," he says, " that greenheart is
so expensive in this country, and that some simple and
economical specific against the worm has not been discovered
for protecting Memel and the cheaper kinds of pine. The
grand desideratum in harbour works, which is the want of
continuity in the structure, would then be supplied. It follows
from the known laws of fluids, that each individual stone
in a pier, which is equally exposed throughout its whole
length, is subjected to a force which it can only resist
by its own inertia and the friction due to its contact with
the adjoining stones. The stability of a whole hydraulic
work may therefore be imperilled by the use of small
stones in one part of the fabric, while it may be in no way
increased by the introduction of heavier stones into other
parts. By the use of long logs of timber, carefully bolted
together, a new element of strength is obviously obtained.
A pier could be erected almost free of sea risk if constructed
of rectangular or other shaped prisms, consisting of logs of
timber treenailed and bolted together so as to form boxes,
say 10 feet square, and 30 or 40 feet long. The interior of
the boxes would be filled with rubble or beton? Mr.
Stevenson, at p. 152, gives the following: —

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 91

Beton. — Of late years Mr. Walker has introduced from
France the use of beton as a substitute for backing. This
artificial concrete is sometimes used in enormous blocks.
I have seen Cherbourg blocks of 50 tons prepared in boxes,
whose sides and tops are removed after the concrete has
set, in order to be again similarly employed. The pro-
portions used at Cherbourg by M. Rebeille were two of
sand or fine gravel to one of Portland cement ; and the
blocks thus prepared began to set in about two hours, were
as hard as Roman cement in 24 hours, and in the course
of a few months became nearly as hard as stone.

The first layer would be arranged across the pier, so as
the better to fit the irregularities of the bottom, and above
that they might be arranged lengthways of the pier, so as
to form its outer and inner walls, the space between being
filled with common rubble or beton.

DESTRUCTION OF STONE.

The Pholas bores through wood, blue lias and marble
limestone, hard and soft shales, sandstone, clay, and is much
found in peat deposits.

The saxicavcs make the limestone blocks holed like a
honeycomb ; pieces break off, and the creatures commence
work again on a new surface.

Mr. Stevenson quotes Professors Forbes and Hanley
regarding this (* Hist. Brit. Mollusca,' vol. i. p. 104).

OF IRON. ITS DURABILITY.

Promenade-piers are more often built of iron piles than
other materials, but not being calculated to afford shelter
the writer will not go into this material to any great extent.

92 IMPRO VED FISHER Y HARBOUR A CCOMMODA TION

As an adjunct in the shape of ladders and ringbolts, and
chains, or as stiffeners to a wooden pier, this material will
probably always remain in use. Twenty-five experiments
at the Bell Rock, in different kinds and combinations, when
ungalvanised, oxidised with much the same readiness. The
zinc stood 3 or 4 years, after which the iron thus coated
oxidised, as the ungalvanised iron. Castings one inch
square perished at the rate of one inch to the century.
An apparently sound bar was reduced in strength from
4068 Ibs. to 2352 Ibs., having lost nearly half its strength
in about fifty years.

Mr. Stevenson, after adducing a number of instances of
the perishable nature of iron, sums up as follows —

Where there is room for choice, neither cast nor malleable
iron should be used as a principal constituent of sea-works,
which are to be so deeply submerged as to become difficult
of inspection and repair.

When we find that even thick pieces of cast iron, and
those not constantly immersed, decay so rapidly, what can
be expected of the durability of malleable iron bolts and
tie-bars which do not exceed an inch or two in diameter ?
And what reliance can be placed on the stability of deeply
submerged marine structures, the unity of which depends
upon such perishable bonds ?

OF THE DRESSING AND METHOD OF ASSEMBLING
MASONRY IN SEA WORKS.

" The requirements for marine masonry are, in many
respects, nearly the opposite for land architecture. What is
wanted in sea-work of the ordinary kind, which neither
consists of framed carpentry, nor has been rendered mo-
nolithic by cement, is that each stone shall gravitate

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 93

freely, and transmit its pressure unimpaired to those
below it"

" If, therefore, a pier could be so constructed that on the
abstraction of a stone at the bottom the whole vertical
section of masonry resting upon it should at once sink, so
as to fill up the void, the perfection of marine masonry
would be attained, because the lower courses would then
bear the unreduced weight of the upper, and would there-
fore be the less easily abstracted. The difficulty of
pulling out any stone would then be proportional to its
distance from the top of the wall."

" In land architecture the whole structure is greatly
strengthened by the occasional insertion of long stones,
but in the sea, where each stone is assailed per se, the
stability of any horizontal course, if equally exposed
throughout, is measured by the stability of the smallest
stone in that course, and therefore, the more uniform the
size of the materials in each horizontal section of the work,
the better. It is of some moment that this should be
properly understood, and that it should be recollected, that
a pier equally exposed throughout its whole length is no
stronger than its weakest point wherever that may be"

" We must beware then of importing into marine en-
gineering, as is too generally done, the laws and maxims
of house architecture with its vertical bond and its small
but carefully dressed face-stones. It matters not, indeed,
how rough the masonry of the face-work of a sea-wall be,
provided there are no protuberances large enough to offer
material resistance to the jet of water in front of the wall ;
and we have already pointed out the valuable effects of
keeping the beds rough. All the blocks should, however,
bed and joint fairly on each other, and no face pinnings or
small closers should on any account be allowed in the outer

94 IMPRO VED FISHER Y HARBOUR A CCOMMODA TION

face-work. It is also of vital consequence that the backing
should not be slurred over by being loosely assembled,
but should on the contrary be carefully set, and regularly
bonded with the face-work as the building proceeds. The
outside of the parapet^ though of smaller dimensions, should
be similar in quality to the sea-wall, while its inside, from
not being exposed to the wash of the sea, may be built of
good heavy rubble."

" From the risk of damage already referred to, it comes to
be a difficult question to decide whether the roadway pitching
should be built with open joints, or be made altogether
impervious to water." Mr. T. S. Hunter mentions the
following instance of damage to the pitching at Granton : —
" A portion of the pitching, which had just been grouted
previous to the storm, was completely doubled up like a
sheet of paper, but after the grouting was removed, and
the same stones set dry, they were never again disturbed."
" The safe course is probably not to attempt the formation
of an altogether impervious surface where the sea-wall is
built of dry masonry." The doubling-up of this pitching
at Granton was doubtless owing to condensation of air,
through the pressure of the sea water which had entered
through the dry stone masonry of the sea-wall. It is well
known that hydraulic pressure may be so intensified that
no known material may withstand it.

Such an occurrence as the above would be termed by
labourers and mechanics, " a blow up."

" The quay-wall requires no particular notice. The
upper portions are sometimes set in mortar, but the rest is
set dry." This is not universal ; a very extensive and
important work, with which the writer is acquainted, has
the whole of the quay-wall carefully pointed with cement.
" The rubble-hearting should be free of earthy or clayey

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 95

matter, or rock of a quality likely to crumble on exposure.
Very large boulders should not be admitted, unless after
being broken up. In no case, unless the pier^be of great
width, should the stones be tipped in, without being after-
wards assembled with the hand. T/te rubble of break-
waters is generally of a much larger size than for ordinary
commercial piers. The ratio of voids in a cubic yard of
rubble, after being deposited, depends of course on the
kind of materials, and varies from about 4 to about 7 cubic
feet in each yard."

EDGE WORK IN PIER OR QUAY BUILDING.

On this method Mr. T. Stevenson quotes the views of
the late Mr. Bremner of Wick, as follows : —

" If the walls are constructed on a (horizontal) angle of
25° to the sea, and the materials built on edge with 3 inches
of slope to the foot perpendicular, they cannot retain any
air ; and the sea, running along a small portion of the
building at one time, actually assists in forcing together
the edge building." Mr. Stevenson speaks very highly
of this method, and particularly refers to it at St.
Andrews and Prestonpans, as evincing greatly superior
strength in these ancient works. He condemns the
assemblage of stones together in any other way, in exposed
positions, but he adds, " care must be taken, however, not
to adopt this plan where there is any risk of heavy seas
coming in a wrong direction, so as to strike the masonry
on the overhanging side."

Treenailing. — " This is a method of securing each stone
to its neighbour by iron bolts or wooden pins let into the
lying beds or into both beds and joints. At the Eddystone
and Bell Rock lighthouses the stones were not only secured

96 IMPRO VED FISHER Y HARBO UR A CCOMMODA TION

by oaken treenails, but were also cut so as to dovetail into
each other, and thus to render the mass practically
monolithic. They were also further secured by vertical
wedges." Such expensive methods are manifestly only
warrantable in peculiar works, where any uprooting of a
portion might indefinitely prolong the undertaking.

CONCRETE OR BETON.

This material has quite revolutionised harbour building,
and is coming into increased use yearly. Its use has
already been adverted to, but it is so fast taking the place
of stone that some further space must be devoted to it.

Mr. Stevenson mentions it as having been introduced
by Mr. Walker from France as a substitute for backing.
Cast in huge blocks, in boxes with moveable sides and tops,
it is of almost ubiquitous use in harbour-wall foundations ;
in France, and at the entrance of the Suez Canal, and
elsewhere, they have been placed in the water without more
special arrangement than pierres perdues, and allowed to
take their own positions on the line of work. Huge
artificial monoliths are constructed thus, and, by plank
arrangements, continuous building has been successfully
carried out.

Mr. Stevenson particularly mentions works carried out
by Mr. Balmer, Port Gordon, by putting a saw-draft in
each plank, and placing thin plates of iron between them,
thus forming a continuous mould for the concrete.

This method finds increasing favour, and on account
of the facility of manipulation it will probably always
continue so to do.

The quarrying of huge stones is thus avoided, and
the splinters or spawls are worked up with the greatest

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 97

advantage ; all squaring and facing of stone is also by
this means dispensed with, and the required form obtained
by moulding the materials, the cement and sand forming
the enveloping medium.

PORTLAND CEMENT.

In Mr. Stevenson's article on Harbours in the * Ency-
clopaedia Britannica,' 9th edition, we have the following
important particulars on this subject.

It must weigh 115 Ibs. to the bushel, and be ground
extremely fine, and must stand the following test.

It is to be made into small blocks, I inch square,
8 inches long, and after having been placed in water for
7 days, is to be put on two supports 6 inches apart, and
must stand a /o-lb. strain.

Slabs or cakes are also to be made, and after being in
water for 24 hours, no cracks or softness must be visible on
the surface.

The cement must be taken from four different bags,
must be tested weekly, and the results sent to the
engineer.

It must be brought direct from the manufactory, and
kept dry in a store or chamber with both a wooden floor
and side walls.

THE CONCRETE

is to consist of I part Portland cement, 2 of sand, and
5 of gravel, thoroughly mixed with pure water. Large
angular stones are to be added after deposit, care being
taken that all the stones are completely surrounded by
concrete 4 inches thick. All the stones must be per-
fectly clean, and free of sea-weed.

VOL. IX. — E. 4. H

9S IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODA TION

No concrete must be made during frost.
It is thoroughly to be mixed in a machine, and Mr.
Massent's is mentioned as performing twelve revolutions.

IRON CONCRETE.

At Stranraer Pier, constructed of timber, Mr. Leslie
introduced a concrete consisting of gravel and iron borings.
Mr. John Howkins, junr., resident engineer, states " the
quantity of iron borings mixed with the hearting was 160
tons, and taking the weight of the gravel at 20 cubic feet
to the ton, the proportion of borings to gravel' in weight
is I ton of the former to 17 of the latter, and the proportion
in bulk, i to 34, assuming 10 cubic feet of iron borings to
weigh one ton (which, however, I have not the means of
ascertaining at present).

" In digging down at the end of the pier, where the gravel
and borings have been acted upon by the sea for two and a
half months only, I found the layers of borings caked in
a hard mass, and particles of gravel and sand adhering to
the sides of the layers ; showing that the concretionary
influence of the borings is extending, and will, in all
probability, in course of time completely bind the inter-
vening layers of gravel."

ASPHALTIC MASONRY AND CONCRETE.

" I have lately tried," says Mr. Stevenson, " at the
island of Inchkeith some experimental masonry cemented
together with British asphalte. At the same time, the
experiment was successfully tried of letting down under
the surface of low water, stones and hot asphalte placed in
canvas bags, which were pressed down upon the irregular

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 99

rocky bottom, so as to equalise it and render its surface
ready for founding on."

"If this substitute for mortar and cement in rubble
and ashlar work be found capable of resisting the chemi-
cal action of sea-water, it bids fair to become of very
great value in sea- works." Mr. T. Stevenson's work having
been published as long since as 1864, further expe-
rience doubtless enables him to speak decidedly an this
material.

MR. BREMNER'S PONTOONS.

The proposal to construct in some adjoining place of
shelter, enormous pontoons of timber, for putting in the foun-
dation of low-water piers, the writer imagines must have
occurred to engineers in more than one instance.

It has occurred to the writer of this in the case of a
proposed harbour many years since, where the bottom was
smooth and regular, and consequently fit to receive such a
pontoon.

The under parts of the work are to be built in these
pontoons, which are to be towed by steam-tug from the
most convenient harbour in the vicinity for the construction
of such pontoons, to the desired spot, where they are to be
carefully grounded. Piles would have to be securely
driven to guide the pontoon into the required position, and
heavy anchors also laid down on each side of the site, to
assist in gaining it, and holding on the pontoon until it has
grounded as required. By valves arranged in the sides and
bottom, the water could be admitted so that the pontoon
could not again float.

The whole of the foundation could be built of continuous
concrete by this method, and the superstructure could be

H 2

ioo IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODA TION

added after the pontoon and foundation had firmly bedded
themselves.

The advantage of putting in a foundation in this manner
would be very great, as the whole being continuous, would
probably escape that piecemeal overthrow which has
happened to so many sea-works, both in construction and
after completion.

In the upper facing of such foundations, embrasure-like
notches or troughs might be left, into which the super-
structure of concrete would mould itself, which would give
the whole additional stability.

Such a plan, Mr. Stevenson observes, merits notice and
might perhaps be found economical and suitable in some
situations, but the great difficulty is to fit the bottom of the
pontoon to the irregularities of the ground on which it is to
rest, and it is possible this has prevented the execution of
this method.

Mr. Stevenson does not mention any other engineer as
having suggested this method of putting in low-water
foundations, except Mr. Bremner, of Wick, deceased ; but
the writer cannot but think it has suggested itself to others
in the profession.

MR. RENDEL'S METHOD OF DEPOSITING PIERRES
PERDUES.

The gantry and waggon method of working with tumble-
stone is thus referred to by Mr. Stevenson : — The late
Mr. Rendel introduced an improved and valuable method
of depositing the pierres perdues or rubble used in the
construction of large breakwaters ; this method he first
employed at Millbay Pier, Plymouth, in 1838, in a depth
of 38 feet, and afterwards on a still larger scale, in the

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 101

construction of the breakwaters at Holyhead and Port-
land. The improvement consists in depositing the rough
materials from stagings of timber, elevated a considerable
height above high water. The stones are brought on the
staging in waggons, through the bottoms of which they are
discharged into the sea. The principle on which these
stagings are designed, is that of offering the smallest
possible resistance to the sea, the under structure consist-
ing of nothing else than single upright piles for supporting
each roadway.

The great success which has attended this method is
well known, but for the majority of fishing-boat harbours,
this method requires too much material ; for large refuge
harbours however, which may be a development of fish-
ing harbours already existing, it is quite possible this
method may be again employed, as at Portland and Holy-
head.

Two great points to recommend this mode are — first, the
rapidity of construction, and secondly, the opportunity of
employing a large amount of unskilled labour ; thirdly,
refuse stone may be used, as in the case of Portland, where
the cap stone, covering the beds of good Portland stone,
was used, and cost only the labour of removal. As is
well known, the labour was that of convicts, under
qualified leading men.

MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS IN CONNECTION WITH
HARBOURS.

DEPOSIT OF SILT, SAND, &c.

Decrease in depth has been caused in some harbours
by deposit of mud, sand, or gravel. This is a great evil,
and very difficult to cure.

102 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

Where there is too much mud, excavation and hand or
steam dredging are employed in the removal.

In respect of mud, very effective work is constantly per-
formed, but both sand and gravel are very difficult to deal
with ; in fact, the former would almost seem to have the
power of propagating itself, for it is noticed that in many
harbours naturally existing, there are banks quite moderate
in size from which barges have removed the sand for agri-
cultural and other purposes, from time immemorial, which
banks suffer no perceptible decrease. In the case of small
banks where this is the case, it is clear an annual deposit
must be made.

In the present state of our knowledge it would be little
less than quackery, observes Mr. Stevenson, to lay down
rules for the guidance of the engineer.

MOVEMENT OF SHINGLE.

There is a large accumulation of shingle on many parts of
our coast, which may in many cases be traced to the neigh-
bouring cliffs, in which very extensive beds of gravel, &c.,
often exist. Wherever the prevalent winds blow obliquely
on the shore, the waves cause the beach to travel more or
less along it, and on the south coast of England they partly
obstruct the entrances of harbours.

Where such accumulations take place, it is desirable to
place the entrances of harbours in as windward a position
as possible, and on the south coast of England to point
the entrance to the south-east, and to keep the beach
back with piers. In addition to a pair of piers between
which the river runs into the sea, a jetty has sometimes
been erected west of the west pier to catch the travelling
shingle.

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 103

SHOALING OF NATURAL BAYS.

It is not a matter of course, that when a space of water is
enclosed with solid piers, a great deposit should follow
although such is undeniably sometimes the case.

"The shoaling of channels," says Mr. Stevenson,
" which have been dredged deeper than the original
bottom, forms no proper ground for predicting a similar
reduction of depth due to the natural profile of conservancy
of the shore, which generally preserves its symmetry with
remarkable persistency, even within artificial enclosing
walls." •

CAUSE OF ENCLOSED HARBOURS KEEPING OPEN.

" Mr. Calver, who is strongly opposed to close harbours,
on the ground that they will fill up, makes an exception
regarding small tidal harbours, which he says are kept clear
by the ' scavenging process ' of high winds during ebbing
tide, and that the most ' diminutive lipper ' is effective in
moving the lighter kinds of deposit. The surface-ripple
described by Mr. Calver will no doubt have a certain effect."
Mr. Stevenson considers there must be some more efficient
cause to keep ports and harbours open, and attributes it
to the run, for wherever there is a ground-swell or run,
ordinary waves produced by a gale are sufficient agents, he
thinks, to perform this office.

In gales the undulations, as he observes, " become waves of
translation, and as each wave as it enters the basin brings a
certain amount of water into it, it ultimately must escape
seawards, or the water would stand at a higher level in the
harbour than the sea outside. The under-surface current
thus produced runs probably very near the bottom.

104 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODA TION

Hence detritus and silt that would be left in the basin,
were there no such current, are carried out again into the
open sea."

During a gale of wind the writer particularly observed a
strong surging current setting out past a harbour entrance
in a bay, with apparently as strong a stream as out of a
river harbour.

" That the quantity of water so brought in cannot be
very small may be judged from the fact that, during a gale
in the Irish Sea in 1842, there were counted 9*6 waves per
minute, so that about 14,000 waves broke on the shore
during 24 hours. Although each wave injected but a small
portion of its contents into a harbour, it is quite conceivable
that water, returning seaward, should prove efficient as a
scouring power, or at least in preventing the entrance of silt
near the bottom." It has been recommended in some cases
that an opening should be left in addition to the entrance,
and such an entrance was left at St. Ives in Cornwall by
Smeaton at the harbour. This has since been closed, and
an accumulation of much sand having taken place, it has
been proposed to re-open it.

EFFICIENCY OF BACK WATER SCOURING.

On this subject Mr.T. Stevenson observes: " The profession
may be said to be divided into two great classes — one indeed
placing a very high estimate on the efficacy of back water in
preserving the depth of our tidal harbours ; the other on the
due regulation of the currents. The one preserves, with the
utmost jealousy, every sidelake or bay as being the recipients
of what they regard as the grand vis viva of navigations ;
and the other are willing to convert indentations, as well as
even the wider parts of the estuary, into solid land, by the

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 105

foundation of straight embankments diverging slightly
towards the ocean.

" The low-water sectional areas of many estuaries and of
creeks increase directly as the quantities of tidal water which
lie landwards of each section-line?

The great desideratum required, before any correct theory
can be formed upon this subject, is the means of discovering
the scouring power of a given quantity of water. The daily
varying amount of tidal water which is propelled into an
estuary from the ocean, the ever-changing amount of the
land waters, which is sometimes extremely small and at
others enormously increased in volume, and the extreme
diversity of materials forming the bed which, at different
parts of the bed of the same river, consist of gravel, sand,
or clay, exhibiting endless variety in the sizes and coherence
of the particles — present an almost hopeless perplexity for
the mind to grapple with. To such causes we may
attribute the conflicting opinions which are daily hazarded,
and no one of which admits of being proved or disproved.
From a comparison made several years ago of different low-
water sections of the estuaries of various rivers, and also of
bays and creeks in a state of nature, " I found," says Mr.
Stevenson, "that the low-water sectional areas increased
directly as tJie quantities of tide-water tJtat lay landwards of
each section-line'' " By thus comparing the sectional area at
any point with the area at a point farther down the estuary,
we free the question of the difficulty of dealing with the
unknown action of the freshes which is nearly the same at
both places, as well as of the ever- vary ing amount of the
tides, which is also very nearly equal at both."

"The difference of area will probably in all ordinary
channels depend on the quantity of tidal water contained
between the two places where the sections are taken. We

io6 IMPRO VED FISHER Y HARBO UR A CCOMMODA TION

should therefore find a progressive increase in the low-
water sectional area, proportional to the amount of tidal
water, as we approach the sea, because the tidal capacity
of the river is always increasing, while the land freshes in
most rivers remain nearly the same."

" The importance of preserving intact the capacity of the
upper portions of rivers ought never to be a matter of any
doubt, for although it be perfectly true that contraction
benefits the navigation at the place where it exists, the
effect cannot be otherwise than detrimental to those lower
parts of the estuary, including the bar if there be one,
which are in every respect the most important."

"It has been often proposed that large tracts of land
should be reclaimed on the upper portions of rivers, and it
has been argued that the channel so contracted will of
course become deeper than before."

Owing to the disastrous consequences which have
resulted from large proportionate enclosures from estuaries,
a Bill was brought into Parliament to the effect that no such
work should be commenced without authority from the
Admiralty, who must first be convinced that no prospective
damage to the navigation might be apprehended.

Unfortunately, for ages past large areas of the estuaries
of bar harbours have been enclosed, from which cause the
bars at the entrances rose higher and higher, the depths on
some bars were much reduced, and on others so much so
that, as harbours, these estuaries became almost extin-
guished. The Bill was brought into Parliament by
the late Mr. Joseph Hume, and from it may be said to have
resulted the Tidal Harbours Commission, by which, under
the conduct of Admiral (then Captain) Washington and
others, a large amount of valuable and interesting evidence
was collected and embodied in its reports. " From calcula-

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 107

tions of the relations subsisting between the low-water
sectional areas and the amount of tidal water lying land-
wards of the section lines " (continues Mr. T. Stevenson), " I
found that in the narrow artificial channel of the River Dee,
Cheshire, the efficacy of a given quantity of tidal water was
greater than in navigations which were left more nearly in
a state of nature. But, as already stated, the effect of
excluding water being prejudicial to the lower reaches,
ought to lead us to other means of improvement than the
erection of such high bulwarks."

"The effect of low-water training walls which do not
confine the strength of the current, but simply guide the
first of the flood and the last of the ebb-tide, are now well
known from their extensive employment — as for example on
the Clyde, Ribble, Lune, Nith and other rivers."

The proportion of backwater to the low-water sectional
area at the mouth or over the bar of any navigation will
depend on the nature of the bottom, the force and direc-
tion of the waves, and the direction in which the stream
enters the sea. The proportion for four navigations is
as under : —

RATIOS OF LOW-WATER SECTIONAL AREAS OF RIVERS AT THEIR
JUNCTION WITH THE SEA, AND THE TIDAL CAPACITY OF
THEIR ESTUARIES, AND DISCHARGE OF FRESH WATER.

Boyne . . . 29*7 sq. yds. to 1,000,000 cub. yds. of backwater.

Tay . ... 27-4 „ „ „

Mersey ... 22-5 „ „ „

Montrose . . 28*0 „ „ „

ARTIFICIAL SCOURING.

On this subject the remarks of Mr. Stevenson are very
important.

" The preservation of the depth of harbours at a lower

io8 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODA TION

level than that of the original bottom is so often attended
with great difficulty and expense. Where the deposit is
confined to the space between high- and low-water marks,
the scouring by means of salt or fresh water is comparatively
easy ; but where there is a bar outside the entrance, the
case becomes very different. The efficacy of the scour, so
long as it is not impeded by enlargements of the channel,
may be kept up for long distances, but it soon comes to an
end after it meets the sea."

" When the volume of water liberated is great compared
with the alveus or channel through which it has to pass, the
stagnant water which originally occupied the channel does
not, to the same extent, destroy the momentum as where
the scouring has to be produced by a sudden finite impulse.
In the one case the scouring power depends c&teris paribus
simply on the relation subsisting between the quantity
liberated in a given space of time, and the sectional area
of the channel through which it has to pass ; while in the
other it depends on the propelling head, and the direction in
which the water leaves the sluice.

Mr. Rendel's scheme for Birkenhead was on the former
principle, which it must be recollected is only applicable
where the soil is easily stirred up. In all cases of scouring
it is of course an essential condition that such a velocity be
generated as is necessary for acting upon the soil. The
large amount of back-water will be inoperative if it has less
than what may be called the effective velocity, or that required
for acting on the particular kind of soil of which the
bottom consists.

If, for example, the discharge of a river be utilised
by the construction of regulating reservoirs, there will
be a diminution of scouring power, because a sudden
flood will remove what the same, or even a much greater,

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 109

quantity of water will never effect if liberated more
slowly.

The first example of artificial scouring in this country
seems to be due to Smeaton, who used it effectively at
Ramsgate in 1779. At Bute Docks, Cardiff, designed by
the late Sir W. Cubitt, the access to the outer basin is kept
open most successfully by means of artificial scouring on a
gigantic scale. The entrance was cut through mud banks
for a distance of about three-fourths of a mile seaward of
high-water mark. The initial discharge when the reservoir is
full is stated to be 2500 tons per minute. I have known
even so limited a discharge as one ton per second, produce
very useful effects in keeping a small tidal harbour clear
of sand."

DURATION OF SCOURING.

"Minard remarks that when a channel has to be
maintained by regular and habitual scouring, the whole
effect is generally produced in the course of the first quarter
of an hour. This was made the subject of particular
investigation at Dunkirk, where sections of the channel
were made before and during the scour ; and it was found
that there was no alteration of the sectional area after the
first quarter of an hour.

"He also points out, as the best form of scouring
reservoirs, that which will admit of the largest discharge
in a given time, or, in other words, where the mean distance
from the orifice is a minimum. Such a form is obviously
the semicircle having the point of discharge in the centre."

EFFECTIVE VELOCITIES OF CURRENTS.
The following are results of experiments, made by

1 10 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODA TION

different observers, on the size of particles which are
moved by currents of different velocities : —

3 in. per sec. = 0*170 mile per hour will just begin to work on fine

clay.

6 in. „ = 0*340 mile per hour will lift fine sand.
8 in. „ =0.4545 „ will lift sand as coarse as linseed.

1 2 in. „ =0*6819 „ will sweep along fine gravel.

24 in. „ = 1*3638 „ will roll along rounded pebbles

i in. in diameter.

3 ft. „ = 2*045 mile Per hour will sweep along sl-.ppery angular
stones of the size of an egg.

SEND OR SCEND OF THE WAVES.
On this subject the writer has appended some extracts
from a communication from Mr. Meik, C.E., to Mr. T.
Stevenson. "When passing over a wave with a lO-ft. lift,
some of our small colliers would send 7 J to 8 feet, whereas
a long screw collier of 180 feet length would only send
5 feet. A small sailing collier would probably draw about
12 feet water. A large fishing-boat would draw 7 feet,
and might send possibly 4 feet, but of course this would
vary from the form of hull, and no class of craft differ more
in their sections than fishing-boats, very full bodied boats
being alone fit for some stations. The send is generally
taken at two-thirds of the greatest lift of the wave for
ordinary colliers."

LIGHTHOUSES.

Every fishing harbour should at least be provided with
one lighthouse, or an equivalent arrangement of one or
more lamps. Where there are outlying dangers, leading
lights should be established, by keeping which in line, or
" in one," as sailors term it, the helmsman may be able to
avoid such dangers.

FOR GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. \ 1 1

When alteration of course is necessary after passing a
danger, two more lights in one, of a different colour, should
be provided for steering on the fresh line of bearing.
Sometimes a screened light is used showing only over a
sector of a certain number of degrees, to keep boats or
vessels on a safe bearing.

The two following works may be consulted with
advantage : ' Rudimentary Treatise on Lighthouses,' by
Alan Stevenson, LL.B. : Weale, London, 1850; and ' Light-
house Illumination,' by Mr. T. Stevenson: Weale,
London, 1859.

"THE MOCK OR APPARENT LIGHT

is a simple means of illuminating a sunk rock or other
danger which is inaccessible in stormy weather. This
object is attained without requiring a lamp or any kind
of flame to be placed on the rock itself. A pole or
beacon, carrying on its top a lantern containing different
forms of optical agents (depending on the nature of local
requirements), is all that is needed on the rock itself. A
beam of parallel rays, proceeding from a distant lamp
placed on the shore, is thrown seawards upon the lantern
on the beacon, where the incident rays are re-dispersed by
the apparatus, so as to produce an optical deception to the
eye of the mariner, who supposes he sees a lamp burning
where there is really none. The apparent light is also
very useful for marking the seaward ends of breakwaters
or piers. In entering harbours at night, sometimes one
pier-head must be hugged, sometimes the other, according
to the direction of the wind ; and so critical in stormy
weather is the taking of a harbour, that even a single yard
of distance may be of consequence. Those only who know

H2 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION

from personal experience the anxiety which is felt in a
dark night on entering a narrow-mouthed harbour with
a heavy sea running, can appreciate the vital importance of
discovering, at as great a distance as possible, the exact
position of the weather pier-head. Harbour lights are from
their exposed position often inaccessible in stormy
weather. At some places, too, the outermost breakwaters
are altogether disconnected from the shore, and can only
be reached in fine weather from a boat. The efficiency of
an apparent light in such cases of difficulty has been fully
tested at the entrance of Stornaway Bay, in the Island of
Lewis, where it has been in use for the last nine years,
and has been favourably reported on by the captains of
many vessels that have run for the anchorage at night."

" The beacon, surmounted by the apparent light apparatus,
which distributes the rays which fall upon it over an azi-
muthal angle of 62°, is placed on the Arnish Rock — a sunken
reef lying in the entrance to the bay. The lamp with its
apparatus is placed on the land, at the distance of about
530 feet from the beacon." In many cases gas has
superseded oil, and for harbour lights it is now almost
universal at towns of any size. On the ends of break-
water piers, which in many cases cannot be safely visited
in bad weather, the gas is kept daily as well as nightly
burning, being turned down low by day, by stop-cocks
placed in a safe position in gales.

DANGERS OF DEEPENING THE ENTRANCE OF
HARBOURS OF SMALL REDUCTIVE POWER.

This matter has been previously referred to, and
Mr. T. Stevenson's observations are here given at length.
" One cause of disturbance in harbours, which is often not
sufficiently considered, is the inconsiderate deepening of

FOR GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 113

the entrance without making, at the same time, a pro-
portionate enlargement of the internal area, or providing
other works for counteracting the effect. As the depth of
the water is more and more increased, waves of greater
height become possible at the entrance, so that large v
waves gain admission to the interior."

"At the port of Sunderland, Mr. D. Stevenson recom-
mended the removal of nearly the whole of the inner stone
pier, and the substitution of works of open frame work,
in order to tranquillise the interior. These works, which
have been quite successful, were rendered necessary by
the frequent dredging of the channel at and near the
entrance."

ADVANTAGES OF Two ENTRANCES TO A HARBOUR.

On this matter Mr. T. Stevenson instances Peterhead,
which has two harbours, the north and south. These were
united some years since by a canal, and the advantage has
been of the most marked character. Vessels can now clear
out by the north or south mouth, according to the state of
wind or sea. In making such an arrangement, however,
Mr. Stevenson observes that some caution is necessary, as
the run is apt to extend from the one harbour to the
other, unless there be a considerable area ; and where the
tides are strong the currents may also prove troublesome.

Refuge harbours have constantly two entrances, and are
of so great extent that they would often be inconvenient to
enter if only one were provided. Cherbourg, Portland,
and Plymouth have each two entrances. As these large
spaces of water are enclosed anchorages, and not harbours
in the limited sense of the term, the objections regarding
the run of the ground-swell do not of course apply.

VOL. IX. — E. 4. I

THE BEST SYSTEM OF

LIFE INSURANCE FOR FISHERMEN,

AND OF

INSURING BOATS, GEAR, NETS, ETC.

" ARMATEUR?—{}. W. DE CAUX.]

VOL. IX.— E. 5.

LIFE INSURANCE FOR FISHERMEN.

IT would be a work of supererogation in the present state
of ethical knowledge to argue as to the national importance
or individual value of insurance. The colossal — I might
say the cosmopolitan — insurance offices which, on fair and
equitable terms, are willing to undertake the risks that
inevitably attend upon life and property, are amongst the
most important beneficent institutions of our land ; and the
magnificent Orders of Providence — as they might be truly
called — which watch over the working man in sickness and
in death, supplemented as they are by benefit clubs which
permeate the whole country, prove beyond all doubt that
the true principles of insurance are well understood and
widely appreciated by all classes of the community. The
ordinary Englishman and the cannie Scot are, as a rule, as
provident in this respect as their means will allow, and
scorn to shelter themselves from reproach by such a subter-
fuge as did the witty Irishman, who, when asked why he
had not provided against a " rainy day," naively replied :
" Please, your honour, and so I did, but there came two ! "

There are, however, some few classes whose employments
and pursuits are so exceptionally dangerous in their nature,
that a consideration of how best their special and peculiar
risks can be met and provided against will be both interest-
ing and, it is to be hoped, profitable. Foremost amongst

n8 LIFE INSURANCE FOR FISHERMEN.

such classes are, undoubtedly, fishermen and fishing-boat
owners. The former, when pursuing their calling, literally
carry their lives in their hands ; whilst the risks of the
latter are so great that no underwriters are found willing to
insure more than a portion of their property, and that, too,
at an exceedingly high rate. I purpose to consider the
subject of insurance as it affects fishermen and fishing-boat
owners in all its bearings ; and in order that I may do so
in a clear and precise manner, I shall treat it under the
three following heads : — Insurance of Eishermen ; Insurance
of Fishing-boats and their Stores ; Insurance of Fishing
Gear.

INSURANCE OF FISHERMEN.

It would be impossible to over-estimate the importance
of insurance to fishermen, because there is no avocation
which entails greater risk to life and limb than theirs.
Occasionally the country is startled by the results of some
terrible gale, in which many gallant fishing craft, with all
their crews, have been engulphed by the treacherous sea ;
but continually, all around our coasts, there are being
drowned fishermen of whose deaths the general public
never even hear. Reliable statistics on this point it is
impossible to obtain. Were the sea-coasts divided into
districts, as they should be, with competent officers to
report regularly to Government upon all matters affecting,
directly and indirectly, fishermen and their calling, this
matter would receive due attention ; and I doubt not it
would then be found that the accidental mortality amongst
fishermen is as large, if it be not larger, than the accidental
mortality amongst even the coal-miners of the whole
country.

Putting aside all eleemosynary considerations, the

LIFE INSURANCE FOR FISHERMEN. 119

question of how best a fisherman can insure himself against
sickness, accident, and death, is one about the answering
of which there cannot be, or ought not to be, two opinions.
It is a question which has long ago been answered in
the most unequivocal, because practical, manner, by such
Friendly Societies as the Ancient Order of Foresters, and
the Manchester Unity of Odd Fellows — Societies which,
as I have already said, are in the best and truest sense of
the words, Orders of Providence and Benevolence. Were
it not a matter beyond all doubt, it would be difficult to
believe that these noble Orders insure all classes of the
labouring population upon precisely the same terms. A
fisherman or a coal-miner pays no more than any other
labouring man, and he is entitled to receive, and does
receive, exactly the same benefits. For very small sums
of money, varying from sixpence to ninepence per week,
fishermen can insure for themselves and their families the
following benefits : — in case of sickness or accident, 12s. per
week for six months, and 6s. per week for a further six
months, with the best medical and surgical attendance
free ; the sum of £10 for the burial of the wife, and the
sum of £12 at the death of the fisherman himself. This
latter sum is paid, even if the insurer be lost at sea, and his
body be not recovered. On almost equally liberal terms
fishermen can also insure themselves against accident to
limb and life ; and, inasmuch as no labouring man is better
able to pay the necessary premiums than is a fisherman,
there is little or no excuse for his not so insuring for the
benefit of himself and his wife and family. And that very
large numbers of fishermen do avail themselves of the
advantages thus offered them, is proved by the fact that
fishermen form a very large percentage of the members of
the Friendly Societies which are established round our

120 LIFE INSURANCE FOR FISHERMEN,

coasts. The desirability, however, of their doing so, every
one of them, cannot be too strongly impressed upon them,
and upon their wives, some of whom are, unfortunately, so
careless and improvident, that they frequently neglect to
keep up the trifling payments which would secure to them
and their families the very great benefits which these
Societies offer to them.

Fishermen, also, should be induced to abstain from all
reckless conduct whilst at sea, and to wear life-belts when
engaged in ferrying fish, or when performing any other
peculiarly-dangerous duty. Familiarity with the sea breeds
contempt for its dangers ; and, unfortunately, the spirit of
bravado tempts many fishermen to ridicule those of their
comrades who are careful and cautious. This is the true
reason why so few fishermen will wear life-belts ; for it is a
well-known fact that, although owners at their own expense
have frequently provided such safeguards for their crews,
the men themselves have refused to avail themselves of
such liberality, and in some instances the belts have been
wantonly destroyed or thrown overboard. Fishermen
should also be encouraged to protect themselves in some
degree by learning to swim, for it is a remarkable fact that
a large proportion of them cannot swim. Fatal accidents at
sea frequently occur through recklessness or carelessness ;
and many a fisherman who is now drowned would escape
with simply a wetting if he only knew how to swim.
Whether it would be wise to compel every fisherman — say
every fisherman under twenty years of age — to pass an
examination in swimming, it would be difficult to say, but,
at all events, special facilities and inducements should be
afforded and offered them for the acquiring of so .healthful
and valuable an art. The several points I have here
referred to might be argued and illustrated in great detail,

INSURANCE OF FISHING-BOATS. 121

but inasmuch as in my opinion they are self-evident pro-
positions, it would be simply a waste of time to enforce
their truthfulness at greater length. One suggestion, how-
ever, I would make to the powers that be, and that is as to
the advisability of their insuring — say to the extent of £100
— the life of every fisherman who belongs to the Royal
Naval Reserve. The Government of the day could do this
at but a trifling cost to the country, and in my opinion it
would be% a very great inducement to fishermen to enrol
themselves in this most useful and patriotic corps.

INSURANCE OF FISHING-BOATS AND THEIR STORES.

The best system of insuring fishing-boats and their stores
—that is, their masts, sails, rigging, and all other things
necessary for their navigation — from damage by fire, wind,
or water, either at sea or in harbour, is that which is known
as " Mutual Marine Insurance." It is the best system,
because it is the cheapest and the safest, and because, as I
shall presently show, it secures to boat-owners advantages
and privileges which no other system of underwriting can
pretend to offer them. Mutual Marine Insurance, as its
name implies, means nothing more nor less than that boat-
owners should insure each other's vessels upon the principle
of co-operation, and should thus reap all the profits of the
underwriters, as well as the advantages of the insurance
itself. It is the cheapest system, because the statistics of
Mutual Insurance Societies prove that, even in exception-
ally-disastrous years, the rate of insurance of fishing vessels
at Lloyds is considerably more than is required for the
repair of all losses ; and that it is the safest system the
slightest reflection will show, because the boat-owner has
the guarantee for his insurance, not of a mere name — which

122 INSURANCE OF FISHING-BOATS.

is all the professional underwriter is to him — but of many
business men, all of whom are personally known to him,
and of whose position and respectability he has ocular
demonstration. The professional underwriter is a gentle-
man who expects, and naturally expects, to reap a profit
from his transactions, and, therefore, all the rules and
regulations which govern underwriting, are made and
drawn primarily for the benefit of the underwriter, and not
for the benefit of the insured. No other logical inference
can be drawn than that the interests of the underwriter are,
and must be, considered paramount to those of the boat-
owner, because the underwriter calculates upon a profit for
himself out of the premiums paid by the insurer. The
Mutual Marine insurer does not calculate upon or expect
anything of the kind. All he agrees to and undertakes is,
when required, to pay his share towards helping a brother
boat-owner when in distress ; and all he calculates upon
and expects is to be assisted in a like manner by his
brother boat-owners whenever he himself may need aid.
There are, however, Mutual Marine Insurance Societies,
and Mutual Marine Insurance Societies, and I shall, there-
fore, proceed to describe the salient features of that system
which, in my opinion, is incontestably the best. Com-
paratively speaking, it is a new system, but it has been
tried for some years with marked and increasing success ;
its principles are spreading, and it bids fair in a short time,
if not to absorb, like Aaron's rod, all other systems, at
least to assimilate them to itself.

Legal liability and financial position of underwriters. —
In considering the subject of Marine Insurance, the first
question to be asked and answered is as to the legal liability
and financial status of the underwriters ; and the primary
advantage which is offered by the system I advocate, is

INSURANCE OF FISHING-BOATS. 123

that it gives to the insured the ample guarantee of a
legally-constituted company. In ordinary marine in-
surances, the contract between the parties is simple
enough. The boat-owner, having paid his premium,
receives a stamped policy of insurance, which is signed
by the various underwriters who have divided the risk
between them, and each of whom is only liable for the
amount which is written against his name. Underwriters
do not pledge each other's credit, and are not responsible
for each other's debts. If there were half a dozen under-
writers to a policy, and, in the event of a loss, only two of
them were able to pay, the insured boat-owner would have
to be satisfied with the amounts for which the two solvent
underwriters were personally responsible, and would have
to lose the other amounts which the four insolvent under-
writers could not pay. And, were he disposed to commence
legal proceedings, he would have to take such proceedings
against the defaulters separately — a costly and hazardous
course, which but few boat-owners would care to adopt.
A boat-owner, therefore, has to trust to the honour of each
underwriter, in the same manner that the backer of a horse
in a race has to trust to the honour of the bookmaker with
whom he bets, although he may know no more about him
than he does about the man in the moon. Some
Mutual Marine Insurance Associations are similarly
situated, and should be avoided for precisely the same
reasons. An Insurance Association without a legal status
would have almost insuperable difficulties to overcome,
were it to attempt to compel its members to pay any call
that might be made upon them ; and a boat-owner insured
with such an Association would, in the event of a loss, have
still greater difficulty in enforcing payment of his demand
if the Association either could not, or would not, pay him.

124 INSURANCE OF FISHING-BOATS.

A Mutual Marine Insurance Company, according to the
system I advocate, should be incorporated under the pro-
visions of the Companies Acts, 1862 and 1867, and its
position, as well as the position of the insured, would then
be secured. Such a company could carry on its business
with but little trouble, and without unnecessary risk on
either side. Being legally constituted, it could issue in-
surance policies under its seal ; and whilst, on the one
hand, insuring members could be compelled to pay the
calls made upon them, on the other hand, insured members
could enforce the payment of whatever might be due to
them.

Entrance fees and calls.— In a properly - constituted
Mutual Marine Insurance Company, there is no necessity
for the entrance fees to be large, because, whenever money
may be required for the payment of a casualty, it can be
readily raised by means of a call ; and, for the self-same
reason, there is no necessity for such a Company to hold a
large balance in hand. A respectable balance at the bank
is undoubtedly a very pleasant thing, but no business man
keeps even that if he can find more profitable employment
for his spare capital ; and what is true with regard to an
individual is equally true with regard to a Mutual Marine
Insurance Company. A boat-owner who insures in the
ordinary manner must annually pay a year in advance, and
as the premium is never less than 8 per cent, it follows
that a boat-owner who has three or four vessels must, every
Christmas, be prepared to pay the underwriters in hard
cash a considerable sum of money. If, however, he be
insured with such a company as I advocate, his entrance
premium would be only 2 per cent, while the calls which
from time to time might be made upon him would rarely
exceed 4 per cent per annum. And every business man

INSURANCE OF FISHING-BOATS. 125

knows that such a system must be highly advantageous to
all persons, especially to those who are not overburdened
with this world's wealth. Some gentlemen are in favour of
holding a heavy reserve fund in hand, but I cannot see any
advantage in such a course. A call for what money may
be required can be made and collected in a few weeks, and
in my opinion it is far better that moneys which are not
needed immediately, should remain fructifying in the
pockets of the shareholders, than that they should be
placed in a fund from which little or no benefit would
result, even to the company.

Average and total loss insurance. — A feature, and a
very proper feature, of Mutual Marine Insurance, is that
no vessel shall be insured for its full value except as
against total loss. Such a rule is a great safeguard against
fraud, because, as the owner has to underwrite himself to a
certain extent, he is specially interested in keeping his
vessel and her stores in sea-going trim, and, in the event
of damage being done to her hull or stores, in seeing that
such damage is properly and effectually repaired at the
lowest possible cost.

All damage should be paid for. — I have already pointed
out that the rules of ordinary underwriting are made for
the primary and special benefit of the underwriter, and the
regulation which provides that no damage shall be paid
for unless it amount to a certain sum, proves this state-
ment to be correct. I am of opinion that all real damage,
as distinguished from wear and tear, should be paid (or.
According to the ordinary rule, if the limit were fixed at
£50 the underwriter would not contribute a penny-piece
towards the repair of any damage, the cost of repairing
which would be below that sum ; if the repairs amounted
even 10^49 195-. \\d., the underwriter would be exempted

126 INSURANCE OF FISHING-BOATS.

from liability in the matter. This, I think, is an unwise
as well as an unfair regulation. Small repairs will, of
course, be required from time to time, but common sense
will enable any one to determine what is the result of
ordinary wear and tear, and what is the result of excep-
tional damage. If, in order to avoid petty disputes, such
a rule be considered absolutely necessary, then the amount
should be fixed at a low sum, because, however immoral it
may be, it is only natural for an owner, when his vessel has
sustained damage, to wish that the damage may amount
to the sum at which the underwriters will recognise it, and
in consequence he will not scrutinise closely the bills of the
tradesmen which, when added together, will more than
cover the exempted amount. The rule, moreover, is bad
for this reason, that when the damage amounts to more
than the sum fixed to be exempted, the underwriter pays
upon the whole amount without deducting anything for
partial exemption.

No deduction should be made for " New for Old!' — It is
a special feature of the system I advocate, that no deduc-
tion whatever is made for what is known to underwriters as
" new for old." The ordinary underwriting rule is that,
whatever may be the amount of damage which the under-
writer has undertaken to pay, he shall be permitted to
deduct therefrom one-third, because, in repairing the
damage, new materials have been, or are supposed to have
been, used. This, in ordinary underwriting parlance, is
known as deducting "new for old." The rule itself is a
venerable one, and, until recently, was universal. Re-
pugnant as it is to justice and common sense, it is difficult
to imagine on what grounds it was first adopted, and why
it has not long since been relegated to the limbo of
monstrosities and antiquated absurdities. The principal

INSURANCE OF FISHING-BOATS. 127

argument — if argument it can be called — that I have ever
heard adduced in its favour, is that it must be just and
equitable because it has universally been acted upon ever
since vessels have been underwritten. It might just as
well be said that any old law, which circumstances and
improved knowledge have rendered obsolete, but which
has not been expunged from the Statute Book, is just and
equitable ; or, as Pope puts it, that " whatever is, is right."
History teaches us that, in times gone by, it was a universal
custom in England to cause an accused person to walk
barefoot over red-hot irons, and that he or she was adjudged
to be guilty or innocent according as he or she was injured
or not. But because such an ordeal was universal, it does
not follow that it was just and equitable ; and I fail to
comprehend the logic which leads to the conclusion that a
deduction on account of new materals used in repairing
an old vessel must necessarily be equitable because it is
universal. Such reasoning, if reasoning it can be called, is
simply fallacious. It is true that damage cannot be repaired
without labour, but the same labour must be employed,
whether the damage be repaired with new or old materials,
and, provided that the materials be sound and good, and
fit for the purpose, as they ought to be, it matters not
whether they be new or old. Why, then, should a boat-
owner be mulcted in an extra sum for the repair of the
damage, when he already pays his proportionate part
according as he may be insured for two-thirds, three-
fourths, or any other amount ? The labour would be the
same, whether the materials were new or old, and ought
not in justice to be charged for in any case ; and were the
materials used simply suitable for the purpose, there could
be no pretence whatever to charge for them at all. To
say that a vessel, after being repaired, must be much better

•
128 INSURANCE OF FISHING-BOATS.

than before she was damaged is simply absurd, and yet
this is what underwriters assert as being true. The word
they employ when making this assertion is exceedingly
appropriate, but it tells against instead of for them. The
word is " melioration," which means, " the act or operation
of making better." Making what better — the damaged
part of the vessel, or the vessel itself ? If it mean simply
the damaged part, as I contend it does, then the boat-
owner ought not to be charged with " new for old," because
he is entitled to have the damaged part made as sound
and as good as it was before it was damaged. He is not
entitled to, and he does not ask for, more than this, but it
would be foolish to expect him to be satisfied with less.
If the term apply to the vessel itself, then I would ask how
and why can the mere repairing of damage make the vessel
better than it was before it was damaged ? Speaking
paradoxically, the strongest part of a chain is its weakest
link ; and the same reasoning which proves this almost
self-evident proposition, demonstrates clearly that the mere
act of fixing new stanchions and covering-boards, or of
replacing broken planks, cannot by any possibility make
the hull of the vessel better than it was before the accident
occurred which necessitated the repairs. A vessel which
has been damaged and then repaired, is generally worth
less than she was before the occurrence took place by
which she sustained injury, and thereby a loss has been
entailed upon the owner. Why, therefore, in addition to
such loss, and in addition to the amount which he has to
pay for underwriting himself to a certain extent, should he
be called upon to pay a third of the cost of the repairs neces-
sary to fit his vessel again for sea ? New materials, when
properly fitted by skilled labour, undoubtedly make a
vessel better than she was when in a damaged state, but it is

INSURANCE OF FISHING-BOATS. 129

incorrect to assert that such repairs, which have been
necessitated by accident, would make her better than she
was before the damage had been sustained. It may be
said, as indeed it has been said, that, under certain cir-
cumstances, if no charge were made for " new for old," an
owner would actually make a profit out of his loss at the
expense of the rest of the shareholders. Well, if an
Insurance Company permit an insured vessel to go to sea
with a worn-out suit of sails, it deserves to pay for the
remissness of its surveyors. The mere fact that the sur-
veyors of a Company permit a vessel to go to sea is
presumptive evidence that they consider her to be in sea-
going trim. If she be not in sea-going trim, or if she be
not properly found in stores, the surveyors have only to
cause a proper notice to be served upon the owner ; and if
she be sent to sea without the necessary certificate, she
will go uninsured, and solely at her owner's risk. Further,
if, as in the case supposed, a distressed shareholder benefit
somewhat by the arrangement, so much the better for him.
Help is most needed in the time of distress, and the
greater the help the greater the blessing. The extra cost
to the shareholders collectively would be but small in
comparison with the large extra benefit which the dis-
tressed shareholder would receive.

Wear and Tear. — But the injustice of this rule is inten-
sified by the extraordinary and unjust signification which
underwriters are in the habit of giving to the term " wear
and tear," for which, of course, nothing is paid. The term
"wear and tear," and the word "damage," when used in
their ordinary significations, have totally different meaningis
—meanings about which one would have thought there
could be no doubt. The term " wear and tear " means the
VOL. IX.— E. 5. K

130 INSURANCE OF FISHING-BOATS.

gradual deterioration which constant exposure to the
weather and constant use inevitably bring about, and for
which no sane person would expect compensation ; whilst,
on the other hand, the word " damage " signifies sudden
and, comparatively speaking, great injury. But the under-
writer claims for the term " wear and tear " a widely different
signification. In his view "damage" means "wear and
tear," no matter how great it may be, or how suddenly it
may have been caused. If the sails of a vessel be blown
away by a heavy gust of wind, or if a vessel break from
her anchor when riding out a gale, the underwriter con-
siders such losses to be simply " wear and tear," and
declines to contribute towards paying for them. He con-
siders himself to be liable only if the sail be cut away, or if
the anchor be slipped from, ostensibly for the safety of the
vessel. I use the adverb " ostensibly," because it is well-
known that masters of vessels who have the ' interests of
their owners at heart, and who know anything about
underwriting, act accordingly. To my mind, this definition
of the term "wear and tear " is most unjust. An office
desk, which has been dinted and otherwise disfigured by
being constantly used, is in a very different state to one
the panels of which have been suddenly smashed with a
poker ; and a sail, even after twelve months' use, is in a
widely different condition to that of a sail which has been
blown to ribbons by a violent gale of wind. Were it
necessary, I could prove the truthfulness of what I have
here written, by detailing cases exactly in point ; and I
need hardly say that, according to the system I advocate,
no distressed boat-owner would be treated in so palpably
unjust a manner. In order, however, to make my meaning
perfectly clear, I will give an illustration of the working of
the two systems Two vessels, each of the same value,

INSURANCE OF FISHING-BOATS. 131

shall be insured, the one with underwriters in the ordinary
manner for three-fourths her value, and the other with the
company whose system I advocate for two-thirds her
value, and both vessels shall be damaged, or be liable for
damage which they have caused to other - vessels, to the
extent of £360. The owner insured in the ordinary
manner would be settled with as follows : As he insured
his vessel himself to the extent of one-fourth, the sum of
£90 would be first deducted, leaving a balance of ^"270.
From this sum the one-third " new for old," amounting
also to ^"90, would be deducted, and the boat-owner there-
fore would receive the sum of £180 towards the payment
of his damages of £360 — m other words, although he would
pay premiums upon three-fourths of the value of his vessel,
he would be compelled to underwrite himself to the extent
of one-half. The owner insured with the Company I
represent would be settled with thus : As he insured
himself to the extent of one-third, the sum of £120 would
be deducted, and he would be paid the balance, £240.
The boat-owner therefore, insuring with my Company for
only two-thirds, would get £60 more than the boat-owner
insuring in the ordinary manner for three-fourths the value
of his vessel.

Vessels off Risk. — A very special feature of the system I
advocate is that vessels may be declared " off risk " at
their owners' option, upon a written notice, signed by the
insurer, being given to the secretary of the company.
This rule is based upon the common-sense principle that
only those vessels which are liable to sustain damages
themselves should be called upon to contribute towards
the payment for damages which may be sustained by
other vessels ; in other words, that it is unjust to charge
boat-owners whose vessels may be hauled up, or which

K 2

132 INSURANCE OF FISHING-BOATS.

may be undergoing repairs, and who therefore cannot
receive any benefit, for the repair of damages which may
be sustained by vessels at sea. When this rule was first
promulgated and acted upon, it was believed by many
persons to be of a suicidal nature, and that it would soon
bring to grief the company with which it originated.
Amongst other things, it was said that owners, whose
vessels might be in port during bad weather, would, of
course, declare their vessels " off risk," and that thus a
very heavy .responsibility would be thrown upon owners
whose vessels might be at sea at the time. But these evil
forebodings have not been realised. On the contrary, the
working of this rule has been attended with triumphant
success. The experience of those who have watched its
working for several years teaches them that an owner does
not declare his vessel "off risk" until she be actually
hauled up in a place of safety — and that, too, for a con-
siderable period — because otherwise, if while in the harbour
she be damaged by a passing steam-tug or from any other
cause, he would have no claim for compensation against
the company. Vessels, and especially small vessels, are
always liable to casualties, even when at their moorings in
a harbour ; and boat-owners fully understand the risk they
run, and seldom permit their craft to remain uninsured.
Moreover, experience teaches this fact, that no boat-owner
gives notice of " off risk " merely for the purpose of avoid-
ing the effects of a gale at sea at a time when his own
vessel, or one of his own vessels, happens to be in port,
because every seafaring man knows that when a gale is
blowing on shore there may be comparatively fine weather
upon the fishing-grounds at sea, and, on the other hand,
that, though it may be fair weather in port, there may be
heavy weather outside. Since the making of this rule by

INSURANCE OF FISHING-BOATS. 133

the Company I represent, it has worked to the satisfaction
of all the shareholders.

Fishing Gear should be Free from A verage. — It is well-
known that fishing gear is never insured, and therefore
in common fairness it ought never to be made to contribute
even indirectly to the repair of losses. Fishing gear is
included by ordinary underwriters in the valuation of a
vessel and her stores, in order to swell the amount, and so
increase the sum which the boat-owner has himself to
underwrite ; in the case of salvage it would be made to
contribute its share or quota of the salvor's claims, but it is
never recognised by an ordinary underwriter as a loss for
which he is liable, and consequently it is never paid for.
Thus, for instance, in the case of a trawler, the value of the
trawl-gear would be included in the valuation of the vessel,
and in the event of salvage being paid it would be paid on
the total value, whereas, if the trawl-gear were totally lost
— even if lost when being used for the preservation of the
vessel — nothing would be paid towards its loss by the
underwriter. The same rule when applied to drift-fishing
vessels is still more unfair, because the fishing gear of a
drift vessel is oftentimes as valuable as the vessel itself.
This is most unjust. A boat-owner who cannot possibly
sustain a claim for damage ought not to be compelled to
contribute towards a claim for damage. On these grounds
all fishing gear should be " free from average," as the
phrase is, the word " average " in underwriting parlance
meaning the proportion which each description of property
should pay towards repairing the damage done. And it is
because boat-owners can at their own option declare their
vessels " off risk," and because " all fishing gear is free from
average," that a Mutual Marine Insurance Company, based
upon the system I advocate, can insure indiscriminately

134 INSURANCE OF FISHING-BOATS.

both trawlers and drift-fishing vessels upon equitable terms
— advantages which can be obtained from no other under-
writers, be they irresponsible individuals, private adventure
associations, or incorporated companies.

Stamped Policies. — It appears to me, then, that the " best
system of insuring fishing-boats " is that of the Company
whose principles I advocate, because, being co-operative in
its character, the Company not only gives special advantages
to its shareholders, but at the same time it divides all its
profits, both direct and indirect, amongst them. This
company is no myth. For years it has been worked, upon
the principles which are here enunciated, to the satisfaction
of all concerned, and, in consequence, it has been steadily
growing in repute and strength. It has but one drawback
—a drawback which the Government could easily and
ought readily to remedy — the necessity to issue new
policies every year. In all classes of insurance other than
marine — life, fire, and accident — policies hold good so long
as the contract between the parties lasts ; and what is right
for life, fire, and accident, ought certainly to be right for
fishing-boats. I trust that Edward Birkbeck, Esq., the
fisherman's friend, or some other M.P., will take this matter
up at once, and that in a short time there will be no
necessity for the yearly renewal of marine policies on
fishing-boats. To the Chancellor of the Exchequer the
revenue from the sale of stamps for the insuring of fishing-
boats must be a matter of utter indifference, but to Mutual
Marine Associations the subject is one of some importance,
as, besides the stamps, which are practically so much
money wasted, the non-necessity for yearly policies would
save a vast amount of unnecessary labour and trouble.

INSURANCE OF FISHING GEAR. 135

INSURANCE OF FISHING GEAR.

Of all insurance problems, that of how best to insure
" fishing gear, nets, &c.," is the most difficult to solve.
The risks are so great and so perplexing that hitherto under-
writers have not dared to undertake them. Only those who
are actually engaged in the fishing business are aware of its
intricacies and the dangers surrounding it ; and the better
these are understood the more bewildering docs the
question of how best to insure against them appear to be.
Let me point out some of these difficulties. Speaking in a
general sense, fishing gear may be divided into two kinds,
trawling gear and drifting gear. Trawling gear consists of
beam, heads, net, ground-rope, bridles, and warp ; drifting
gear of nets, bowls, and warp-ropes. The value of the
•former may be estimated at from £60 to £90 ; that of the
latter from £200 to £400. The size and weight, and con-
sequently the value, of a complete trawling gear, depend
principally upon the size and weight of the vessel on board
which it has to be worked ; but other considerations than
these must be borne in mind in estimating the value of a
working " fleet " of drifting gear. Drift-nets differ in " ply,"
in the number of meshes to the yard, and in their depth
and length ; and warp-ropes differ in the materials of which
they are made, as well as in their size. Add to these facts
that the number of nets forming a u fleet " varies according
to the size of the fishing vessel employed, and other cir-
cumstances, and some faint conception of the initial
difficulty in solving the question asked will be obtained.
It would be a very troublesome matter, therefore, to
ascertain the value of a drifting " fleet," and this trouble
and expense would have to be incurred at least once in
every season, because warp-ropes, and especially nets,

136 INSURANCE OF FISHING-GEAR.

deteriorate very rapidly in value. Having estimated the
value of the gear, the next step would be to calculate the
dangers to which it is exposed when actually at work in
the sea ; and such a calculation would have to be made by
some kind of " rule of thumb," because no statistics or facts
of a reliable nature to assist in the settlement of the
question are obtainable. Here, then, one would be meta-
phorically, if not literally, at sea. The gear is put over-
board in fine weather and broad daylight ; after being
immersed for some hours it may have to be hauled again
on board in bad weather and darkness. Oftentimes a
trawl-net becomes entangled with some impediment at the
bottom of the sea, in which case the net is partially or
totally Destroyed ; and it is no infrequent circumstance for
the whole of the gear to be entirely lost. A drift-vessel is
sometimes compelled to " hang to its nets " for two or three
days ; and it is no uncommon occurrence for a vessel to be
parted from its " fleet of nets " by a steamer, or by bad
weather, or to be cut from it for the safety of the crew.
Contingent upon the speculative character of deep-sea
fishing, there are other dangers whose name is " legion,"
and the more one contemplates them, the deeper and more
certain becomes the conviction that, in the matter of
fishing gear, a boat-owner must be his own underwriter.

I can think of but two plans by which fishing gear could
be partially insured, and I use the words I have italicised
in their widest signification. To insure fishing gear fully,
or indeed to insure it at all under every circumstance, is
a Utopian dream. The one plan is to insure a certain pro-
portion of its agreed value in a manner similar to that in
which a certain proportion of the value of a vessel is insured
against total loss ; in such a case the sum insured would be
paid only in the event of the nets and gear being entirely

INSURANCE OF FISHING-GEAR. 137

lost with the vessel on board of which they might be. The
other plan is for boat-owners to agree among themselves to
pay each other, in the event of a loss of nets or gear,
certain sums of money, or to give each other proportionately
a certain number of nets. Whatever is done in this manner,
however, must be done in the spirit that " it is more blessed
to give than to receive."

THE

RELATIONS OF THE STATE

WITH

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES,

INCLUDING

ALL MATTERS DEALING WITH THEIR
PROTECTION AND REGULATION.

THE GREATEST GOOD OF THE GREATEST NUMBER."
[C. E. FRYER.]

VOL. IX. — E. 6.

OUTLINE OF ARGUMENT.

PAGE

Extent and Value of the Fishing Industry in ancient and modern
times — Different Phases of Legislation — Other interests affect-
ing Fisheries 141

"Protective" Legislation — Alliance of Navigation with Fishery
Interests — The Salmon Fisheries — The Sea Fisheries — State
Regulation of Size and Price of Fish and of Markets — Supply
of Fish to London — Necessity for knowledge of Natural
History — Conflict of Navigation and Fishery Interests —
Weirs and Pollutions — The Herring Fisheries 146

" Promotive " Legislation — Prohibition of Foreign Fish — Bounties
on Exports and Imports — The " Herring Brand " — Greenland
and Newfoundland Fisheries — Oyster and Mussel Culture —
Harbour Accommodation and Telegraphs 173

" Regulative " Legislation— Prevention of Outrages at Sea — Inter-
national Conventions— Conflict of different Fishing Interests
— The use of Dynamite — Other artificial causes affecting
Fisheries — Fishing Apprentices — Lights of Fishing Vessels . 190

Distinction between Sea and Freshwater Fisheries — Necessity
for Scientific Inquiry — Results of Commissions of Inquiry
— Value of Statistics — General Conclusions 206

Summary of present Position of Fisheries and Objects of future

State Interference ^ 219

THE

RELATIONS OF THE STATE

WITH

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES.

AN industry in which, in the United Kingdom alone, some Extent and

., . , . , value of the

150,000 persons are directly engaged as fishermen ; which fishery

gives employment to at least an equal number of persons 1D
as curers, packers, &c., and, indirectly, to a still larger
number as makers of nets and hooks, barrels, and other
apparatus and appliances for the equipment of the boats ;
in which capital to the extent of not less than three or four
millions sterling * is invested ; the value of whose produce

* The statistics on which these estimates are based are very im-
perfect ; but from the data available the following figures are taken.
In 1 88 1, according to the Board of Trade returns, 10,357 boats were
registered as fishing-boats arid vessels under the " Sea Fisheries Act,
1868," in England and Wales, 766 in the Isle of Man and Channel
Isles, and 14,145 in Scotland ; the total number of fishermen and boys
employed by all these boats being given as 94,764. The Scotch
Herring Board, however, in its report for 1881, states that in the
Scotch herring, cod, and ling fisheries alone, 14,809 boats and 48,121
fishermen were engaged in that year. The report of the Irish
Fishery Inspectors for 1881 states the number of registered fishing
boats to have been 6458, and of fishermen and boys, 24,528. These
figures give us an approximate return of, say, 33,000 boats, and about
120,000 fishermen and boys. The returns are, however, admittedly
incomplete, and would in no case take account of the large numbers
of fishermen whose boats are unregistered, and who do not follow
fishing as their only occupation. The estimate, therefore, of a total

142 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

can hardly be estimated, but must amount to several,
millions sterling every year ; which has ramifications in
almost every branch of trade, commerce, and manufacture ;
the pursuit of which directly affects such important interests
as those of navigation and proprietary rights, and which
supplies not only the population of this country, but many
foreign and colonial communities, with a considerable portion
of their daily food, and with a variety of other articles in
every-day use — such an industry as this has, naturally,
strong claims on a large share of the attention of the State,
and compels its interference, directly or indirectly, in many
different directions. From very early times, not only in

fishing population of 150,000 does not seem to be excessive. The
Scotch Herring Board estimate the average value of the 14,809 boats
engaged in the herring, cod, and ling fisheries at £42 each, of their
nets at £45 per boat, and of their lines at £8 per boat. This average ,
applied to the 33,000 boats, would give a gross value of considerably
over £3,000,000 sterling. Such a calculation takes no account of the
large and powerful steamers engaged in the fish "carrying" trade,
nor of the whaling and sealing fleet, nor of other ocean-going vessels
directly engaged in the fisheries. The figures must be taken as
representing merely what may be called the food-fisheries carried on
in the seas immediately surrounding our coasts. Even then they
probably err, if at all, on the side of moderation. An estimate of the
value of the produce of the fisheries is still less easy. The quantity
of fish of all kinds delivered at Billingsgate Market — rnainly the
produce of the British fisheries — in 1880 was over 120,000 tons. This
quantity, at an average price of only 6d. per lb., would represent a
value of £6,720,000 as a portion only of the consumption of the
metropolis alone. The value of the produce of the Scotch herring
fisheries alone, in 1881, was probably not less than £3,000,000.

A Parliamentary return of the quantity of fish conveyed inland by
railway from each of the principal fishing ports of the United Kingdom
states that the quantity so carried in 1881 was, in England, 206,381
tons ; in Scotland, 59,259 tons ; in Ireland, 7312 tons : total, 272,952
tons, which, at 6d. per lb., would be worth £15,288,000 (nearly).

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 143

England, but in almost every other country, the fisheries
have been among the most important objects of legislation
and popular concern ; but their real importance grew, and
was only fully recognised, with the increase of population
and the development of trade. More especially in the
history of maritime States has the part played by the fish-
ing industry been most conspicuous. Fish, among both in ancient
Greeks and Romans, was a most popular diet, and so much tl1
importance was attached to the cheapness and freshness of
the supplies of this food that the fishermen were compelled
to sound a gong immediately on their arrival at the market-
place so that the fish might be sold as fresh as possible,
while the sellers were not allowed to sit down during market
hours, that they might be induced to get rid of their pro-
duce as quickly and cheaply as possible. The ancient
Greeks, however, not only developed the fisheries around
their own coasts, but they carried the craft of fishing to
their colonies, many of which became valuable centres for
the supply of fish to the mother country. Byzantium and
Sinope owed their existence to the fact that their sites were
selected as admirable fishing stations, and the fisheries of
the Black Sea and the Sea of Azof came to hold much the
same position towards Greece as the cod banks of New-
foundland, ages afterwards, held towards England.

The Romans, like the Greeks, developed their fisheries
to the fullest extent, and, besides seeking supplies in distant
waters, they even introduced new varieties from abroad and
acclimatised them, under Imperial guidance, in their own
waters. In this way the celebrated scarus, a native of the
-^Egean Sea, was established on the Italian coast, in the
reign of the Emperor Claudius. The introduction of
British oysters into the ancient oyster pares, at Lake
Fusaro and elsewhere, is a familiar instance of this practice.

144

THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

The great maritime power of Venice, again, practically
owed its origin to the fisheries in the immediate neighbour-
hood, and in the Adriatic generally.

While Venice was at the zenith of its power the fisheries
of Norway were rapidly developing their wealth, exciting
the greed of rival princes, and giving occasion for more
than one sanguinary war. The maritime enterprise of the
Scandinavians was largely fostered by the familiarity with
the sea which they acquired in the prosecution of their
fisheries, which, while for centuries forming one of their
principal industries and sources of wealth, have had a direct
effect upon their commercial and political history.

Turning for a moment to the New World, we find the
fisheries of Canada and of the United States engaging a
large share of the attention of both people and State. The
early importance of the English colonies in America was
centred in their fisheries. A hundred years ago the Legis-
lature of this country enacted the most stringent laws to
prevent settlement on the shores of Newfoundland or the
mainland adjoining, while it encouraged British fishermen,
by the offer of considerable " bounties," to prosecute the
fisheries there. At the present day Canada, Newfoundland,
and the United States vie with each other in their efforts
to encourage and protect their respective fisheries, whose
importance is attested by the serious questions of inter-
national comity which they have involved.

In our own country the fisheries have, from time to time,
commanded the earnest attention of the State on different
grounds, and legislation on the subject has passed through
at least three distinct phases, which may be defined as : —

1st. Restrictive or Protective.

2nd. Promotive.

3rd. Administrative or Regulative.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 145

Laws falling under the first category may, in one sense,
invade the province of those coming under the second,
since, though their immediate object is the limitation of
the destructive powers of man, their ultimate aim is the
improvement of the fisheries. In so far as they protect the
fisheries from exhaustion — possible or imminent — they pro-
mote their future development ; but they are distinct, both
in conception and in execution, from purely " promotive "
laws — laws, that is, passed with the sole object of encourag-
ing the public to undertake the prosecution of the fisheries
without regard to the possibility of their future impove-
rishment.

Of the first class of legislation are those laws which,
among other things, establish a close time. To the second
class belong those which offer bounties on vessels employed
in fishing or on fish exported. The third category com-
prises those laws which, taking no heed of either of the
above points, merely aim at reconciling conflicting interests,
at preventing moral and social abuses, and generally secur-
ing the safety and welfare of those engaged in the pursuit
of the fisheries. To this last class belong laws for the
" police of the sea," for facilitating navigation, and for pro-
viding harbour accommodation. The question of harbour
accommodation, of course, very closely touches the question
of direct encouragement to the fisheries ; but it falls,
properly, under this third category, since it is the great
importance of the fishing industry that has emphasised the
cry for additional harbours, and not — or at any rate not
mainly — the desire to encourage the fisheries that has
created the cry.

A sketch of the history of legislative enactments on the History of
, . ... ... legislation.

subject of the fisheries will place in a very clear light the

distinction between the three different aims which the
VOL. IX.— E. 6. L

146 THE RELATIONS OF 'THE STATE WITH

Government has had in view in promoting fishery legisla-
tion from time to time, and will enable us to form a better
conception of the true relationship which the State bears
to this important industry.

As such a review will embrace a period of nearly seven
hundred years, during which about three hundred statutes,
dealing directly and specially with the fisheries, were added
to the Statute Book, besides a considerable array of laws
bearing indirectly upon the subject, it must necessarily
enter into some detail, without which it would be difficult
if not impossible to arrive at a proper conclusion on the
real relation of the State with the fisheries.

"Protective" To the first or "protective" order of legislation belongs
the celebrated enactment in Magna Charta, as afterwards

Magna Charta ratified and confirmed by Henry III., that "all wears from

and the

fisheries. henceforth shall be utterly put down by Thames and
Medway, and throughout all England, except by the sea-
coast." This statute was, however, only incidentally a
"fishery" statute. Its primary object was the protection
of navigation interests ; but it incidentally involved an
important point in salmon-fishery legislation, which later
experience has served to enforce. In stipulating that
" kidels " or fishing weirs should be put down in navigable
rivers, as being an obstruction to navigation, the barons
conferred a great benefit on the salmon-fisheries, in so far
that the same structures which were an obstacle to naviga-
tion were a serious obstacle to the ingress of salmon. As
just stated, the motive which prompted this clause in the
Great Charter was not so much the protection of salmon as
the preservation of a free passage for vessels. Navigation
interests were paramount ; but at the same time they were
allied to fishery interests, and the removal of an obstacle
to navigation was the removal of a destructive fishing

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 147

engine of a kind which, more than six hundred years later,
Parliament passed an Act to abolish, as completely as
equity would allow, solely in the interests of the fisheries.

At the same time this "wear" clause in the Charter
involved a principle which a previous clause had more
distinctly specified, and which may be conveniently referred
to here as showing the important rights that are at stake in
the relations of the State towards fisheries and fishermen —
viz. the question of the public right of fishing.

The " kidelli " were the outward and visible sign of the Public versus

PrivateRights.

encroachment of private rights upon public liberties. The
Crown, since the Norman Conquest, had introduced the
principle that all land was its property, as distinguished
from that of the community ; and this principle was being
rapidly extended, both in theory and practice, to the rivers.
Just as the Crown had granted away forfeited lands, so it
was beginning to make grants of waters with their rights of
fishing, &c. ; and the grantees were in the habit of setting
up fishing-weirs in the exercise of their newly-acquired
right. These weirs, as has been seen, were a serious
obstacle to navigation, and, while insisting on their removal
in navigable rivers, the barons at Runnymede also stipu-
lated that no further appropriation of public waters should
be permitted. Hence the provision in Henry III.'s con-
firmation of Magna Charta that "nulla riparia de cetero
defendantur nisi ilia quae fuerunt in defense tempore
Henrici regis avi nostri, per eadem loca et eosdem terminos
sicut esse consueverunt tempore suo."

Thus the distinction between the public and private
rights of fishing was recognised, which has ever since been
observed in English fishery legislation, and which has
guided the State in its relation with the fisheries to such an
extent that, while the prohibition of fixed engines for the

L 2

148

THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

Alliance of
navigation
with fishery
interests.

capture of salmon does not extend to fixed engines which
are private property, and the right to which, dating from
time immemorial, or originating in a Royal grant or
charter, was exercised between the years 1857 and 1861,
yet such prohibition does extend to the public user of such
fixed engines, however long the public may have used
them.

A succession of statutes, down to the time of Henry
VI II., reiterated the prohibition of weirs and similar
obstacles to navigation which Magna Charta had pro-
nounced, and by degrees the interests of the fisheries — not
only of the salmon fisheries, but of other fisheries as well —
came to take equal rank with those of navigation in the
demand for the suppression of these engines. The Act 4
Henry IV. c. 1 1 enforced the statutes against " wears, stakes,
and kidels," not only on the ground that they were an
obstruction to navigation, " much people being perished "-
no doubt owing to collisions with the obstacles — but because
" also the young fry of fish " were " destroyed, and against
reason wasted and given to swine to eat." By 2 Henry
VI. c. 15, again "the standing of nets and engines, called
trinks, and all other nets fastened to great posts, boats, and
anchors " was prohibited, on the ground, first, of the " de-
struction of the brood and fry of fish ; " and, second, of
obstruction to navigation ; while 12 Edw. II. c. 7, in
reciting " the laudable statute of Magna Charta," actually
goes so far as to attribute its prohibition of kidels to a
desire not only to preserve the navigation, but to provide
a " safeguard of all the fry of fish." What authority there
was for attributing to the framers of Magna Charta an
intention which they did not claim themselves, and which
no previous Acts confirming the Charter had seen fit to
credit them with, is not clear. But the claim is interesting

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 149

as showing the increasing importance which was being
attached to the fisheries.

In the meanwhile, restrictive or protective legislation in Extension of

"protective"
regard to the fisheries was taking many different directions, legislation.

and becoming more and more stringent. Besides prohi-
biting the use of certain instruments, it limited, at different
times, and in regard to different kinds of fish, the period
during which fish can be legally caught ; it restricted the
size or the mesh of nets ; it forbade the capture of fry, or
the destruction of spawn, or the killing of spawning fish ;
and it fixed a standard size under which fish might not be
caught or sold. At first salmon, and eventually all kinds
of fish, received the special attention of the Legislature, not
merely as an incident in the maintenance of navigation,
but on account of the growing importance of the fisheries
as a source of food supply, and apparently of the diminish-
ing yield of certain kinds of fish. So early as 1283,
13 Edw. I., Stat. I. c. 47, fixed a close time for salmon in Preservation
the Tees arid the rivers flowing into the Humber, from " the
Nativity of our Lady unto St. Martin's Day ; " and the
same statute prohibited the capture of " salmunculi "
(smolts), "from the midst of April unto the Nativity of Smolts.
St. John Baptist." " Conservatores " were appointed to
enforce this law, and subsequent Acts enlarged their
powers, these officers being thus the direct forerunners of
the Boards of Conservators appointed under the Salmon
Fishery Acts of the present day. The Act 13 Rich. II.,
c. 19, established a close season for salmon in the rivers of Close time.
Lancashire, from " Michaelmas Day to the Purification of
our Lady," and prohibited at all times of the year " any nets,
called stalkers, and other nets or engines, whatsoever they
be, by the which the fry or the brood of salmon, lampreys,
or any other fish may in any wise be taken or destroyed."

150 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

Many similar enactments followed, some with a general
application to the whole country and all kinds of fish,
others limited to particular rivers or localities on the sea-
coast and to certain specified fish, especially salmon and
Salmon and eels. Of these the most interesting are those relating to

other fisheries

in the the Thames, since they not only show the increasing im-

portance which was attached to the fisheries of the metro-
politan river as London grew in population, but they also
afford clear evidence that the citizens, having, by the
wisdom of their ancestors, freed the navigation, were en-
deavouring to improve the fisheries, now become their
principal anxiety. In 1394 the "Mayor of London " was
(by 17 Rich. II. c. 9) entrusted with special powers to enforce,
in the Thames, the laws " touching salmon," and less than a
hundred years afterwards (by 4 Hen. VII. c. 15, 1489) he
was made the principal conservator of the Thames, with
authority to check the destruction of " fry and brood of fish,"
which were taken " in great multitudes for bait, and also for
the feeding of hogs." These Acts were the origin of the
large powers still exercised by the Thames Conservators, to
whom, by subsequent enactments, the powers of the Lord
Mayor and Corporation in this behalf were transferred. The
navigation interest, however — no longer friendly, but, in the
construction of weirs, inimical, to at least the salmon fisheries,
—has, with the aid of pollutions, exterminated the salmon
from the Thames, and the duties of the Thames Conservancy
Board, in regard to the fisheries, are chiefly confined to the
protection of the interests of anglers for trout and coarse
fish in the upper waters. A close season for salmon is
still included among the byelaws of the Board, but London
sewage and navigation weirs have made a " close season "
in the Thames all the year round, not only for salmon
fishers, but for the salmon themselves. Nothing could

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 151

more forcibly illustrate the change which has taken place
in the condition of the fisheries of the Thames since the
period when the Lord Mayor was first called upon to
preserve the fry of salmon and all kinds of fish, unless it
be the fact that the principal fishing industry carried on in
the Thames is the capture of young sprats, and of the
" brood of sea-fish," under the name of whitebait. The
extermination of salmon in the Thames illustrates a point
in the relation of the State towards the fisheries, which will
be referred to later on.

The Act I Eliz. c. 17 went a step further than any of its Preservation

of sea fish.

predecessors. After reciting that the " spawn, fry, and
young brood of eels, salmons, pikes, and of all other fish,
hath been much destroyed . . . insomuch that in divers
places they feed swine and dogs with the fry and spawn of
fish, and otherwise, lamentable and horrible to be reported,
destroy the same," it prohibited the taking or killing of
fry of any kind " in any straits, streams, brooks, rivers, Fry and

young fish.

fresh or salt, within this realm ; it fixed a minimum size
for pike, salmon, trout, and barbel ; and it prohibited the
use of nets with a mesh less than " two inches and a half
broad," except for smelts and other small fish.

A yet further advance in protective legislation was made
by the Act 3 Jas. I. c. 12, which (i) forbade the erection of
" wears along the seashore, or in any haven, harbour, or
creek, or within five miles of the mouth of any haven or
creek ; " (2) prohibited generally the capture of the fry,
spawn, or brood of sea fish of any kind ; and (3) directed
that no "draw-net or drag-net under three inches meash, Mesh of nets,
viz., one inch and a half from knot to knot," should be used
within five miles of the mouth of any haven or creek. The
Act i Geo. I. Stat 2, c. 18, extended this last provision by
prohibiting the "use at sea upon the coast of England"

152 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

of " any traul-net, drag-net, or set-net whatsoever, for the
catching of any kind of sea fish (except herrings, pilchards,
sprats, or lavidnian), which hath any mesh or moke of less
size than three inches and a half at least from knot to knot,
or which hath any false or double bottom cod or pouch."
It also established a standard of size for certain specified
Sale of small kinds of fish, under which no such fish were to be sold. In
view of the recent agitation for fresh legislation of this
kind, it may be useful to quote the minimum sizes so
fixed :-

Turbot . . . . . . . 1 6 inches

Brill 14 »

Codlin, bass, and mullet . . . . 12 „

Sole and dab, or " place "... 8 „

Flounder ...... 7 „

Whiting 6 „

The measurements in each case were to be taken from
the eye to the utmost extent of the tail.*

These limitations of size, however, gave rise to a fresh
complication, which a new Act (22 Geo. II. c. 49) was
Necessity for required to remove. It was found that, as this Act ex-
Passed it, "several of the said fish are taken with a hook,
and, though " (being undersized) " thrown again into the sea,
cannot be preserved alive ; " and so the prohibition of the
sale of undersized fish was removed, " provided such fish are
taken with a hook, and so not fit or capable of being pre-
served alive." But this relaxation of the law was taken
advantage of to send to the market " undersized fish,
though not taken with an hook ; " and Parliament finding,
as it confesses in 29 Geo. II. c. 39, that "such liberty hath
not been attended with such good effects as was expected,

* To this list 33 Geo. II. c. 27 added smelts under 5 inches from
the nose to the utmost extent of the tail.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 153

for that the markets being supplied with such smaller fish
doth enhance the price of the largest sort " (though it is
not easy to see the force of this reasoning), repealed the
provision allowing undersized hook fish. But the question
was not settled yet Only four years later the fact was again
pressed upon the Legislature that undersized turbot and
brill "are often taken in the sea with an hook, and if thrown
again into the sea it is uncertain whether such thereof as
have swallowed the hook will afterwards live or not." So
the prohibition of the sale of fish below the standard size Difficulties in

enforcement

was again removed in the case of these two species. But of the law.
Parliament, recollecting that a similar privilege had, on a
former occasion, militated against its express efforts at
keeping down the price of fish, now added the proviso that
undersized turbot and brill should not be sold at a higher
price than 6d. per Ib. It forgot, however, that if any-
thing was likely to " enhance the price of the largest sort,"
it was the policy of fixing a very low price for the under-
sized fish. The intention, no doubt, was to remove the
inducement which the permission to sell undersized fish,
provided they were " hook fish," offered to the fishermen to
keep the undersized fish caught in their nets, and expose
them for sale when by no possibility could the fact of
their not having been caught by hook be proved against
them.

This complication, which Parliament had brought about,
and from which it was unable to extricate itself without a
total repeal of all its enactments or a simple prohibition of
undersized fish, regardless of the fate of the unfortunate
fish cast back into the sea to digest a dinner of fish-hooks,
was partly caused by the belief which the public enter- Belief in trade
tained that there was no reason for the high price of fish,
except a deliberate arrangement on the part of the trade to

i54 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

limit its supply and so control the markets. This belief
was shared by the Legislature, and protective legislation was
so directly influenced by it that, although the subject does
not belong strictly to the question of " protection," it may
conveniently be discussed here. The increased supply of
fish — and consequently its increased cheapness — were the
objects which the Legislature had in view in its protective
measures. Its object was the same when it saw, or fancied
it saw, a trade combination to frustrate its intention by
deliberately keeping back the supply, or enhancing the
price, of the very fish which the protective laws were
supposed to have called into existence.

This question is at the present moment exercising the
minds of the public ; and the existence of a " Billingsgate
ring " is, rightly or wrongly, as firmly believed in, in many
quarters, as the admitted existence of " cotton corners " or
"wheat corners" in the United States. But the " Billings-
gate ring " is no new nineteenth-century idea. More than
Early five hundred years ago the Commons " complained them

to our Lord the King, because that the people of Great
Yarmouth do encounter the fishers bringing the herring to
the said town in the time of the fair, and do buy and fore-
stall the herring before they do come to the town, and also
the hostelers of the same town that lodge the fishers
coming thither with their herring will not suffer the said
fishers to sell their said herring, nor meddle with the sale
thereof, but sell them at their own will as dear as they will,
and give to the fishers that pleaseth them .... and so is
the herring set at much greater price than ever it was, to
the great damage of our Lord the King, of the lords, and
of all the people." On this ground an Act of Parliament
was passed in 1357 (31 Edw. III. Stat. 2, c. i), enacting
" that no herring be bought or sold in [i.e. on] the sea till

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 155

the fishers be come into the haven with their herring, and
that the cable of the ship be drawn to the land."

This Act was not new in principle, since a general
statute (25 Edw. III. Stat. 4, c. 3) already existed, im-
posing pains and penalties on " the forestallers of wines state regula-
and all other victuals, wares, and merchandise that come to
the good towns of England by land or by water." It
merely applied a recognised principle with exceptional
distinctness to a particular industry, and with especial
reference to a particular locality. The measure was, no
doubt, justified by the peculiar circumstances of the time,
when it was in the power of a few powerful nobles to
monopolise the trade of the country and make their own
terms with the " people." The provisions against " fore-
stallers," indeed, increased in severity in succeeding reigns,
and formed part of the law of the land until they were
swept away by 7 & 8 Viet. c. 34, in 1844.

The Act of 31 Edw. III. was followed by another with
still more stringent provisions for keeping down the price
of fish, and for breaking down the operations of what would
be called in America, at the present day, the herring
" corner." Among other things it was provided that " no
vessel called pyker of London, nor of none other place,"
should enter the haven " to enhance the fair in damage of
the people," although these pykers were allowed to " freely
buy fresh herring in Kyrkly and elsewhere upon the coasts
of the sea, without impeachment or disturbance of the
hostelers of Yarmouth or of any other." It was further
enacted that the fishers should " be free to sell their herring
to all that come to the fair of Great Yarmouth without any
disturbance of their hostelers or any other ; " that the
fishermen should sell their " merchandises openly," and in
" the presence of other merchants ; " that all sales of fish

IS6

THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

Survival of
old customs.

Effect of
State inter-
ference with
trade.

should be " made from the sun rising till the sun going
down, and not before nor after, upon forfeiture of the same
merchandises ; " and that " no hostelers, nor any of their
servants, nor any other whatsoever he be coming to the
said fair shall go by land nor by sea to forestal herring
privily nor openly." Finally, this law ordained that the
maximum price at which herrings should be sold should be
4OJ. per last, two lasts of " shotten herring " being sold for
the price of one last of full herring, and red herring being
sold at half a mark profit per last.

As an instance of the survival of old customs in the
fishing trade, it may be mentioned that the existing
method of counting six score of fish to the hundred
originated in an enactment of this Act of Edward III.
which directed that "the hundred of herring shall be
accounted by six score, and the last by the thousand."

The very next statute in the Statute Book aims at re-
ducing the price of salt fish brought in vessels " pertaining
to the haven of Blakeneye and coasts thereunto adjoining,"
and orders that such ships shall " discharge their fish within
the haven of Blakeneye only ; " that " no fish be delivered
out of the ship before that the owner and the merchant be
agreed of the price of the same by clear day ; " and that
" by the advice of the merchants and buyers of the owners
coming to the fair of Blakeneye, and of the owners of the
ships, a price shall be set at the beginning, and assessed
upon the dogger fish and loych fish before that any sale be
made, which price shall be holden during the fair, and the
said fish be sold at such a price openly."

These enactments were intended to reduce the price of
fish. They probably had the opposite effect ; and Parlia-
ment itself seems to have had some misgivings about the
success of its attempts at regulating the market, and

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 157

evidently feared than the hostelers of Yarmouth would
retaliate by refusing to accommodate fishermen, or mer-
chants, or both ; and that the fishers and mariners of
Blakeneye would "leave or refuse to go in fishing," as a
protest against interference with the customs of their trade.
At any rate, " hostelers " and " fishers " were especially
warned not to be " resistant in any point against " these two
statutes respectively. As an inducement to both classes to
observe the law, certain concessions were made to each, the
most important being an enactment that no one was to
" buy nets, hooks, nor other instruments pertaining to fishing
in the county of Norfolk, but owners, masters, and mariners
of ships that use the mystery of fishing, and which have to
do with such things" — the object being apparently to
reduce the price of fishing gear as well as of fish.

Experience proved that the remedy, in the case of Yar-
mouth at least, was worse than the disease, and in 1360 we
find a fresh Act passed on the subject of the Yarmouth
herring fair, which swept away the greater part of the law
made only three years before. A petition was now pre-
sented to Parliament, setting forth " that the sale of herring
is much decayed and the people greatly damaged by the
points" insisted on in the previous statute; that "many
merchants coming to the fair, as well labourers and servants
as other, do bargain for herring, and every one of them by
malice and envy increase upon other and if one proffer
forty shillings another will profer (sic) ten shillings more,
and the third sixty shillings, and so everyone surmounteth
other in the bargain, and such proffers extend to more than
the price of the herring upon which the fishers proffered it to
sell at the beginning " ; that the fishermen, being obliged
to look to several buyers for payment, instead of receiving
a lump sum for their fish from one of the much-abused

158 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

" hostelers," are " so much grieved and delayed in the
gathering of their money, that they should demand of so
many persons, that they lose their mart (tide) and the
advantage of their calling " ; and that the enactment that
all fish should be sold between sunrise and sunset was " to
the great loss of fishers and appairing of the herring and
damage of the people that shall buy the same ; for the fish-
ing is more by night than by day, and often it chanceth that
the fishers be so long and so charged that they come to the
town after sun going down, or little before, so that they
cannot sell their herring in the time for the sale limited, so
that they must abide all the night and the day after upon
the sale of their herring, and so lose many marts (tides)
and the profits of their fishing." Parliament, perceiving
The law all these " mischiefs and grievances," repealed the pro-
visions of the Act which had led to them, and, while still
insisting that herrings should be sold "openly and not
privily," ordained that the price should be agreed upon
between buyer and seller, providing, however, that "no
man enter in bargain upon buying of the same till he that
first cometh to bargain shall have an end of his bargain
agreeable to the seller, and that none increase upon other
during the first bargain upon pain of forfeiture to us the
double of his proffer."

Thus Parliament in its well-meant, but ill-judged, efforts
to stand between buyer and seller, between producer and
consumer, over-reached itself, and we do not hear much
more of the machinations of " forestallers " and their like till
the reign of Henry VI II., when the buying of fish for re-
sale at Sturbridge, St. Ives, and Ely was forbidden. This
law, however, lasted only ten years. An Act of Edward
VI. (5 & 6 Edw. VI. c. 14) gave fresh sanction to the old
laws against " forestallers," and defined and prohibited

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 159

cognate offences under the names of "regrating" and"Fore-

stallers,"

" ingrossing." Forestallers were defined as persons buying "regrators,"
beforehand or dissuading traders from bringing merchandise grossers."
(fish being specially included) home. Regrators were
defined as persons buying in any market and selling within
four miles. Ingrossers were defined as persons getting by
buying, or getting other than by demise, to sell again. All
persons doing such acts were liable to heavy penalties.
But these provisions were incompatible with the newly-
awakened desire to encourage foreign trade ; and, while
their object was to keep down prices, the effect of other Effect oflaws
laws prohibiting imports in foreign ships was to enhance salmon trade
prices. Consequently, we find the Act of Edward VI. generally-
repealed by 13 Eliz. c. 1 1, "for so much of the said sea fish,
&c, as any buyer or buyers, upon the sea by way of fore-
stalling or regrating shall and do bring and discharge " in
any English subject's ships " in any port or haven in this
realm."

After this there are few Acts of Parliament dealing with
the "Ring" question and the proceedings of forestallers
and regrators till the IO & 1 1 Wm. III. c. 24, which made Renewed

attempts to

Billingsgate a " free and open market for all sorts of fish regulate trade
whatsoever." The preamble of this Act recites that "divers
abuses, evidently destructive " to the fish trade, " have been
of late years practised, by raising new impositions and
tolls, and by forestalling of the markets and other methods
used by the fishmongers, in not permitting the fisherwomen
and others to buy fish ... of the . . . fishermen to
sell them again in London and elsewhere, by which means
the fishermen are obliged to sell their fish to the said fish-
mongers at their own rates, to the great discouragement
of the said fishermen " ; and that " of late years an evil
practice hath been used by the fishmongers in employing

160 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

one or two persons at the most to buy up all or the greatest
part of the fish which is brought to the said market . . .
and afterwards dividing the same amongst the fishmongers
by lots, by reason whereof the fishmongers buy and sell at
what rates they please." It is consequently enacted that
" no such practices shall be at any time hereafter used or
allowed " ; and that any person buying any quantity of fish
at Billingsgate to be divided among other persons and
afterwards retailed, and any fishmonger " ingrossing " any
quantity of fish except for his own use or sale, should be
liable to a penalty of £20.

Subsequent acts increased the stringency of these pro-
visions. 9 Anne cap. 26, in its zeal for the prevention of
" regrating, forestalling and engrossing," by the sale of fish
"at unseasonable hours in the market of Billingsgate,"
enacted that no fish should be sold before 3 A.M. from Lady
Day to Michaelmas, or before 5 A.M. from Michaelmas to
Lady Day. By 22 Geo. II. c. 49, interference with "free-
dom of contract " was carried still further, all contracts
between fishermen and fishmongers for the buying and sell-
ing of fish " to be sold again by retail before such fish shall
be brought to an open market " being declared void, with
the provision that one party to such a contract might
inform against the other, and that all bonds for not suing
for any penalty under the Act should be of no effect. Be-
sides this, a special clause was enacted to prevent fisher-
men and others from bringing their fish to some place in
the " River of Thames, and there keeping it for a consider-
able time and sending only small quantities from time to
time to market with a view to keep up the price of the
several species of fish . . . which practice will not only tend
to enhance the value of fish, but also to render it unwhole-
some food, to the great prejudice of the consumer as well as

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 161

the fishery in general." And the heavy penalty of forfeiture
of boat and cargo was imposed upon all persons keeping
"any fish at Queenborough, Gravesend, or other place or
places in any well-boat, store-boat, or any other manner
whatsoever, so as not to sell off their whole cargoe of fish
within the space of eight days from their arrival on the
British coast between North Yarmouth and Dover."

The impracticability of this enactment was admitted in Impractic-
ability of law.
an Act passed in 1756 (29 Geo. II. c. 39), the preamble of

which, after reciting that " many difficulties have arose (sic)
in putting the said Act in execution which . . . hath (sic)
rendered ineffectual the other good purposes of the said Act,
and more particularly the preventing the forestalling and
monopolising of fish in general," goes on to admit that the
winds and waves would not obey an Act of Parliament in
the time of George II. anymore than the tide would retreat
at the command of a King in the time of Canute ; and, as
it was found to be often impossible for vessels to reach
Gravesend or Queenborough within eight days of their
arrival off Yarmouth or Dover, owing to "the common
accidents of wind and weather," the eight days' interval
was ordered to be reckoned from the time of their arrival at
the Nore, which they were required to report to the searcher
at Gravesend. This arrangement was often found, however,
in practice to involve the loss of a tide, and a fresh Act
(33 Geo. II. c. 27) was required to enable vessels, within
three days of their arrival at the Nore, to report themselves
at the Custom House in London. Meanwhile, however,
they were subject to the most vigilant inspection of officers
appointed for the express purpose of seeing that they did
not part with any of their cargo before reaching Billings-
gate, and they were even prohibited from depositing fish,
under any circumstances, in store-boats or well-vessels.
VOL. IX. — E. 6. M

162

THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

Introduction
of fish
machines.

The eight days' interval, however, between the arrival at the
Nore and discharge of cargo was extended in the case of
lobsters to twelve days, and of live eels to twenty-eight
days.

In other respects the conditions of sale were made much
more stringent. It was enacted, among other things, in
two or three successive Acts, that a list containing a full
account of all the fish offered for sale should be displayed
over every stall to which they were brought from the vessel ;
that no more than a certain specified and limited number
of fish of each sort should be offered in one lot ; that they
should not be sold twice in the same market, or within 1 50
yards, in one day : and so on.

In 1762 the use of "fish machines," or vehicles adapted
specially for the land carriage of fish, was introduced, and
Parliament at once afforded these conveyances special
privileges, in the exemption from tolls, when returning
empty, and from certain other highway regulations. The
introduction of these " machines " did more to increase the
supply of fish than all the Acts of Parliament for the sup-
pression of " regrators " and " forestallers ; " and forty years
afterwards an Act of Parliament was passed declaring that
the amount of fish brought to Billingsgate had so much
increased that it was desirable to amend the law restricting

o

the quantities of fish to be sold in one lot, and the number
of each kind of fish that might legally be offered for sale at
a single bid was consequently largely increased. With the
still growing trade these restrictions, however, became more
and more irksome, and they were ultimately removed by the

Abolition of Billingsgate Act of 1846, which swept away the last re-
restrictions.

maining vestiges of Parliamentary interference with the

course and customs of the fish trade.

The revolution which fish " machines " had created in tl

Growth of
fish trade.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 163

fish trade was extended by the growth and expansion of

the railway system, and Billingsgate, instead of being de- Railways and

the fish trade,
pendent on the river as the sole channel through which it

receives its supplies, or on the laborious efforts of horse
vehicles, now receives more than twice as much fish by rail
as by river. Out of about 1 20,000 tons of fish brought to Extent of
the great Metropolitan Fish Market in 1880 about 38,000 trade,
tons came by water and 82,000 tons by land.

If the history of Billingsgate Market is instructive, that History of

" West-

of the "Free Market for the sale of fish in the City of minster"
Westminster," the existence of which a series of Acts of
Parliament regarded as a fact, although it never had any
existence at all, is perhaps more so, in considering the rela-
lations of the State towards the fishing industry generally.
An Act passed in 1749 (22 Geo. II. c. 49) directed that
" from and after the 24th day of June, 1749, there shall be
a free and open market in the City of Westminster for all
sorts of fish whatsoever : and to the end the said market
may be erected " trustees were appointed to construct the
market on the river bank adjoining Westminster Bridge.
But the " free and open market " was subject, by the same
Act which authorised its existence, to all the limitations
which the laws previously quoted had imposed on the trade
generally. Whether from this cause, or from the action of
the " Billingsgate ring," or what not, the market never had
an actual, although it had a legal, existence, and was re-
ferred to in several subsequent Acts as if it had actually
been constructed. Instead of erecting a market as directed,
the trustees allowed one Richard Hughes to build on the
authorised site eight houses, " with conveniences fit for the
fishmonger to sell by retail," " for the greater accommoda-
tion of the inhabitants of Westminster in resorting to the
said market ;" but the conditions of the lease restrained the

M 2

164 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

letting of these "houses to any other than fishmongers,"
and as any fishmongers who might settle there ran the risk
of incurring "the penalties against regrators, should they
expose to sale again in their shops any fish bought by them
at or in the said fish market," it is little wonder that
" several of the houses were uninhabited," and that " great
loss accrued to the said Richard Hughes thereby." As a
means of escape from this dilemma, Parliament allowed the
trustees to relieve their lessee of his covenant in regard to
two houses, and gave leave to any fishmongers, holding
shops for the sale of fish in any of the others, to sell any
fish whatever there " although they shall have bought the
same in the said market at Westminster." Still setting its
heart on the actual erection of this building, Parliament
next ordered that no one should sell fish within 500 yards
of the site without the licence of the trustees, and even
authorised them to compensate one fishmonger who had
established himself in Bridge Street for this interference
with his business. But neither the fish nor the market
came to Westminster, and, after a struggle of over forty
years, Parliament in 1790 relieved the trustees of their
trust, and, on the pretext that " the providing of apprentices
for fishermen was one of the objects " of the original West-
minster Market Act, handed over their funds to the Marine
Society.

The history of the Hungerford and Columbia fish markets,
founded under the regime 'of freedom from State interference,
shows that there was something more than Parliament was
able to see that prevented the success of its attempts at
market-making. The present phase of the question which
the new markets at Shadwell and Farringdon illustrate is an
interesting subject for study. Its bearing on the problem
of the duty of the State towards this branch of the fisheries

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 165

question seems to tend towards enforcing the doctrine that
the State should only interfere to give the greatest possible

freedom to trade, and to afford the fullest facilities for the Freedom of

trade,
erection and maintenance of markets, without unnecessary

expense or delay, wherever the exigencies of the trade may
require.

Throughout its incessant enactments, repeals, revivals,
and modifications of the law, the intentions of the Legisla-
ture were not open to question ; but the information on
which it acted was incorrect, and its reasoning often un-
sound. When it came to a question of a knowledge of the Necessity for

knowledge of

habits of fish the law makers were out of their depth Natural

altogether. The close season for salmon, from the begin- Fishery

ning of September to the beginning of November, which egls '

the Act of 13 Edw. I. fixed for the rivers of Yorkshire,

certainly ended too early if it did not begin too early ; but

by 4 & 5 Anne c. 21 this close season was applied to the

rivers of Hants and Wilts, to whose circumstances it was no

better adapted than to those of the northern rivers. But

what shall be said of the Act of Geo. I. (i Geo. I. c. 18)

which repealed these provisions in order to make the close Insufficiency

of early close

season, in Wiltshire and Hampshire, from August 1st to times for
November I2th? It is no wonder that, as 37 Geo. III. sa
c. 95 expresses it, this enactment was " found very preju-
dicial to the owners and proprietors of the fisheries in the
said counties," and that " further provision was necessary
for the better preservation of the salmon kind in the rivers
within the said counties." This time the close season was
made to correspond more nearly with the spawning season,
being fixed from September 1 2th to January 1st

An Act of Richard II., which fixed the close season in
Lancashire so as to embrace the more reasonable period
between Michaelmas and the beginning of February, suffered

166 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

still worse treatment at the hands of the framers of I Geo. I.
c. 1 8 ; for this statute fixed the close time for salmon in
nearly all the northern rivers, including those of Lancashire,
from the last day of July to the twelfth day of November
" for ever." In the case of the Kibble, at least, " for ever "
was reduced in practice to thirty-six years ; and 23 Geo. II.
cap. 26, after reciting that the close season so fixed " hath
been found inconvenient, as to the River Ribble, by reason
that the time limited for restraining the taking fish therein
is not properly suited or adapted to the fishing seasons
there," makes the close time extend from September I4th
to January 2nd, " for ever." Many other instances of legis-
lation on insufficient information might be given. Gaining
wisdom by experience, and finding that its enactments as
to close time still "proved ineffectual," Parliament, in 58
Geo. III. c. 43, adopted the principle, which was extended
by 6 & 7 Viet. c. 33, of making the justices the judges of
the requirements of their own rivers, and of authorising
them to fix the close time for salmon. But even then
Adoption of abuses crept in ; and it finally established a universal close
season for all English and Welsh rivers, leaving it to local
Boards of Conservators, whose formation it authorised, to

Local alter that close season, within certain limits, if found desir-

authorities.

able, with the sanction of a central authority (the Home

Office), and generally to enforce the law and adapt it, in
certain minutice, to their own requirements.

By this time, however, other matters besides the fixing of

a suitable close season had claimed, and were more and

more urgently pressing their claims upon, the attention of

the State in the question of salmon preservation. In the

Conflict of first place a great change had come over the relation of the

an^fishery fisheries to the navigation interest. The introduction of

pound locks into canals, by Brindley, was followed by the

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 167

application of these contrivances to river navigation, and
many streams which had hitherto been free from obstruc-
tions of this kind were invaded. The navigation interest,
which had hitherto demanded the removal of fishing weirs,
and which had thus been such a powerful ally of the fishing
interests, now encouraged the construction of still more
serious obstacles to the ascent of fish. But this was not all.
Not merely did the new locks present almost insuperable
obstructions to the ascending salmon, but they changed the
character of many rivers, transforming their natural reaches
of rapid running water into a succession of comparatively
stagnant pools. Thus was laid the foundation of the real
scarcity of salmon which, first experienced towards the end
of the last century, was more and more severely felt as the
nineteenth century grew old. The frequent abstraction
of water from the rivers for the purpose of feeding the Neglect of

fisheries by

numerous canals, into the construction of which the whole other

r i - ... industries.

energies of the country were thrown, was another incident
in the revival of navigation interests which added still
further to the difficulties of the salmon. The growing
manufacturing activity of the country,* with the consequent
pollution of the rivers, was a fresh source of mischief. In
1804, and again in 1818, legislative notice of this was taken
in an Act forbidding, among other things, the pouring into
rivers of water " in which any green lint or flax has been
steeped, or any water impregnated with any material or
drug pernicious to fish : " but the manufacturing industries
soon outran this modest enactment, while the introduction
of deep drainage for agricultural purposes, and of systems
of town sewerage, still further tended to complete the

* In 1804 an Act regulating the Solway fisheries, specially exempted
weirs built in connection with iron forges from the prohibition against
dams in salmon rivers.

168 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

threatened extermination of the salmon. All these new
complications, added to the survival of ancient difficulties,
represented a formidable array of important interests, con-
flicting at every turn with those of the fisheries, with which
the new Boards of Conservators had, and still have, to
devise means of reconciling them.

Duties of the To provide the machinery for reconciling the conflicting
interests of fisheries, navigation, mines, mills, manufac-
tories, drainage of land and towns, and water supply was
obviously the duty of the State. It was impossible to act
on the principle of letting the "weakest go to the wall ;"
but it was equally impossible to allow that, because the
weakest was deserving of State protection, it should claim
protection to the unreasonable disadvantage of a stronger
and more important neighbour. Powers have consequently
been given to the Conservators of the salmon fisheries to
protect the interests of those fisheries in various directions
— from the removal or remedying of weirs and the pre-
vention of pollutions down to the adjustment of hereditary
disputes between pike and salmon smolts.

Principles of That the principle is sound by which the existing rela-

existing

salmon laws, tions of the State towards the salmon fisheries are regu-
lated, can hardly be open to question. Whether the
principle is carried, in practice, to its full extent — whether,
for example, greater powers might not be given to abate pol-
lutions and weirs — is a question well worthy of discussion,
but one which can hardly be adequately treated here.

The misfortune is that in all the legislation which took
place — and in that which did not take place — down to the
commencement of the present century, the State allowed
its attention to be directed to one predominating subject, or
to one feature of the subject, to the exclusion of all others ;
and also that when it did act its action was often based on

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 169

insufficient, if not absolutely incorrect, information. If, for

instance, when the rivers were being blocked by pound The example

of the

locks, provision had been made for facilitating the ascent Thames,
of salmon, the Thames would, in all probability, have been
stocked with salmon to this day. This would almost
certainly have been the case if, in another fit of oblivious-
ness of fishery interests — and of hygienic and other interests
too — the State had not omitted to prevent, before Pre-
scriptive Rights stood in the way, the inordinate pollution
of rivers. Even now, if that giant among polluting agencies,
the Metropolitan sewage system, could be removed, the day
might yet return when salmon fishermen should ply their
nets within sight of the Houses of Parliament, and under
the shadow of that Church of St. Peter which, according to
the old legend, was endowed by the great Apostle himself
with a tithe of the salmon fisheries of the river on whose
banks it stands.

When the apprehensions of the Legislature for the future
of the salmon fisheries, in consequence of its forgetfulness,
was really aroused, it took the course which it had never
before adopted, or adopted to little purpose, and directed
the most exhaustive enquiry into the history and prospects
of the fisheries. On the result of that enquiry, and on the
ashes of the old laws, the existing Acts were passed, and a
similarly exhaustive enquiry has preceded every modifica-
tion of the first of the series. It is needless to follow, in
equal detail, the development of the Scotch and Irish laws
relating to salmon, as their administration is guided by
principles similar to those which direct the English laws on
the subject. Sufficient has been said to show the growth
of this one branch of fishery legislation — viz. that of inland
or freshwater fisheries — and we may resume the considera-
tion of the other branch, that relating to the sea fisheries.

i;o THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

The sea If, in so comparatively simple a matter as the observa-

fisheries.

tion of the habits of a fish like the salmon, passing a
considerable period of its existence within the narrow
limits of the head-waters of our rivers, Parliament was led
so far astray as to fix, for example, a close season during
one of the best portions of the fishing season, it is not to be
wondered at that its knowledge of the natural history of
purely sea fish was of the most limited extent. One Act
(3 Jas. I. c. 12) prefaced its enactments as to the destruc-
Early ignor- tion of the spawn and fry of sea fish by very gravely

ance con-
cerning them, asserting that " it is certainly known by daily experience

that the brood of sea fish is spawned and lieth in still
waters, where it may have rest to receive nourishment and
grow to perfection." This contribution to natural history
may be matched by another afforded by 9 Geo. II. c. 33,
which states that " lobsters crawl close to shore to leave
their spawn in the chinks of the rocks, and as much under
the influence of the sun as possible," and, upon that pre-
mise, proceeds to fix a close time for lobsters from June 1st
to September 1st. Parliament was much wiser when, in
providing in a previous Act (10 & II Win. IV. c. 24) that
no lobsters should be brought ashore or sold under " eight
inches in length from the peak of the nose unto the end of
the middle fin of the tail," it hazarded no doubtful state-
ments as to the domestic economy of the lobster. It is
not a little curious that this provision, after having ceased
to be observed, and having apparently been forgotten, was
revived in the existing Act regulating the capture and sale
of lobsters and crabs (40 & 41 Viet. c. 42), and is almost
the only provision of the old laws thus re-enacted intact.
A different fate, however, befel all the other Acts passed
for the protection of purely sea fish. The most important
of these, perhaps, were those relating to the herring

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 171

fisheries. In 1808 the Act 48 Geo. III. c. no directed The herring

fisheries.

that no net for the capture of herrings should be used on
the coast of Great Britain with a mesh of less than one Law of mesh-
inch from knot to knot ; but the fact was lost sight of that
the herring fisheries and the sprat fisheries are often carried
on simultaneously in the same localities ; and as no pro-
vision was made for the size of mesh or description of net
to be used for sprats, or for prohibiting their capture, it
frequently happened that the sprat fishermen in the Firth
of Forth caught large quantities of herrings ; and when the
Scotch Herring Fishery Board, established by the same Act,
seized, under its powers, the nets so taking herrings with
an illegal mesh, the sprat fishermen forcibly opposed its
officers, and serious riots ensued. Thus the first real effort
to enforce the provisions of a " protective " law in regard to
the sea fisheries resulted in disorder. Parliament attempted
to enforce the law of 1808 by enacting, in 1851, that
" whenever the herring fishery is commenced or carried
on," no net of any kind, except drift-nets of the legal one- Law of nets,
inch mesh, should be used. The sprat fishermen, who used
seine-nets and scringe-nets, resented this further interfer-
ence with their industry, and when, in 1860, the repressive
Acts were made more stringent, they so resolutely opposed
them that a compromise was made by which they were
allowed to fish in a certain part of the Firth.

In the meantime the prohibition of all nets except drift-
nets had seriously interfered with the operations of the
fishermen in Loch Fyne, who were accustomed to use the
" circle-trawl " or seine-net in preference to the drift-net.
Although no question of interference with any other branch
of the fishing industry existed here, the law was enforced
against the circle trawlers, who rebelled against it ; and once
more serious riots ensued. These disorders induced the

172

THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

Government to appoint a Commission of Enquiry, who

condemned both restrictions on the fishermen. In the

meantime another subject for investigation arose in the

Law of close result of a law passed in 1860, establishing a close time

time.

for herrings on the west coast of Scotland from January 1st
to May 3 1st The fishermen, deprived of their means of
livelihood, suffered the keenest distress during the close
time, and did not have the satisfaction of finding that
their enforced abstention from fishing had the slightest
Enquiry into effect in increasing their subsequent harvest. A second
Taws. Commission was appointed to investigate these and all

other matters connected with the sea fisheries, and reported
in favour of the entire abolition of all restrictions. The
Sea Fisheries Act, 1868, put these recommendations into
force, and the result is, broadly speaking, that the sea
fisheries of this country are exempt from all restrictions or
protective legislation whatever.

Unfortunately there are no general statistics to show
whether the fisheries have improved or deteriorated under
the new system. But in the returns of the Scotch Herring
Fishery Board we have accurate figures, showing the fluc-
tuations, year by year, in the produce of the Scotch herring
fisheries ; and, as it happens that these fisheries were more
closely affected by the "protective" provisions regarding
mesh of net and close time than any other fisheries, these
returns will afford a very fair criterion of the relative
Practical effects of protective legislation on the sea fisheries
and of its abolition. The following table, taken from the
last Report of the Scotch Herring Board, shows the total
quantity of herrings, the produce of the Scotch fisheries,
cured in each decennial period from 1812 to 1881, both
inclusive : —

Abolition of

Relative

and absence

of restrictions.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 173

Ten years ended 1821 . 2,488,961 barrels

,, 1831 3,543,799 ,,

„ 1841 4,873,043 „

„ 1851 • 6,070,759 „

„ 1861 6,348,528 „

„ ,,1871 . 7,220,082 „

„ 1881 9,434,869 „

In comparing these figures it must be recollected that
the mesh-of-net law continued in force from the commence-
ment of the period till the end of 1868 ; that all nets but
drift-nets were prohibited from 1852 to 1868 ; that a close
time (from January 1st to May 3 1st) was in force from
1 86 1 to 1868. Also that up to 1868 the Returns included
the Isle of Man, and up to 1850 part of England as well.

The good of the people, by the preservation of a valuable " Prpmotive

legislation.

property and an important source of food supply, was the
ground on which the State based its legislation for the
protection of the fisheries. The good of the people, by the
encouragement of commerce and by providing employment
for the poor, was the ostensible motive which prompted the
later statutes, whose direct object was the promotion of the
fisheries. Another motive, indeed, underlay that which was
first put forward as the ground for this legislation, and
comes more distinctly into notice as the fisheries increased
in importance, and as the power of the country extended ;
for we find that the Legislature frequently refers to its
anxiety to keep up the supply of seamen for manning the
navy as a reason for " promoting " the fisheries.

The great development of maritime enterprise which interest of
England witnessed in the reign of Henry VIII. and his encouraging
immediate successors encouraged the State in the notion of *
fostering the fisheries as a " fruitful nursery of able seamen
for the public service." In Norway the fisheries were at
one time made a direct source of revenue by taxation ; and

174 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

the Crown, having reserved to itself several valuable
fisheries, had been able to raise money by issuing licences
to work them. In England, however, the Great Charter
had secured to the public the free enjoyment of the public
fisheries in the sea and on the sea coast, and the State, far
from attempting to restrict public rights, gave the most
direct encouragement to the prosecution of the fisheries,
relieving their produce from tolls and dues, opening the
ports freely to fishing vessels, and even going so far
(as in I Jas. I. c. 23), as to exempt fishermen and those
engaged in the fisheries from liability to an action for
trespass if they invaded private property in pursuit of their
calling.*

But in adopting the policy of encouraging the fisheries
the State was influenced by the hope of receiving an
indirect return in the development of trade, and in the
education of a race of hardy and experienced seamen,
upon whom, in time of need, it could draw for the manning
of its fleets. In pursuance of this policy it was led, by
Growth of regular steps, from the mere interdiction of the import of

"bounty"

system. fish by foreigners, and the imposition of double duties on

them, to the prohibition of the purchase of fish from
foreigners, even if brought home in English vessels, to the
formation and endowment of companies for the prosecution
of the fisheries, and, lastly, to the granting of bounties to
persons exporting one kind of fish or importing another.
But the success which attended the various enactments

* In the pilchard fishery it is customary for look-out men to be
stationed on the cliffs to watch for the shoals of fish and to direct the
movements of the fishing boats. These men are known as condors,
huors, directors, or guidors, and by i Jas. I. c. 23 they were specially
exempt from liability to civil action if, while engaged in this duty,
they traversed private property, although they might be at a consider-
able distance from the actual scene of fishing operations.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 175

made with this object was by no means uniform. Liberty
in one direction had to be hedged by restriction in another.
Encouragement to fishermen to go abroad had to be
followed by penalties on their non-return. Bounties on
exportation caused such an impoverishment of the home
supply that bounties had to be offered to induce the trade
to supply the London markets. The indiscriminate encou-
ragement of the fisheries was often incompatible with the
laws made for their protection. On the other hand, the
operations of the press-gang among the fishing population
so interfered with the industry — the most necessary men
being often carried off to man the navy — that first " har-
pooners," and then all those engaged in foreign fisheries,
had to be exempt for a certain period from impressment,
or the industry must have languished.

The history of this phase of fishery legislation proves
indeed, as has already been seen in considering the course
of protective legislation, how many varied considerations
call for notice in dealing with any single branch of the
fishery question, and it serves to show how far-reaching,
and often how subversive of its ' original intention, both
sweeping and piecemeal legislation on this intricate and
complicated question may be.

One of the first Acts of Parliament which may be fairly
included in the category of " Promotive Legislation " is
2 & 3 Ed. VI. c. 19, which abolished fast-days, and which
is interesting as an example of the extent to which the
fisheries and fishery legislation influence, and are influenced
by, external and apparently remote causes. The Reforma- The Reforma-
tion had just been accomplished, and the people of this fineries. *
country, in throwing off the dominion of the Church of
Rome, had abolished many practices originated by its
authority. One of these was the observance of fast-days

THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

when fish took the place of meat. The fishermen, fearing
that their "occupation," like Othello's, would be "gone,"
when religious scruples no longer compelled the people to
eat fish, made their voice heard in an Act of Parliament,
which, " considering that due and godly abstinence is a mean
(sic) to virtue, and to subdue men's bodies to the soul and
spirit, and considering also specially that fishers and men
using the trade of living by fishing in the sea may thereby
the rather be set on work," abolished all days of abstinence,
in the hope that fish might be more generally eaten, not
only on fast-days, but as an every-day diet. This Act,
however, seems to have fallen short of its intention, and in
Elizabeth's reign (5 Eliz. c. 5) the eating of fish was again
enforced on certain days "for increase of the provision of
fish, and the more usual and common eating thereof ; " and
it was particularly pointed out that this enactment was
" purposely intended and meant politickly for the increase
of mariners and fishermen, and repairing of port towns and
navigation, and not for any superstition to be maintained
in the choice of meats." This enactment, which was
revived at various times, has left its mark upon the present
age in the popular use of salt fish on Good Friday.

Repression of foreign competition was the next step in
the new policy. Not only were foreigners subject to double
duties, but the importation of fish from abroad was for-
bidden, even if brought in English vessels, unless actually
captured by English fishermen. Enactments of this nature
were of frequent occurrence from the reign of Henry VIII.
down to quite a recent period. But these laws, hastily con-
ceived in one interest, had as often to be repealed in
different laws, another. One Act, for example (5 Eliz. c. 5), forbade the
selling of cod in barrels — partly as a protection 6f the pur-
chaser against fraud, partly as a preventive of the importa-

Restrictions
on foreign
fish.

Incompati-

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 177

tion of foreign fish ; but eight years later another law had
to explain that this prohibition was " not meant to hinder
any of the Queen's subjects from using uprightness and
truth in the barrelling of such fish," and to repeal the pro-
hibition. Yet another Act (23 Eliz. c. 7) again forbade
any British subject from bringing or buying salted fish
from abroad, and once more Parliament had to admit that
it had frustrated its own intentions ; for in a long preamble
to 39 Eliz. c. 10 it explains that when the statute just
alluded to was passed " it was hoped and expected that Results of
the fishermen of this realm would in such earnest have foreig^ S
employed themselves to fishing, and to the building and impolts<
preparing of such store of boats and shipping for that pur-
pose, as that they should long ere this have been able
sufficiently to have victualled this realm with salted fish
and herrings of their own taking, without any supply of
aliens and foreigners, to the great increase of mariners and
maintenance of navigation ; notwithstanding it is since
found by experience that the navigation of the land is no
whit bettered by the means of that Act . . . but contrari-
wise the natural subjects of this realm not being able to
furnish the tenth part of the same with salted fish of their
own taking, the chief provision and victualling thereof with
fish and herrings hath, ever since the making of the same
statute, been in the power and disposition of aliens and
strangers, who thereby have much enriched themselves . . .
and (taking advantage of the times) have extremely
inhanced the price of that victual . . . and yet do serve
the markets here in very evil sort by little and little,
housing and keeping their fish as well on this side as
beyond the sea till the prices be raised to their liking . . .
and the navigation of this realm, which was intended to be
augmented, hath been rather impaired than increased

VOL. IX.— E. 6. N

178 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

thereby, and the prices of fish greatly inhanced . . . And
for that it is very unequal that the native subjects of this
land should not be at liberty to bring in also foreign pro-
vision of fish for the victualling of this our country as well
as to carry out, but that the stranger should be wholly
trusted therewith " — the previous statute is repealed,
"every clause, branch, and proviso thereof ... to all
intents, constructions, and purposes, as if the same had
never been had ne (sic) made."

Nevertheless, just a hundred years afterwards almost
exactly the same experience had to be bought at the same
cost. The Act 10 & 1 1 Wm. III. c. 24 prohibited the impor-
tation of fish in " foreign bottoms ; " but in the first year
of King George I.'s reign (c. 18) the importation of foreign
lobsters and turbots was permitted, because the previous
prohibition had made these fish " much dearer than before."
Still the demand for foreign fish caused the law to be dis-
obeyed, and by 9 Geo. II. c. 33 the penalty was increased
to ;£ioo ; yet the contraband trade continued, and as even
that heavy penalty was " insufficient to restrain ill-disposed
persons from buying and receiving fresh fish other than
turbets (sic) and lobsters from foreigners ; " a fresh Act
(26 Geo. III. c. 81) still further increased it, and gave
additional powers for enforcing it. The law, however,
became practically inoperative long before its repeal in
1868.

In the meantime the system of actively encouraging the
prosecution of the fisheries by the granting of bounties had
Bounties on come into force. The first fishery to receive the benefit of
this form of encouragement was the pilchard fishery, a
bounty of *]s. per barrel, which was afterwards increased,
being paid on all fish exported. Cod, ling, hake, and
herrings were afterwards eventually included in the bounty

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 179

system, which, in the case of herrings, was extended in

1750 by the payment of a considerable bounty on vessels

fitted out for the fishery for a certain period and under

certain conditions. To guard against fraudulent claims for

this bounty the most minute regulations had to be made

as to the proper equipment of the fishing vessels, their Inconvenience

dates of sailing and return, and other matters ; and, instead regulations.

of an encouragement, these regulations were often a serious

hindrance, to the fishery. " Great inconveniences have

arisen," said, for instance, the Act 19 Geo. III., c. 26, from

certain clauses, as to the rendezvous of the fishing fleet on

the fishing grounds, enacted in an Act passed only eight

years earlier ; and six years afterwards these provisions,

though then amended, had to be repealed altogether.

Again, the specified outfit of nets required to be carried by

vessels fitting out for the bounty were found to be unsuited

to the Yarmouth fishery, and here also the law had to be

amended by a special Act for the purpose.

The payment of a bounty on exported fish, even if it had
the desired effect of stimulating the fishing industry and
commercial enterprise generally, resulted in neutralising, if
not completely defeating, the efforts of the legislature to
secure an abundant and cheap supply of fish for the large
towns of England, and of London in particular. The
energies of the fishing population and of " the trade " were
centred in the one object of qualifying themselves for the
State bounties, and the English consumer had to go
served, as the Act of Elizabeth said, " in very evil sort ; "
so, after twice relaxing the law in order to admit Swedish
herrings to the English markets, Parliament, in 1801 (by
41 Geo. III. c. 77), first granted a bounty on salmon and Bounties on
cod imported from Newfoundland, and next (by 41 Geo. III. in
c. 99), actually offered a similar bonus to all persons

N 2

i8o THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

bringing fish to the London markets and to the other great
towns of England. At the same time, by another Act
(42 Geo. III. c. 3), the bounties on the export of herrings
were temporarily discontinued, on the ground that such a
course was "highly expedient for procuring a supply of
good and wholesome food for the consumption of the
United Kingdom."

After such an experience as this it is surprising that a
revival of the export bounties should have been tolerated.
Yet the system was again resorted to a year or two later.
It had, however, received its death blow, and the amounts
paid were gradually reduced, the bounty on pilchards
finally expiring in 1826, and that on herrings, cod, and
ling, in 1829.

Did the Whether the bounties had any real effect in laying the

" encourage " foundation of the wonderful prosperity which the herring
fisheries have enjoyed since their abolition is open to ques-
tion. Many eminent authorities have maintained that they
had no appreciable effect in encouraging the fishery, and
that the fishermen went to sea to catch, not the fish, but
the bounty. Even if it be granted that the fishery did
receive a stimulus in the early days of the system, it is
certain that it was not maintained by it in its later days, or
the fishery would certainly have shown signs of a relapse
after 1829. But the statistics which have happily been
furnished by the Board of White Herring Fishery tell no
Effect of such tale. In the twenty years preceding 1829 the average
tbhTifaboHtion number of herrings cured amounted to 271,703 barrels
herrhf tr d annua^y- ^n tne twenty years succeeding 1829 the average
annual cure was nearly double, or 530,389 barrels. In the
next period of twenty years — a period which, it must be
remembered, embraced the seventeen years during which
the restrictive or protective legislation, already referred to,

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 181

enforcing close seasons and limiting the mesh and the kinds
of nets, was in force — the average quantity of herrings
cured every year exceeded 652,000 barrels. During the last
twelve years this annual average has been still further
augmented to 924,459 barrels. The value of these figures
is still further increased when the fact is taken into con-
sideration that since 1869 the statistics refer solely to
Scotland, while prior to that year they included, as already
pointed out, the Isle of Man, and, before 1850, they em-
braced a considerable portion of the English coast as well.

Although all the laws, both "protective" and " pro- The « brand »

question.

motive," in regard to the herring fisheries have been swept
away, one remnant of them still survives in an official, and
another in an unofficial, form. Of the latter, viz. the custom
which still obtains in some parts of Scotland, among the
curers, of paying the fishermen a " bounty " in addition to
the market or contract price of the fish, no notice need be
taken here. The other, the retention of the " Government
Brand " guaranteeing the quality of the herrings cured,
demands some notice. This brand is a survival of the old
bounty laws which required, in the case of the larger fish,
like cod, that those on which the bounty had been paid
should have their tails cut off, and, in the case of herrings
and other small fish, that the barrels should be branded to
prevent them from being brought up a second time to claim
the premium. To be entitled to the bounty the fish had to
be of a certain quality, and packed in a particular manner,
and the Government officers, before giving the brand and
passing the fish, had to examine them to see that they
complied with the regulations. When the bounty was
abolished it was deemed expedient to retain the brand, in
deference to the strong feeling of the trade that their
interests would suffer if the quality of their herrings was no

182 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

longer guaranteed by a Government mark in the Continental
markets. Its retention, however, has been condemned on
the highest authority ; and in 1859, as a compromise, it
was arranged that a small fee should be paid by those who
desired to avail themselves of any advantages which the
brand conferred on fish so marked, but that its use should
not be compulsory. This arrangement has- resulted in a
considerable income — more than sufficient to defray the
cost of the establishment required to carry out the system
properly, and, although the custom can hardly be supported
on any general principles of political economy, it exists
on sufferance in consequence of the strong expression of
opinion, on the part of the majority of the trade, repeatedly
given in its favour. It would be difficult, if not impossible,
to induce Parliament to extend to any other trade, or even
to any other branch of the fishing trade, the system of a
Government guarantee of quality. But it is urged that the
maintenance of the brand is no expense, but rather a source
of income, to the State ; that its retention has hitherto been
highly valued by those most deeply interested in the sub-
ject ; that it has not been proved to have been accompanied
by any serious drawbacks ; and that the revenue which the
fees afford may be advantageously applied to the mainte-
nance or construction of harbours, to the extension of the
telegraph system, to scientific investigation of matters con-
nected with the fisheries, and to other works which may be
generally beneficial to the industry. These arguments
have hitherto prevailed ; and, so recently as 1881, a Select
Committee of the House of Commons reported in favour of
the retention of the brand. The recent reorganisation of
the Scotch Herring Fishery Board seems to promise a new
lease of life to this remnant of an exploded policy, for its
principal duty for many years past has been the supervision

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 183

of the packing of herrings to qualify them for the brand.
But it is to be hoped that the usefulness of the Board will
be increased in other directions. It has already established Value of

statistics.

a strong claim to the gratitude of those interested in the
welfare of the fisheries by compiling the careful statistics
already quoted ; and it has also performed useful work in
maintaining and extending fishery harbours. Whether the
brand be retained or not, the Board has an ample field
before it for the extension of its labours in these directions,
and the State would do well if it not only increased the
powers of the Board so as to enable it to make a scientific
examination of the fisheries,* but if it also authorised the
collection of similar statistics, and the prosecution of
scientific inquiry, by the other Fishery Departments.

Not only the home fisheries and those carried on in the Bounties on

ijacent seas, but the cod fisheries of Newfoundland, the out for the
whale and seal fisheries of Greenland and the Gulf of St.
iwrence, and even the whale fishery in the Antarctic Ocean

rere included in the bounty system. In the reign of
Henry VIII. fish bought in " any part of Iceland, Scotland,

Irkney, Shetland, Ireland; or Newland " were first exempted
from the law prohibiting the sale of fish bought abroad, not
from any particular desire to benefit those countries or their
fisheries, but to foster a spirit of adventure among the

lesrmen, partly also, in all probability, to compensate
for the scarcity of fish which the prohibition of foreign
imports, coupled with the incentive to exportation which

le bounties afforded, was causing in the home markets,
ind at the same time to avoid giving open encouragement
trade with the French, Dutch, and Norwegian fishermen

-jealousy of whom was one cause of that prohibition.

* Since this was written the Scotch Fishery Board has undertaken
mch scientific inquiries as are above suggested.

1 84 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

The first direct encouragement given to the northern
fisheries was the grant to the " Greenland Company " in
1693 of a sort of monopoly of the trade with Greenland,
and of the fisheries in the adjacent seas. This com-
pany, however, failed to fulfil its mission, and ten years
later the privileges conferred upon it were thrown open to
all British subjects. These were gradually increased until
not only was the produce of these fisheries admitted free of
duty, but bounties were paid to vessels fitting out for the
trade, and bounties were paid on the oil, whalebone, and
sealskins, which they brought home. Acts were passed
prescribing the exact limits within which the whales were
to be caught which were entitled to the bounty, but, as the
officers of the Government were neither ubiquitous nor
omniscient, they had to depend on the oath of the master
of the ship whether the oil he brought home was the
produce of a whale caught north of 64^° N. latitude,
or south of 36° S. latitude. It is to be feared that whaling
captains and their crews were not proof against the tempta-
tion of asserting what no one in the world could disprove,
and that the bounty system was the cause of a considerable
amount of uncommonly hard swearing, and opened the
door to a good many fraudulent claims on the national
purse. They certainly entailed a vast amount of trouble on
the tax-collectors, who had to make all sorts of allowances
on salt used, or intended to be used, in or brought back
from the fisheries ; and there is evidence that they were a
considerable burden to the country, for in an Act passed in
1785 there is a clause tempting those to whom sums of
money, payable as bounties, were overdue, to exercise " for-
bearance " in pressing their claims, by offering them 3 per
cent, interest on such unpaid bounties. The effect the
export bounties had in reducing the supply of fish to the
English markets has already been referred to.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 185

It is curious that with all the encouragement given to the
fisheries of foreign countries the important fisheries carried
on round the Isle of Man were forgotten. It was not till The Isle of
1772 that fish from the Isle of Man were exempted from
the prohibition against " foreign " fish, but even then they
were subject to import duty for fourteen years afterwards.
It was not till the export bounty system had begun to make
its effects felt, in a diminished supply of fish to the home
markets, that the value of a source of supply so near home
as the Irish Sea began to be fully appreciated.

This is not the place to enter into a full consideration of Effect of
the effects which the series of laws passed for the " en- bounties on

couragement " of the fishing industry in this country had

upon the condition and prospects of one region at least Newfound-

whose valuable store of cod, salmon, and other fish, as well land-

as seals, attracted the attention of European fishermen very

soon after its discovery ; but this sketch of the history of

the relations of the State towards fish and fisheries would

hardly be complete without some reference to the laws

made to encourage our fishermen to go to the shores of

Newfoundland, and to the subsequent laws which were

found necessary to enforce their return to this country.

The reference is useful as another instance of the far-reach-

ing effects of, and the remote causes affecting, fishery legis-

lation. The national spirit of enterprise was the origin of

our interest in the Newfoundland fisheries. The authority

given by 10 & 1 1 Wm. III. c. 25 to the surrogate " admirals "

and " vice-admirals " of the coast of the island, and the

exemption from duty of goods imported thence, appealed at

once to the ruling and to the trading instincts of British sea-

men ; and it only needed the bounty offered by 15 Geo. III.

c. 3 1 to make the Newfoundland fisheries, with their extra-

ordinary abundance, a favourite resort. But the island and

186 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

the mainland of America had other attractions, and Parlia-
ment found that, instead of increasing the supply of men
for the navy, it was giving facilities for the fishermen to
place themselves far beyond the reach of the press-gang in
a new country which promised them unbounded liberty and
abundant means of subsistence, if not wealth. So special
enactments were devised to enforce the return of the fisher-
men by prohibiting settlement in the island of Newfound-
land, forbidding the desertion of the crews to the mainland,
and so forth. But these Acts, though seriously hindering
the progress of Newfoundland, were ineffectual for the
object in view, and had ultimately (5 Geo. IV. c. 51) to be
rescinded, and thus one more thread in the web of legisla-
tion which Parliament had spun round the fisheries was,
after having been broken with impunity, removed by the
authority that had created it.
" Promotive " The only form of directly " promotive " legislation now

legislation

and the existing is in the shape of a law giving authority for the
fisheries. appropriation of portions of the foreshore for the purpose
of oyster or mussel cultivation. But the expense attending
an application for such a grant is often so great as to pro-
hibit the very class of persons who might be expected to
utilize it to the best possible advantage — viz., fishermen and
others with local knowledge of the capabilities of a particu-
lar spot — from availing themselves of the opportunity which
the law is intended to afford them. The profits which may
be realised from the cultivation of a few square yards of
ground adapted to the requirements of oyster or mussel
culture, and the great advantage which ensues from the
application of different methods to small areas immediately
contiguous have been shown in the experience of the
concessionnaires at the French oyster-breeding stations at
Arcachon, and other places, where it often happens that

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 187

one pare is most productive, while its neighbour is abso-
lutely barren ; or that one is suited for " fattening " purposes,
while another, closely adjoining, is available only for
"spatting" or breeding. An extension of the present
system of encouraging mussel and oyster culture in the
United Kingdom, not only by reducing the expense of
obtaining a grant of foreshore, but by offering inducements
to individual effort rather than to joint-stock enterprise,
would be of great benefit to the oyster and mussel fisheries.
The system might possibly even be enlarged by including
areas in which crabs and lobsters could be stored and kept
till they had attained the legal size.

Whatever may have been the actual part played by the Harbour

. accommoda-

bounties in the immense development which the fisheries tion.
—both at home and in foreign waters — have experienced,
it may be questioned whether the money that was spent
in that way might not have been better invested in
the construction of harbours. No fishery can be properly
conducted unless the vessels engaged in it have adequate
accommodation, not only for the discharge of their cargoes,
but for shelter in time of storms. While a small harbour,
again, is sufficient for small boats, the larger vessels which
modern developments of both fishing and navigation are
multiplying so rapidly, find the accommodation which was
ample half a century ago quite inadequate, and often abso-
lutely a source of danger. Larger boats are required for
the safety of the fishermen as well as for the successful
prosecution of the fisheries farther out to sea ; and thus not
only larger harbours, but harbours at more frequent intervals
along the coast, are more and more urgently required.
What the State has done in this respect for the encourage-
ment of the fisheries is not comparable with its long-con-
• tinued energy in the matter of bounties. The White

188 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

Herring Fishery Board of Scotland has for many years
administered a small Government grant of from £2500 to
.£3000 a year for the construction and maintenance of piers
and harbours. With the limited means thus placed at its
command, combined with local subscriptions raised by the
fishermen and, in some cases, with the funds of local bodies,
it has done much good in improving most of, if not all, the
harbours on the east coast of Scotland. The British Fisheries
Society, a body created by Act of Parliament in 1786, with
powers to develop the fisheries generally, and with special
privileges granted to it in furtherance of its work, has also
achieved a considerable amount of good, having con-
structed at least two harbours, those at Wick and Ullapool.
The latter town, indeed, owes its existence to the herring
fishery and to the harbour which that Society founded there
about a century ago.

In Ireland the State has from time to time granted sums.
of money, varying in amount, to the Public Works Depart-
ment, to be expended in building, maintaining, and im-
proving fishery harbours, the average annual expenditure
upon which during the last forty years has been between
;£2OOO and .£3000. The exceptional condition of Ireland
induced Parliament in 1875 to authorise the grant of loans
to fishermen, to enable them to buy boats and gear, and
thus to take advantage of the existing facilities for fishing.
This arrangement does not come strictly under the general
question of harbour accommodation, but it may be con-
veniently referred to here, since it has been the means,
according to the reports of the Inspectors of Irish fisheries,
of providing many localities with nets and boats, where
harbours and piers erected or maintained by the Board
of Works were lying idle and unused, and where the waters
were teeming with fish which came and went uncaught.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 189

In England little or nothing has been done by the State
for the maintenance or construction of harbours, specially
or solely in the fishing interests. But two Acts passed in
1 86 1— the General Piers and Harbours Act 1861 (24 & 25
Viet c. 45) and the Harbours and Passing Tolls Act, 1861
(24 & 25 Viet. c. 47) — gave facilities for the construction of
harbours or piers generally in any part of the United King-
dom, and authorised the Public Works Loan Commissioners
to issue loans to harbour authorities, at interest, and repay-
able within fifty years. Under these powers considerable
sums of money have been advanced to several harbour
authorities in the three kingdoms.

The General Piers and Harbours Act is probably sus- Suggested

., , r -111- i • i amendment of

ceptible of considerable improvement by a very slight iaw as to
alteration in one clause, which provides that any single hz
person or body of persons having an interest in any
property of a similar nature likely to be affected by a pro-
jected pier or harbour may, by withholding their written
consent, prevent the Act being put into operation. An
amendment of the law which would leave it to an arbitrator
to settle any disputes or difficulties which might arise in
the manner contemplated by the Act, or which would at
least prevent a minority of individuals, or bodies, from
opposing by vis inertice any new works, would probably be
an advantage both to the fishing interest and to the shipping
interests at large. As the law now stands, it is in the power
of a single individual, by simply withholding his signature,
to stop the application of the powers of the Act to a work
which the whole country may unite in demanding, and to
compel, in the alternative, a resort to the expensive and
tedious course of obtaining powers under a private Act of
Parliament. The tele-

Thc use of the electric telegraph as an agency in the fhePfisheries.

190 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

prosecution of the fisheries is of course a modern practice ;
but it has been found of immense advantage in enabling
intelligence of the presence of a shoal of fish off the shore
to be conveyed rapidly from one point to another. In
Norway the extension of the telegraph system has been
partly influenced by the consideration of affording facilities
of this kind to the fishing centres ; and the absence of such
a means of communication has been keenly felt in many
outlying districts in North Britain. The Government,
having control of the telegraph system, ought to take into
consideration the value of an extension of the telegraph
system into districts where its introduction could be proved
to be a boon to the fishing industry. The benefits it
would confer could not be estimated by counting the
possible number of shilling messages that would be sent,
but by the value which such messages would represent to
the fishing population.

State action of this kind, however, borders as nearly upon
the question of "regulation and administration" as upon
that of direct " encouragement " of the Fisheries. It is a
question, if not of reconciling fishery and other interests, at
least of not overlooking the fisheries in dealing with other
matters.
"Regulative" Legislation belonging to that class which has been

legislation. . - .

defined as regulative or " administrative " has naturally
been called for most imperatively as the fishing industry
has grown in importance, and the numbers of persons
engaged in it have increased. Where the interests of
different branches of the industry conflict with each other
or with other interests ; where sanitary or moral considera-
tions call for interference ; or where national jealousies are
likely to lead to disturbance, the State is required to
interfere.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 191

The first Act of this kind was passed in Elizabeth's Outrages on

fishermen

reign (13 Eliz. c. n), and might very well be taken, but for at sea.
its quaint language, for a measure introduced in the present
year of grace to deal with certain outrages alleged, appa-
rently with too much reason, to have been committed by a
certain class of foreign marauders in the North Sea. " For
the avoiding of lewd outrages committed and done upon
the sea coast of Norfolk and Suffolk by the catchers,
mongers, and picards, pretending to buy fresh herrings,
and which do cut in sunder divers pieces of fishermen's nets
travelling the high seas to take fresh herring, to the utter
undoing of the said poor fishermen," this Act provides that
" no boats in the time of common fishing, from September
1 4th to November I4th, from sunset to sunrise, shall
anchor upon the main sea or close to where the fishermen
use to drive."

The regulation requiring all fishing boats to bear a dis- The duties of
tinctive mark, specifying the port to which they belong,
and their own individual number, was framed for, among
other things, facilitating the prosecution of offenders of this
class, as well as for the better ordering of the traffic on the
high seas generally. But a local enactment, enforcible
only in one country and against the subjects of one State
becomes little less than useless among a vast congregation
of fishing boats — to say nothing of an incessant stream of
merchant ships — gathering, often in a comparatively limited
area, from half-a-dozen different nations. It is greatly to
the credit of the fishing community generally that com-
plaints of the kind heard in Elizabeth's time have been so
rare. The general peace has, however, been broken in
recent years by a few ill-disposed persons who failed to see
that considerations of their own safety, as well as of that
of others, demanded mutual forbearance and good-will.

192 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

An evil example set, apparently, by a few Ostend fishermen,
of making raids on the nets of fellow-craftsmen belonging
to other countries, either for the sake of the fish they con-
tain, or in order to disentangle their own gear when fouled
by that of their neighbours, or even to clear a passage for
their trawls when drift-nets set before them have barred
their way, has been followed by fishermen from other
countries, till the fishing in the North Sea, instead of being
a peaceful occupation for orderly men, impelled, by a sense
of mutual danger from the ordinary perils of the sea, to
respect each other's calling and property, has come in some
cases to resemble rather a conflict of hostile fleets. The
marauders, armed with a destructive instrument, called a

The "Belgian « devil," with which they could, unseen, cut through a corn-
Devil."

petitor's net, have inflicted serious injury on the property

of English fishermen, whose complaints of the outrages,
and of the expenses they were put to in order to recover
their nets in foreign ports, and of the absence of a legal
remedy, at last caused an official enquiry to be held, which
resulted in substantiating the alleged grievances, and in
proving the necessity for an International police in the
North Sea.
Numbering The case for the establishment of such an organization is

of boats.

made all the stronger by the fact that the example set by
the English Government of requiring their fishing-boats to
be plainly marked with a distinguishing number has not
been always followed, or has been followed only imperfectly,
by the neighbouring States. French boats are marked in a
similar manner to the English, both on the hull of the boat
itself, and on the mainsail. Belgian boats are marked with
only a small figure or letter on the bows ; and Dutch boats
are not numbered at all. If outrages such as those described
are to be suppressed, it is essential, first, that there should

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 193

be a ready means of identifying offenders ; and second, that
an easy and cheap remedy in a court of law should be pro-
vided. Such a provision can only be secured by an Inter-
national Convention among all the countries whose fisher-
men frequent the same seas. The claims of morality, and
of the safety and lives of the fishermen, and the interests
of the different States in an important industry, alike
demand prompt action to this end.

There are other matters affecting not only the " police " Regulation
of the fisheries, but their " protection," that can only be territorial
properly regulated by an International Convention. So
long as fisheries are confineo! to the territorial seas, the laws
of the single State to which they belong can be enforced
against all comers. But outside the three-mile limit, which
is the recognised boundary of the authority of the State,
complications arise which only an International law can
remove. A law, for instance, might be made providing a
close season for certain kinds of sea-fish, the capture of
which takes place in the deep sea. But if such a law were Difficulty o
made by one State and not concurred in by all the others
interested, it would either be inoperative, even as far as the
subjects of the State sanctioning the law were concerned,
or it would be a great hardship upon them, in preventing
them from participating in an industry in which their
foreign rivals were free to engage unrestricted. If, again,
a law, fixing a minimum size for the sale of fish caught in
the deep sea, were made, it also would be of no practical
effect, for it would not prevent the subjects of the State
which made the law from catching such undersized fish and
selling them in foreign countries.

Difficulties like these, indeed, are the first practical
objection to the demand which has lately been heard for
the protection of soles, for instance. Before such a law

VOL. IX. — E. 6. O

194

THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

The seal
fisheries.

were made its necessity would first have to be demon-
International strated, not only to the State that proposed it, but to the
conventions. Government of every other country whose fishermen would
be affected by it. The conclusion of a Convention embody-
ing any such provision would be primd facie evidence of its
necessity, for it is hardly likely that, even if one nation
should desire it, half-a-dozen countries would be found to
join in enacting and enforcing an unnecessary law. If,
therefore, the advocates of a law of close time, or of mesh,
in the North Sea, were to produce evidence that Germany,
France, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and Denmark would
join England in working it, they would advance a con-
siderable step towards its adoption.

One such matter of pure " protection," as distinguished
from ordinary " police " regulation, has already been made
the subject of an International Convention, without which
the object aimed at could not have been attained. The
very general desire to afford protection to the immature
seals in the Greenland seas led the Governments of the
various nations interested in that branch of the fishing
industry to prohibit the killing of seals within a certain
area before the 6th of April, and to give facilities for the
prosecution of offenders. In this case the remoteness of
the sealing grounds from the general track of commerce
would at first sight appear to be sufficient to make offenders
feel sure of avoiding detection ; but, as the close time was
established at the earnest request of some of the most
influential persons directly engaged in the pursuit, it was
thought to be a sufficient safeguard to encourage informers
to enforce the law by offering them a moiety of the pretty
considerable penalty attaching to breaches of it.

Hitherto the history of Conventions on the subject of the
sea fisheries between this and adjoining States has been

The French
Convention.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 195

unfortunate. Prior to 1882, the only other Convention still in
existence relating to fisheries was one made between England
and France, to provide regulations for preventing the undue
destruction of fish, and more particularly oysters, in the
English Channel, as well as to prevent disturbances between
fishermen of the two nationalities. With this object a Con-
vention was entered into in 1839, and confirmed by Act of
Parliament in 1843. The Convention, however, for various
reasons into which it is needless to enter into detail, has
proved unworkable, and was superseded by a new Treaty in
1867, which framed a series of regulations for the fisheries
in the Channel between Englishmen and Frenchmen. This
Treaty, though confirmed by Act of Parliament in 1868, has
never come into practical operation, except in one particular,
on account of the objection entertained by the French
Government, among other things, to the trial of French
subjects in English courts. Offences under the Treaty are
clearly defined, and may be prosecuted ; but English com-
plainants must follow French offenders to French courts, and
the provisions are practically in abeyance. The single ex-
ception alluded to is in regard to the question of a close time
for oysters, which was fixed from June i6th to August 3 1st.
Both Governments have been enabled to pass a law pro-
hibiting boats from carrying dredges between those dates,
and forbidding the sale of oysters taken beyond the three-
mile limit between those dates ; and, as common action has
been taken in this respect, these bivalves are adequately
protected in accordance with the views entertained on both
sides on this subject. In all other respects, in such im-
portant matters as the prosecution of offenders, the admis-
sion of English fishermen to French ports, and of French
fishermen to English ports, to sell their fish, and the
prevention of disputes, the Convention remains a dead

O 2

196 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

letter; and, although the Convention of 1843 has been
revived by an English Act, whereby provisions of doubtful
practicability touching some of these points have been
re-enacted, so far as French offences against English
fishermen in the Channel are concerned, the broad result
is that no machinery exists for preventing or punishing
acts committed at sea, which would never be tolerated for
one moment within the three-mile limit

If the " Belgian devil," by the outcry it has occasioned,
leads all the States interested to bestir themselves, and
place their relations with fishermen and the fisheries on a
proper footing in such matters as these, its recent appear-
ance as a cause of strife among the fishermen in the North
Sea will not be regarded as an unmixed evil.
Prevention of The enquiries regarding the " devil " have resulted in

social abuses ,

at sea. bringing to light another evil which equally deserves and

demands repression. " Floating grogshops of the worst
possible description, uncontrolled and unregulated by any
superior power or force whatsoever," and known as
u coopers " or " bumboats," have lately been introduced
among the fishing fleets, tempting the fishermen with vile
spirits under pretence of selling water and provisions, and
taking advantage of their solitary and often monotonous
position to induce that taste for drink which is only too
easily acquired, but against which, as a rule, our fishermen,
when left to themselves, have been proof; these boats are
officially declared to be the cause of " evils which not only
include theft, gross breaches of trust, assaults, violence,
robbery, obscenity, and smuggling, but even in not a few
cases result in violent deaths." The repression of such a
nefarious traffic is surely an object which not one State,
but all, in a united effort, should have at heart in their
many-sided relations with fishermen and fisheries.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 197

There is every reason to hope that such a united effort
will be made to deal with some, if not the whole, of the
matters above referred to, and others connected with the
" police of the seas." At a Conference held at the Hague A proposed

new Con-

last May (1882), a Convention was signed by the represen- vention.
tatives of England, France, Germany, Belgium, and Den-
mark, with provision for the subsequent adhesion of Norway
and Sweden, " the object of which," to quote its own words,
" is to regulate the police of the fisheries in the North Sea
outside territorial waters." Lord Granville has given notice
of his intention to introduce a Bill giving force to the pro-
visions of that Convention, and when full effect to it is
given by the authorities of each State concerned, the
fisheries of the North Sea will be under a system of super-
vision, which will provide a remedy against such " lewd
outrages " as Queen Victoria's, as well as Queen Elizabeth's,
subjects have been subject to. All fishing boats will be
marked in such a manner as to be easily identified ; their
fishing gear will be similarly distinguished ; " devils " and
their like will be forbidden altogether ; the prosecution of
offenders will be facilitated ; disputes between trawlers and
drifters will be rendered less frequent ; * and generally the
fishermen will be subject to a control which will secure the
peaceful, orderly, and, let us hope, profitable and safe
prosecution of the important industry in which they are
engaged.

Where the State interferes either in its own waters, or in Necessity for

impartiality

conjunction with its neighbours in the deep sea, to adjust Of State
disputes between one mode of fishing and another, or to regu '

* By the English law, and also in the French Convention, it is
provided that no trawler shall come within three miles of a drifter.
This enactment will, under the Convention, be applicable to all vessels
in the North Sea.

198 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

reconcile conflicting interests, it is bound to act with the
strictest impartiality and only upon the fullest information.
This unfortunately has not always been the case. For
many years, for instance — since the time of Charles II., if
not earlier — special legislation has existed in Cornwall, by
Seiners v. which seine owners have been afforded greater advantages
than drift-net fishermen have enjoyed. In 1662 (13 & 14
Ch. II. c. 28) drift-nets were prohibited from coming within
a league and a half of the shore between June 1st and
November 3Oth. On the face of it, such a law was only
enforcible within two-thirds of the limits to which it pro-
fessed to apply. Possibly it was intended as much for an
"encouragement to navigation" by forcing boats out to
sea as for a special boon to the seiners ; but the privi-
leges which it afforded to the latter, who use a kind of net
only applicable to fishing within a short distance of the
shore, were continued by 16 Geo. III. c. 36, which imposed
a penalty on line fishermen, in Devonshire and Cornwall,
fishing between July 25th and December 25th. This Act,
however, adopted the somewhat fairer policy of enacting
that seiners must keep within a certain distance of the
shore, although the limit fixed, twenty fathoms, was insuffi-
cient for the purposes of the fishery. An amendment Act
(4 & 5 Viet. c. Ivii.), on the other hand, went to the opposite
extreme in directing that within the limits of the " stems,"
or seining stations, no drift-net boat, or vessel other than a
seine-boat, should anchor at night-time within 1200 fathoms
of the shore, and that no person should fish with hooks or
with any net other than a seine within 1000 fathoms of the
shore at any time. These provisions, it is true, only ex-
tended— and still extend — to St. Ives ; but the Sea
Fisheries Act, 1868, practically applies them to the whole
coast of Cornwall (except that part which lies east of

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 199

Trevose Head), by enacting that no' person other than a
seiner may fish at night within two miles of the shore, or
fish at all within half a mile of a seiner. Considering that
in recent years the practice of drift-net fishing has almost
superseded that of seining, these provisions seem unneces-
sarily severe upon one and the leading interest, without
conferring any corresponding benefit on the other.

The question of Seiners versus Drifters is akin to- the Drifters v.
question of Drifters versus Trawlers, which is agitating the
minds of the fishing community at large at the present
time. Trawlers generally, and steam-trawlers in particular,
are objected to on two grounds : first, that they unneces-
sarily disturb the drifters and line fishermen ; second, that
they are destructive to both fry and spawn of sea fish, and
to the clam and mussel beds on which the line-fishermen
are dependent for a large portion of their supplies of bait.
The feeling against the trawlers has been embittered by the
action of some of this class of fishermen in wantonly
destroying drift-nets in the North Sea by the means of the
" devil." It is, however, one thing to prevent trawlers from
committing wanton mischief, and to place them under
proper regulations to prevent accidental injury being done
by them to competitors who, from the nature of their mode
of fishing, have not the same freedom of action ; but it is
altogether another thing to suppress them absolutely, or to
place them under unreasonable restrictions. At the present Value of

trawling

moment we are mainly dependent on trawlers for the industry,
supply of at least three or four kinds of fish held in the
highest estimation — turbots, soles, brill, plaice, and gurnard
for example ; while we also receive a considerable quantity
of haddock and cod from the same source. The supply of
fish from the trawl fishery is more regular throughout the
whole year than from any other mode ; and the capital

200 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

invested in this particular branch of the fishing industry
is enormous. Some of the larger trawlers measure as
much as 90 or 100 tons, and cost, when fitted with gear
and stores complete, not far short of £2000 a piece. To
annihilate such an industry by prohibiting the use of the
trawl altogether, or, as some propose, to forbid trawl
vessels to fish at night, or within a certain hard and fast
limit from the shore, because they interfere with some
other mode of fishing is one thing. To place so powerful
an interest under restraint, so that it may not tyrannously
override modes of fishing perhaps less imposing, but none
the less useful and of far greater antiquity, is another thing.
The power which the State has taken by a recent Act to
prohibit, on good cause shown, the use of trawls in localities

Protection of where beds of clams, mussels, or other mollusca exist is
perfectly justifiable on the ground that such beds are of
immense importance to the line fishermen for the supply
of bait, and that they are liable to be rapidly exhausted if
incessantly fished over. But even this power will be exer-
cised only where adequate proof of its necessity exists.
No such proof has certainly yet been afforded of any
substantial damage being done to the fisheries by the
alleged destruction by trawls of the spawn and fry of fish.

Effect of the The Scotch Herring Fishery Board, in 1861, prohibited the

beam trawl

on herring use of the beam-trawl upon the Traith, at the urgent

spawn and - . - , ,, 11,-, ...

fisheries. request of the fishermen, who alleged that it was injurious
to the spawn of herrings. Satisfactory proof was afforded
that this prohibition had not the slightest effect in im-
proving the herring fisheries in the neighbourhood, and it
was removed. Its removal, on the other hand, has not had
the slightest injurious effect on the herring fisheries.

This experience is the more remarkable from the fact
that the spawn of the herring is the only spawn of sea fish

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 201

which is known to be deposited and to lie on the bottom of
the sea, where it might be supposed to be peculiarly liable
to destruction by the beam trawl. Quantities of it, in the
shape of a jelly-like mass of tiny glutinous globules, are
occasionally brought up in the trawl ; but the number of
eggs destroyed in this way — and that they are all actually
destroyed there is no positive proof, since some may possibly
develop when cast overboard again — bears so infinitesimal
a proportion to the incalculable millions of myriads left in
the sea, uninjured and untouched, that it is quite as likely
that the sea itself may be emptied by the efforts of the
Great Eastern Railway Company to supply London with
sea-water, as that the herring tribe will be exterminated by
the action of the trawl.

If it were possible to exterminate the herring at all, this is it possible

- ... to exterminate

feat ought to be in a fair way towards accomplishment the herring ?
by the use of what is considered the legitimate herring-
net, the drift-net. Last year the Scotch Herring Board
branded 231,549 barrels of herrings as "Crown Fulls."
Each of these barrels contained about 800 herrings. Pro-
bably half of these herrings were females, containing about
30,000 eggs each. Therefore the 231,500 barrels contained
not only 231,500 X 800 = 185,200,000 actual fish, but

185,200,000 - ,

X 30,000 = 2,778,000,000,000 fish in embryo .

in addition, and represented therefore a total destruction
of 2,778,185,200,000 herrings in esse or in posse. But the
231,500 barrels of " crown fulls " branded were only one-fifth
of the total quantity of herrings cured, and probably not
one-tenth of the number killed in Scotland alone in one
year, so that even the above enormous computation must be
still further increased before the real destruction of herrings
by the agency of man can be represented in figures. To
this calculation must be added the still vaster quantities of

202 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

herrings devoured year by year, day by day, hour by hour,
by their natural enemies — the whales and porpoises, the
sea-birds, the cod, ling, hake, and other predaceous fish
with which the waters teem — before we can arrive at any
numerical representation of the multitudes of herrings ex-
isting and reproducing their species in the seas around our
coasts. It has been calculated that the Scotch gannets
alone consume every year 37 per cent, more herrings than
all the Scotch fishermen catch in their nets, and that the
cod, ling, and hake, in the waters adjacent to the Scotch
coasts, destroy nearly thirty-seven times as many herrings
in a year as are taken by Scotch fishermen alone. These
computations take no count of the eggs contained in the
herrings thus consumed.
Complaints But there is hardly any mode of fishing that has not, at

of one class of

fishermen so me time or other, in different countries, and under
another. varying conditions, been objected to either on the ground
of undue destructiveness, or of interference with other
methods. As the drift-net fishermen complain of the
trawlers, so the seiners complain of the drift-nets, and the
drift-nets, again, on the west coast of Scotland, of the circle
trawls or seines ; the long-line fishermen denounce the
trawlers, and the hand-liners — at any rate in America —
object to the long lines or trawl lines as they are there
called. And so on to the end of the list. If all these
complaints were made the basis of repressive legislation,
we should soon be reduced to the necessity of attracting
our fish, Arion-like, by music to the markets, or of
practising the art of "tickling" in the deep sea. It is,
however, the duty of the State to keep a watchful eye on
the operations of the fishermen, and, while refusing to
hastily prohibit any new development of their art, to adjust
their differences that all branches of the industry may have

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 203

a fair chance of fulfilling the principal object in view — the
regular and increasing supply of food for the people.
Where mere destruction, as distinguished from the profit-
able capture, of fish takes place, prompt remedy should be
provided. The complete interdiction of dynamite as a Fishing with
means of killing fish is a case in point It. is proved that 3
the waste of fish, caused by an explosion of dynamite, is
many times greater than the harvest reaped ; for every fish
picked up, perhaps a score or a hundred may be destroyed
directly, while a shoal of fish smay be dispersed that would
otherwise have been captured by legitimate fishing. In
the prohibition of proved abuses of this kind the inter-
ference of the State is properly exercised. Where no such
proof exists, its action should be limited to the maintenance
of order and the adjustment, if need be, of disputes.

On the other hand so many different causes, in addition
to the operations of the fishermen, have been suggested to
account for an occasional scarcity, real or supposed, of fish,
that, if any of them were really to any large extent con-
tributory to the general result, it would be a hopeless task
for the State to attempt to arrest the complete decay of
the fisheries with which modern Cassandras threaten us.
A lengthy list might be made of the artificial causes, other
than " overfishing," which have, at different times and
according to different authorities, affected the productive-
ness of the fisheries ; but the following brief selection will
suffice : — Steamboat traffic, noises in boats, gutting fish at Effect of

_ t artificial

sea, ringing church bells, artillery practice, using fish as causes on the
1 manure, burning kelp, the erection of lighthouses, the fis
wickedness of the people. Of all these alleged causes only
the last, it is to be feared, has been, and is likely to be, a
permanent factor in the case. Long before steamboats
and lighthouses, the occasional scarcity of fish had been

204 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

lamented in Norway and Holland as well as England ;
while such practices as gutting fish at sea and using them
as manure have, in many places, been carried on con-
tinuously without being accompanied by any change in the
quantity of fish. So far as man's operations are concerned,
the evidence collected hitherto goes to show that, in regard
to the sea fisheries at least, their effect is very slight, and
is appreciable at the most within very narrow limits. ,
Fishery But apart from the question of advantage or disad-

vantage to the material prosperity of the fisheries, many
other matters affecting them call for the intervention of the
State. The physical and moral welfare of the men, and
particularly of the lads and boys, engaged in the fisheries
cannot be disregarded any more than that of any other
class of the population. Recent disclosures, indeed, show
that more than usual vigilance is required to ensure the
proper treatment and protection from unwholesome moral
influences of young persons taking to a fisherman's life.
The State has been somewhat remiss in neglecting to place
the relations between employers and employed in this
industry on a proper footing. A Committee recently
appointed by the Board of Trade to enquire into this
subject has reported that " the unsatisfactory relations
existing between the owners and crews of some of the
fishing vessels " on our coast are an actual drawback to the
progress of the industry. " It is obvious," the Committee
adds, " that the most important considerations " depend
upon "the condition of the lads, inasmuch as it is upon
their character, habits, and competency, and the induce-
ments offered to respectable boys to fill their places, that
the future conduct of the trade mainly depends." Pro-
posals have consequently been made for giving force to
these views, and, as the subject is still engaging the

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 205

attention of the Government, it is unnecessary to enter
more fully into it here.

One illustration of the influence which the fisheries exert The fish trade
on legislation generally, and of the many directions in Factory Acts,
which they claim consideration at the hands of the State,
may perhaps be permitted here. In the laws regulating
the employment of women and children in factories, the
preparation of fish is specially exempted from the rules
limiting the age of children and young persons, and the
hours during which women may work. The absence of any
such exemption would be a serious hindrance to the fishing
industry.

A more striking illustration of the position which the Lights for
sea-fisheries occupy as an industry of the first importance
could hardly be found than in the prolonged negotiations
which the regulation of the lights to be carried by fishing
vessels at night has given rise to in the recent revision of
the " Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea." As
fishing is mostly carried on at night, and as thousands of
vessels of all sizes up to 100 tons, or even more, are
"travelling the high seas to take fresh" fish — sometimes
congregated in great numbers in a comparatively small
area, sometimes fishing separately — it is essential that the
clearest and simplest regulations should exist as to their
distinguishing lights. The introduction, within the last
fifty or sixty years, of trawlers, and, within the last five or
six years, of steam trawlers, has brought with it a fresh
complication. A fishing-boat may be either simply sailing
to or from the fishing ground, or fishing her nets, or lying
at anchor ; a trawler may, of course, be any of these, but
she may also, while fishing, become accidentally fast to
rocks or wreckage, and so be practically anchored ; a steam
trawler, again, is not only a fishing-boat under one or other

206 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

of these conditions, but she has also to carry the distinctive
"white light at the masthead" of a steam-ship. This is
hardly the place to enter into the discussion of a question
involving much technical detail, but the fact is not without
significance that the fishing interest prevailed upon the
framers of the new regulations to modify them in their
favour, and that the principal point on which the negotia-
tions turned was the nature of the light to be carried by
a trawler.

The new regulations, as at first drafted, proposed that
a boat, when employed in drift-net fishing, should carry
two red lights vertically one over the other, not less than
three feet apart ; and that a trawler, when " at work,"
should similarly carry two lights, one red, and the other
green. No provision, however, was made for a trawler
accidentally made fast through the net becoming fixed at
the bottom. Trawlers had been in the habit of carrying,
without authority, the white light indicating a vessel at
anchor, on the ground that when at work these boats are
more or less unmanageable and stationary ; and for this
reason they objected to the new regulations. It was also
alleged that the use of coloured lights, which are only visible
at a distance of 3700 yards if red, and 2700 yards if green, as
against 4850 yards if white, was incompatible with the law
which keeps trawlers and drifters three miles apart. The
ultimate arrangement arrived at was that two white lights
on board drifters, and a red and a white light on board
trawlers, should be substituted for the two coloured lights ;
and that trawlers, when " fast," should use the light required
to be shown by a vessel at anchor.

Distinction Two points come out very clearly in this sketch of the
and fresh- history of fishery legislation : — 1st, that a distinction must
fisheries ^e ma(^e between the sea-fisheries and the inland fisheries

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 207

(including salmon and fresh-water fish) in considering the
influence which man can exert in the way of protection and
in the way of destruction ; 2nd, that legislation, whether
protective, promotive, or regulative, should only be resorted
to on the clearest proof of necessity, and after a full
consideration of its probable effects, not only on the fishing
industry, but on the many other interests with which that
industry is directly or indirectly connected.

On the first point the distinction between inland fisheries
and sea fisheries is both natural and necessary. Fish
confined within a narrow area, their access to or egress
from which can be completely barred without difficulty, and
in which they can be destroyed at the will, often, of a single
individual, lend themselves easily to the influence of wise
legislation conceived in their interest, or of destructive
measures, carried on with a view to immediate gain, and in
obliviousness of the future. This is particularly true of Salmon,
those species which, living part of the time in the sea, and
part in the headwaters of a river, require to have a right of
way backwards and fonvards. Such fish are at the mercy,
not of one individual alone, but of a series of persons — to
say nothing of natural difficulties. One man may wish to
preserve the salmon in his water, but since he cannot
confine them there they may pass on to his neighbour, who
is intent on destroying them. The single example of the
Thames, the largest river in England, is sufficient proof, if
special proof were needed, of the ease with which salmon
may be exterminated. In the case, therefore, of salmon at
least, the call for protection is loud, and the duty of the
State is clear. With purely fresh-water fish the urgency of
the call for protection is not necessarily so urgent, but it
may very easily become so.

But in the case of fish living entirely in the open sea the Sea fish.

208

THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

Littoral fish
and animals.

Crabs and
lobsters.

circumstances are widely different. Instead of being
virtual prisoners before they are actually netted, the fish
are roaming in a state of complete liberty in an element
over which man has absolutely no control ; of which he
can only skim the surface, and scratch the. bottom here and
there ; into which he can only peer at the best — even with
the aid of water-telescopes and other appliances — a few
fathoms ; and in which he can no more confine the fish
than he can enclose the birds of the air with a single net.
One exception, or at most two exceptions only, can be
made from this general description of man's relation, in
fishery matters, to the sea. The first exception would
embrace those creatures which, local in their habits and
habitation, are placed by nature in a position somewhat
akin to that of fresh-water fish, viz. the Crustacea and
mollusca which, living principally on the fringe of the
coast, and slow in their movements, if not actually motion-
less (like oysters and mussels when firmly established on
their beds or scalps), are easily entrapped, and the supply
of which, if not susceptible of annihilation, may be largely
overdrawn. Seals, and possibly such fish as smelts or
sparlings, may be included in this first exception ; while
the second exception would embrace the whale, an animal
of slow reproductive power, whose fecundity bears about
the same proportion to that of an average fish as I does to
1,000,000. It is obvious, however, that even these excep-
tions are not on an exact equality with inland fisheries from
the point of view from which we are regarding them. At
any rate, it has not yet been established, as clearly as it has
in the case of salmon, that man's operations could actually
annihilate either crabs or lobsters, oysters or mussels, seals
or whales.

Legislation, therefore, on these points is, and should be,

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES.

209

only tentative and experimental. At the present moment
a very interesting experiment is going on upon the coast of
Norfolk, where the fishermen have applied for, and have
obtained, a local order establishing certain stringent regula-
tions for the protection of the lobster and crab fisheries, in
addition to the very moderate provisions of the law appli- Experimental
cable to the whole country. If these regulations fulfil their
object, they will afford primd facie proof of the advantage
of extending them to the rest of the country. If they fall
short of their intention, or cause any unforeseen incon-
venience, little or no permanent harm will have been done,
since, under the special provisions of the law which
sanctions them, they can be abrogated without the necessity
for going to Parliament for a repealing Act.

This consideration is a strong argument in favour of
leaving the application of any protective law as far as
possible, and as far as consistent with general principles, to
the discretion of a local body, subject to the approval
of a central authority. The advantage of this system has
been proved in the case of the salmon fisheries, and to
a lesser extent in the case just referred to. Its extension
would not only prevent a considerable delay and expense,
but would enable the law to keep pace with the develop-
ments of the fishing industry, and its varying requirements.

The second point brought into prominence in this review Necessity for
—the necessity for providing itself with the fullest possible nation on aQ
data before the State proceeds to make any legislative relating to
enactments in regard to the fisheries— is illustrated by the
foregoing remarks. It is a remarkable fact that the period
of the greatest abundance of laws relating to the fisheries
was the period of least activity in investigation ; while the
commencement of the era of practical enquiry and scien-
tific research was the doom of a cumbrous array of con-

VOL. ix. — E. 6. p

210

THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

Floating
spawn and
the trawl
question.

flicting statutes. The Salmon Fishery Act of 1861 repealed
no less than thirty-three statutes dating from Magna
Charta. The Sea Fisheries Act of 1868 swept away, in
whole or in part, sixty-four Acts of Parliament dating from
Henry VII. Both these Acts were the outcome of several
Commissions or Committees of Enquiry, and every addition
to them has similarly been based upon the recommenda-
tions of bodies specially appointed to make enquiries and
advise the Legislature. The recommendations of these
Commissions have, in many cases, been confirmed in a
striking manner by independent scientific research. The
anti-trawl agitation, for instance, has lived upon the asser-
tion, inter alia, that the trawls destroy the spawn of cod,
ling, whiting, and haddock.* But the trawl works along
the bottom of the sea, and it has been demonstrated by
Prof. G. O. Sars beyond the possibility of a doubt — and
any one can prove it for himself — that the spawn of the
cod and of the haddock floats on the surface of the water,
and can no more be injured by the trawl than by the gun
of the grouse-shooter. A single fact like this is worth
more, as a guide to the State in framing legislation, than
oceans of loose opinions and doubtful inferences, of preju-
diced statements founded on imperfect observation ; and it
is a question, well worthy the attention of the State,
whether it should not take up the study of the natural
causes affecting the fisheries as a part of its machinery for
their regulation. If the operations of man form a wide
subject for investigation, the influences of Nature afford
a still vaster field of observation ; and a knowledge of them
is quite as necessary as a knowledge of the effect of
artificial influences, in framing and directing legislation.
* The question of the trawl and herring spawn has already been
touched upon.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES, 21 1

The value of an accurate knowledge of the habits of fish,
as a preliminary to legislation, has been abundantly proved
in the case of the salmon fisheries. The natural history
of the salmon is the basis on which salmon legislation is
founded. We can say with absolute certainty that this fish Natural

history of the

ascends our rivers from the sea, almost to their source, to salmon, a

preliminary to

breed ; we can say positively which is the reproductive salmon
portion of the stock ; we know that if we do not allow the egls '
spawning fish to ascend the streams we shall have no
young fry ; and that if we destroy the young fry or the
eggs we shall have no fish for breeding or for eating. On
these facts the principles of salmon legislation are founded,
for on these facts depends the possibility or otherwise of
increasing or diminishing, or even of exterminating, the
breed of salmon.

Just such a combined observation of natural conditions
and of artificial influences is necessary in the case of the
sea-fisheries. If the State cannot do anything to increase
the supply of fish in the sea, it may do much in the
discovery of fresh means of increasing the supply of fish
which we draw from the sea. When, as the result of Influence of
scientific research, we are fully acquainted with the life- research on
history of the herring, or the cod, or the sole, and with the development
many natural phenomena which influence the habits of any offishenes-
of these fish, we shall be in quite as good a position to say
how, when, and where they may be most easily caught in
the best condition, and in the largest quantities, as to
interdict times and modes of fishing which are really
injurious. It is quite within the bounds of probability, not
only that all the modes of fishing now adopted, many of
which are denounced as fatal to the permanent prosperity
of the fisheries, may be proved to be absolutely without
effect on the stock of fish in the sea, but that many new

P 2

212 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

appliances might be adopted which would vastly increase
the supply of fish without injuring the permanent stock
in the sea. Both with this object, and for the purpose of
deciding whether any, and what, restrictions on fishing are
necessary, a fuller knowledge of the habits of sea-fish is
essential. But only the most careful and continuous
investigation will discover the manifold laws of Nature
which govern the migrations of fish, their spawning times
and places, their development, the nature of their food, and
all the other secrets of their economy. In the case of the
herring fisheries alone a knowledge of these facts would
possibly have saved many a thriving centre of the herring
fishery from the decay which has followed the mysterious
disappearance of these fish from the coast. If, when the
fishermen are lamenting the absence of the accustomed
shoals of herring on their coasts, and fruitlessly throwing
the blame on their neighbours, the State could step in with
the assertion that the fish had disappeared because of
certain conditions, either of temperature, of food, or of cur-
rents, which the fishermen could hardly be expected to take
cognizance of, and could tell them where they, or others
like them, could be found, it would be giving the most
substantial form of encouragement to the fisheries. Many
thriving cities, founded, so to speak, on a shoal of fishes,
have risen to a state of great wealth and influence through
the fisheries in their immediate neighbourhood, and have
Mysterious as suddenly fallen into decay through the fish forsaking the

disappearance T , , . - _T1f

and return of coast. In the history of Ullapool in our own time, and, in
remoter, ages, of Marstrand and Uddevalla,* and other cities

* The history of the fluctuations in the fisheries of the Province of

. Bohuslan affords the most remarkable examples of intermittent

abundance and scarcity of herrings. For about 30 years, more or

less, in succession, in each century from the loth to the i/th, the

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 213

of Norway and Sweden, striking instances of this may be
found. How different might have been the fate of these
cities if the fishermen had been able to follow the fish in

herrings were present in the greatest abundance ; and during the
60 years from 1748 to 1808, this was again the case. In the intervals,
the fishery was a complete blank. ^In 1787 there were in Bohuslan
338 salting houses, and 429 oil-refineries, with a total of 1812 boilers,
using 40,986 barrels of herrings per day. The number of large seines
was 358, and of boats 2100. These figures even increased consider-
ably during the following years. In 1831, however, Herr O. Lundbeck,
describing the district, says : " He who knew the coast of Bohuslan
25 years ago, and now sees it again, will scarcely be able to refrain
from tears. Then it presented an imposing appearance. From the
sea itself rose massive walls and pillars, supporting immense salting-
houses and oil-refineries. Farther inland rich warehouses and busy
workshops might be seen, as well as palatial residences of the
merchants, and neat cottages of the fishermen and working men.
The coast was crowded with a busy throng, and the sea studded with
sails. Every night it looked as if there were a grand illumination,
many thousand lights shining from the windows and from the
numerous lamps along the quays, and being reflected in the waves.
Everything was life and bustle, and tons of gold changed hands.
Now nothing is seen but ruins, only here and there a dilapidated
fisherman's cottage, awakening melancholy thoughts in the heart of
the visitor." The most extraordinary reasons were suggested by the
fishermen to account for these fluctuations. The old historian, Peter
Clausson, in his ' Norriges ocomliggende Oers sandfaerdige Be-
scriffuelse,' writing in the i6th century, and referring to the "very
extensive herring fisheries in Vidsidan " (or Bohuslan), says that they
" have disappeared by magic, bad men having sunk a copper horse in
the sea, and thereby driven the herrings away from the coast."
Among other curious suggestions, the list of which is similar to that
already quoted, was the " wickedness of the people." This idea,
which apparently had some foundation in the unfortunate condition of
lawlessness and immorality into which the Province had fallen, seems
to have impressed itself upon the attention of the Government from
time to time ; and in 1590, when the fisheries were beginning to
decrease, a law was passed with the provision that, " since there is
danger that God may withdraw His blessings on account of the great

214 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

their mysterious migrations, instead of waiting helplessly
for their return, and being obliged eventually to abandon
their own homes !

Whether scientific observation, encouraged and supported
by the State, as an intimate branch of its organisation for the

sins and vices of the inhabitants of the coast, our tax-gatherers, each
one in his district, shall see to it that people in the fishing stations
lead good and Christian lives ; that there is preaching every Sunday,
and people are exhorted to lead a godly life, so that God may be
moved by the prayers of good Christians to extend His blessings to us
also in future." Among other reasons it has been contended that,
during the last great Bohuslan fishing, the seine nets drove away the
herrings from the coast, the reason being, as alleged, that the herring
shows great terror of the seine, from which it tries to escape by rushing
through, under, or over, the net. But this peculiarity is observed
in Cornwall, in the case of the pilchards, which is, or at any rate was,
until very recently, principally captured by the seine ; and there is no
reason why the pilchard should not be driven permanently from the
Cornish coast, through the use of this net, quite as easily as the herring
from the Swedish coast. But this has never yet been shown to be the
case. In support of the allegation that the seine net was the ruin of
the last great Bohuslan fishery, it is urged that the nets were generally
used in the daytime during the first half of the period, while during
the latter half they could only be used by night. Even supposing
that there were no reasons, such as the greater clearness of the water
in the daytime, to account for this change of practice, it cannot be
alleged that the day fishing had seriously affected the movements of
the fish, since the second half of the period was more productive than
the first ; and, if the change from day to night fishing was sufficiently
beneficial to account for this improvement, that fact alone would have
been sufficient ground for expecting the fishery to continue without
deterioration, under conditions supposed to be more favourable to
the fish, for a much longer period than it had under the less favour-
able circumstances. If, again, over- fishing was the cause of the
periodic decline of the fisheries, the last period of abundance, which
was double the length of any of its predecessors, ought, primd facie,
to have been the shortest of all, since the tendency of fishermen is
always to employ more and more destructive instruments of fishing.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 2 1 5

administration of fishery laws, ever achieves so full a success
as to be able to follow the most valuable kinds of fish in all
their movements, or not, it would be sure to throw a flood
of light on other subjects which have quite as great, if not
so direct, an interest for the fisherman, and quite as imme-
diate a bearing upon the course of his operations. The
Norwegian naturalist, Professor Sars, whose observations
led to the important discovery that the spawn of the gadidcs
floats, his countryman Carl Boeck, and, in our own country,
Dr. Giinther, Professor Huxley, Yarrell, Jonathan Couch,
and observant practical fisherman like Matthias Dunn of
Mevagissey, have done much to remove the clouds of
ignorance and doubt which have obscured the natural
history of fish ; but jnuch more remains to be done than
has ever yet been accomplished, and in taking up this work,
and directing and encouraging others in it, the State would State aid in

scientific

be conferring a great boon on the fishing interest. A com- research into
paratively small outlay would enable it to do all that is fisheries,
requisite, for, without taking out of their hands the work of
private individuals, it would be able to centralise the result
of such labour, and direct it towards particular points which
required elucidation.

Whether in conjunction with, or apart from, such an Fuller
organisation for scientific research, the collection of full and required.
accurate statistics of the quantities of fish caught, sent to
the home markets, and exported ; of the numbers and value
of vessels and boats engaged in fishing ; of the quantity,
description, and value of their fishing gear ; and of the
number of persons engaged in the fisheries and in industries
connected therewith, ought to be one of the first duties of
the State. At the present time the only really complete
and accurate statistics relating to the fisheries are those
compiled by the Scotch Fishery Board in regard to the

216 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

herring fisheries of that country, and, in a less degree, to
the cod and ling fisheries. The value of these statistics in
enabling a judgment to be formed of the effect of legislation
affecting those fisheries has been very great. Without them
it would have been impossible to say, so decisively as can
now be done, whether, for instance, the abolition of the
bounty, or the imposition of a brand-fee, or the enactment
or abrogation of the laws relating to close season, and mesh
of nets, had a beneficial result or otherwise. Besides these,
a few incomplete returns are published concerning the
salmon fisheries of England and Wales, and some of the
Irish Fisheries ; and a certain amount of information is
also available as to the number of fishing-boats registered
in the United Kingdom and their crews. The record of
the past history and present condition of our sea-fisheries,
so far at least as their produce is concerned, is otherwise a
complete blank.

As the recent Report of the Sea- Fishery Commissioners
of 1879 says, " the value of the fisheries in this country may
be computed in millions ; the capital invested in them in
millions ; the persons dependent on them in hundreds of
thousands." Notwithstanding this, there "are no means
whatever of comparing by figures their yield now with their
yield in former years."

In this respect we are behind almost every other nation,
yet evidence is constantly accumulating to show the impor-
tant use which would be made of such statistics. Besides
serving, as has been suggested, as a gauge of the effects of
legislation, they might be of great service in negotiations
with foreign powers — in such a matter, for example, as the
misunderstanding which appears to have arisen between
this country and France in putting in force the Convention
of 1867. In the recent negotiations at Halifax, N.S.,

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 217

between Canada, Great Britain, and the United States on Evidence of
the subject of the Fishery Clauses of the Treaty of Wash- fishery

statistics.

ington, when it was essential that good evidence of the
money value of the fisheries in Canadian waters, as com-
pared with those in American waters, should be forth-
coming, the statistics collected by the Commissioner of
Fisheries in Canada proved of the greatest assistance to
the representatives of the Powers concerned. " One special
point to be determined," says Professor S. F. Baird, the
United States Fishery Commissioner, in his report for 1877,
" was the value of the inshore sea fisheries of the United
States from the Bay of Fundy to Delaware Bay. The
absence of any system on our part for collecting facts on
this subject was never more fully appreciated then when it
was needed to protect the United States against an unjust
award. . . . The American side laboured under a serious
disadvantage for want of methodical and regular statistics
of the fisheries of the United States. The case was quite
different, however, with the other party. The authorities of
Canada had for many years kept and published annually
an extremely exhaustive account of everything taken in
their fisheries, giving the number of each kind taken and
preserved in each province, county, and district, as also the
exportations to foreign countries, including the United
States. It is greatly to be hoped," continues the American
Commissioner, " that, whether with reference to future con-
ventions of this kind or not, the necessary steps will be
taken by the United States to secure data corresponding to
those taken regularly and systematically in Canada." By
the substitution of " the United Kingdom " for " the United
States," these words may be echoed on this side of the
Atlantic. Even if our statistics should never be required as
evidence in matters of la haute politique, they would have

218

THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

Facilities to
fishermen for
acquiring
scientific
knowledge.

General
conclusions.

many other not less useful if more humble purposes to
serve in the daily administration of the Fishery Laws.

The value of scientific research systematically carried on
by the State, or under State supervision, would lie not only
in the assistance it would afford to the servants of the State
in administering the law and in directing its amendment,
but also in the opportunity it would afford to the fishing
population of satisfying themselves that the State was right
in any action it might take, based on the results of its
scientific information. The dissemination among the fisher-
men, on State authority, of information which they could
hardly be expected to acquire themselves, but which they
could, when properly directed, prove for themselves, would
reconcile them to many decisions about the correctness of
which they would otherwise prove sceptical. The State
already undertakes the direction of " art " education, and
acts directly as a teacher of " science " generally, with
special application to mining and engineering pursuits.
It could hardly render greater service to the great national
fishing industries than by affording facilities to the fishermen
for applying the teachings of science to the practical opera-
tions of their craft. This might be done by encouraging
the creation of local museums and libraries having a special
bearing on the fisheries, by giving prominence, in the schools
under State regulation in the great fishing centres, to subjects
connected with this important subject, and by countenancing
a National Society devoted to the interests of the fisheries.

To sum up the matter,, the present position which the
State holds in this country towards the fisheries and fisher-
men may be briefly stated as follows : —

After seven centuries of legislation, during which the
fisheries have undergone a vast development, and have seen
great changes, both in the methods of working them, and in

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 219

their 'relation to other interests, the State has decided,

after full investigation, to abolish, with but slight exceptions, " Free trade "

in relation to
all former enactments, many of them inconsistent with the fisheries.

themselves and with each other, many of them defeating
their own objects, and most of them practically inoperative,
and to substitute for them a new law, distinguishing
between inland fisheries and sea fisheries — with a further
slight distinction between certain branches of fishing carried
on close to the shore, and others mainly prosecuted in deep
water — and to apply to each branch a definite principle.
All direct incentives to the prosecution of the fisheries, in
the shape of bounties, have been removed ; all attempts at
protection not absolutely proved to be necessary or likely
to be of advantage, have been abandoned : and the inter-
ference of the State has been confined to the maintenance
of law and order, the prevention of unquestionable abuses,
and the adjustment of disputes between conflicting interests.

The practical result of this policy, reduced to a system, Resume of

r .. laws.

is as follows : —

1. The salmon and trout fisheries, being most sus- Salmon,
ceptible to destructive tendencies, are placed under
severely " Protective " laws, which may be adjusted

to local requirements, but not abrogated, by local
conservators.

2. Other fresh-water fisheries are also afforded a slight other
protection, maintainable or not at the discretion of fisheries,
local bodies or private owners.

3. The sea fisheries, being least susceptible to destruc- Sea fisheries,
tive agencies, are placed under a law which, with but

very slight exceptions, gives perfect freedom to the
fishermen to fish when, where, and how they please,
so long as they respect the rights of others.

220 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH
Littoral 4. That branch of the sea fisheries which may be

fisheries.

defined as the Littoral Fisheries (including oysters,
crabs, and lobsters), is placed under slight restrictions,
which may be increased on local proof of necessity
or desirability.

fisheries^ ^ ^is Positi°n is a strong one. The principles it embodies
are theoretically correct, and have been justified by experi-
ence. But the fishery interest is capable of still greater
expansion ; and, to keep pace with it, the State must make
itself acquainted with all its developments, and should almost
be prepared to direct its future growth. To maintain its
position as the impartial arbiter of the destinies of an
industry so vast, and ramifying in so many different direc-
tions, the State must have an intimate acquaintance with
Principles of the past history and the present position of every branch of
to fisheries, it, and of all interests affecting it or affected by it. As an
Austrian writer has said, " The object of fishery legislation,
as of all other economical enactments, is to make a lasting
and advantageous use of the waters containing valuable
food-fishes, and to place this interest in its proper relation
to all the other industries. . . . As, according to Roscher,
every industry rests on scientific, technical, and economical
principles, which are combined for reaching a certain defi-
nite practical object, viz. the most advantageous carrying
on of this industry, therefore must all economical legislation,
with a view to the right adjustment of these, be made on
scientific, technical, and economical principles.

" Fishery legislation must have due regard to the teach-
ings of science concerning the nature of fish, their different
species, propagation, growth, location, migrations, &c. ; to
the teachings of technology concerning the different methods
of catching fish, the implements employed, the contrivances

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 221

for protecting fish against hurtful influences, &c. ; but no
less must it study the principles of political economy, the
ways and means of carrying on business in the most
advantageous manner ... It must likewise study the
true relation toward each other of all the industries carried
on by means of water. . . . Fishery legislation must also
have due regard to judicial and administrative considera-
tions ; it must be based on a thorough knowledge of the
condition of fisheries in other countries, of the fishery laws
of those countries, as well as of the laws and administrative
regulations of all branches of industry relating to fishing ;
and it must study the manner in which laws are carried out
in foreign countries, and the effect of such laws 'on the
fishing interests. . . . From the Government we must,
above everything else, expect that it will strictly carry out
the laws made for protecting the fisheries. . . . To the
Government we must likewise look for those general, far-
reaching, and, therefore, successful measures which the
fishing interests require from time to time, even where there
is a good fishery law."

However good in principle our fishery laws may be,
points can hardly fail to arise in which they are capable of
modification in detail. On the other hand, the history of
the fisheries, both here and in other countries, is a guarantee
that occasions will arise when groundless demands for
change will have to be resisted. To meet both these con-
tingencies, and to qualify itself for putting into practice the
principle of " the greatest good of the greatest number,"
the State should neglect no opportunity of mastering,
through the agency of a duly-qualified department, armed
with all needful powers, every detail, natural as well as
artificial, of this great industry. Norway and the United
States have taken the initiative in thus combining scientific

222 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE, ETC.

research with practical administration in a single depart-
ment, charged with the superintendence of the fishing indus-
tries. Without in any way reviving any exploded doctrines
of political economy, the State might, by following the
example thus set, do much in furtherance — apart entirely
from " protection " or " encouragement " — of the fishery
interests of the United Kingdom.

THE

RELATIONS OF THE STATE

WITH

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES,

INCLUDING

ALL MATTERS DEALING WITH THEIR
PROTECTION AND REGULATION.

STURIO C. ACCIPENSER."—\?. J. TALFOURD CHATER.]

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

THE INTRODUCTION 225

I. — STATE LEGISLATION IN REGARD TO FISHERMEN, THEIR

VESSELS, AND OTHER INSTRUMENTS . . -235

II. — IN REGARD TO FISHERIES AND SPAWNING BEDS. . 255

III. — IN REGARD TO SALT-WATER FlSH, AND CLOSE TIME 2/O
IV. — IN REGARD TO THE SUBJECT GENERALLY . . .281

APPENDIX, STATUTES, &c. ..... 295

THE

RELATIONS OF THE STATE

WITH

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES.

INTRODUCTION.

PUBLIC rights, with their correlative duties, are those
which establish a relation between the constituted autho-
rities of the State on the one hand, and the rest of the
individual members of the community on the other ; and
these rights become the subject of legislation less to
protect directly private interests than to promote the
social development of the realm at large.

The use of sea fisheries falls beneath this class of rights.
No one individual has an exclusive property in the sea,
except in " oyster beds, &c." (which see, subsequently,
herein) ; it is common to all the subjects equally of the
state which borders it ; and further than this, when once
the three-mile limit of the mare clausum has been passed,
its enjoyment becomes an international right. By modern
International Law the territorial sea extends for three miles
from the shore. It is designated the mare clausum
because it is " closed " to foreigners, and, except by im-
plied or express permission, the right to use these waters

VOL. IX.— E. 7. Q

226 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

is exclusively enjoyed by the subjects of the adjoining
state. Formerly, the width from the shore was limited by
the reach of a cannon-shot — quousque tormenta explo-
duntur — (vide Selden ; and Bynkershoek De Dom : Mar :
cap. 2) but modern international usage has fixed the
distance at a marine league.

The rights which, through the sanction of the State,
exist between subject and subject are designated private
rights, and are exercised over those things which, unlike
the sea, are the ascertainable or more or less exclusive
property of particular individuals. An example of this
class is the right which a proprietor has to fish in an
unnavigable river, where he is protected in its enjoyment,
because either in severalty or in connection with others
he is himself the owner of the subaqueous soil, or has
obtained a grant of fishery rights from those who
possess it. This aspect of fisheries does not concern the
present subject.

The title to fish when caught is acquired by what in
the civil law was called occupatio, or, in other words, by
the mere taking possession of those things which before
did not belong to anybody. English law has borrowed
but little from Roman law ; title by occupancy in respect
of sea-fish is, however, distinctly acknowledged, and the
dictum of Gaius has prevailed to the present day. " Itaque
si feram bestiam aut volucrem aut piscem ceperimus,
quidquid ita captum fuerit, id statim nostrum fit, et eo
nostrum esse intellegitur, donee nostra custodia coerceatur :
cum vero custodiam nostram evaserit et in naturalem
libertatem se receperit rursus occupantis fit " (Gaii Insti-
tutiones, lib. ii. § 67).

For these two reasons — the common freedom of the sea
and title by occupancy — our State has intervened but

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 227

little by legislation to assign or define the rights which
may exist amongst those of its subjects (as between them-
selves) who are engaged upon the fisheries. The regu-
lation of such rights the State has safely entrusted to
Usage. From this it is not to be understood that Parlia-
ment has legislated but little in regard to sea-fishing.
The remainder of this essay will show the contrary, and
our Statute Books contain scores of enactments on the
subject In one piece of legislation alone, that of 1868,
reference is made to no less than sixty-five previous
Fishery Acts.

The main object of this State legislation has been to
regulate the fishing community as a class in order that by
the maintenance of order and honesty, and the prevention
of fish from wanton destruction, the country may be bene-
fited at large. It has seldom interfered to establish the
exact rights which one fisherman may have against another
for the reasons that the wide extent of the sea, the un-
certainty of the property in fish until they are actually
caught, and the unwritten regulations which have been
established through custom amongst fishermen themselves,
have rendered legislative interference less necessary than
legislative supervision. In Penning v. Grenville (i Taunt.
247), Justice Chambre was of opinion that of necessity
usage, and not statutory enactments, must in many
instances be the only obligatory law regulating the use of
deep-sea fisheries, not only as between British subjects
and those of other nations, but as between British subjects
themselves.

The prosperity of the State and the prosperity of the
classes which compose it are mutually dependent on each
other ; and, although the legislation regarding fishermen,
from being primarily based upon a consideration for the

Q 2

228 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

welfare of the State generally, is provided for them in-
directly, it is none the less in fact or in intent promoted
for their advantage.

As an example of this, and of the further fact that an
artificial stimulus becomes no longer necessary when once
a nation has experienced the large profits to be derived
from an industry the advantages of which in its infancy
were not fully anticipated, the legislation which has related
to bounties may here be cited. By enactments of George III.
varying bounties, in some cases amounting to £3 a ton on
the tonnage of every boat or fishing buss equipped, in others
not exceeding .£30,000 for the whole year's State outlay,
were granted in proportion to fish caught, provided the
barrels containing them were branded. In the subsequent
reign these bounties were abolished, but the necessity for
branding the barrels was retained in certain cases. By
the legislation of 1858, so far as Scotland is concerned, a
charge of 4^. per barrel was authorised to defray the
expense of this branding. A consideration of our general
legislative policy which is now opposed both to bounties
and to loans, because, amongst other reasons, of the diffi-
culty of regulating their distribution in proportion to the
actual deserts of those entitled to them, need not here be
entered upon. It may, however, be stated that in 1867
such political economists as Mr. J. S. Mill and Professor
Fawcett supported a Bill authorising loans to Irish fisher-
men because " Ireland was a more backward country
than either Scotland or England." From the facts, how-
ever, preceding the above discursion on the subject of
legislative policy in regard to bounties and loans, the
rapid progress of the fishing industry during the past
century and a half may be accurately gauged. In the
first stage an artificial stimulus is found to be held neces-

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 229

sary ; in the second there is a cessation of its necessity ;
whilst in the third the industry has become not only able
to support itself in affluence but to pay something towards
the expense of the constituted authorities who supervise
it. From the abolition of bounties, which at first were
decreased gradually only, the fact also becomes exemplified
that fishermen are individually encouraged wherever a
stimulus is necessary, but that the encouragement afforded
them, either individually or as a class, is subservient to
that of the State welfare at large.

A consideration of the opening statements in this essay
may, perhaps, induce an accurate perception of the exact
place occupied in our legal system by home legislation
relating to sea fisheries. In the first place it has been
effected for the regulation of public as opposed to private
rights ; secondly, it comes beneath that class of public
rights which have for their object the commercial and
social development of the State ; and thirdly, it exclusively
regulates the relations between our State and its own
subjects as opposed to that international law of fisheries
which has been established by usage or treaties.

A more restricted definition of home legislation is %that
which distinguishes the legislation affecting England and
Wales from that affecting either Scotland or Ireland.
It is a matter of comparative ease to keep the sea fishery
legislation for Ireland distinct from that which concerns
Great Britain, but in order to deal with home legislation
in its narrowest sense (as affecting England only) reference
to the sea fishery regulations relating to Scotland is in
many cases compulsory.

A few descriptive words on British fisheries inserted
here may render frequent subsequent allusions more
readily understood.

230 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

There are five kinds of fisheries : — *

1. Trawling.

2. Drifting.

3. Seaning.

4. Lining, and

5. The use of fixed engines.

The fish caught may, apart from any natural history
classification, fall beneath four divisions for commercial
purposes.

1. Round fish, such as herrings and mackerel, found
near the surface.

2. Flat fish, which live at the bottom of the sea, like
soles and turbot.

3. Round fish found at all depths, such as cod and ling.

4. Shell-fish and Crustacea, including, inter alia, mussels,
cockles, crabs, lobsters, oysters, and shrimps.

In Trawling, the net is purse-shaped ; the upper lip
(except in the case of the pole-trawl) is extended from
right to left by a beam of from 10 to 50 feet ; this is
raised about 3 feet from the ground by stirrup-shaped
irons at either end, the bases of which rest upon the
bottom : the lower lip of the net, edged by a heavy padded
rope (rotten, in order to give if a rocky obstacle is encoun-
tered), drags slowly in a curve along the ground, and fish
of the second class are thus scooped up. They pass into
the " cod " where the net continues narrowest for the last
few feet of its furthest end, and whence the forward motion
of the trawl prevents their return. The length of the
whole net varies up to 70 feet according to the breadth of
the beam, and it is hauled slowly by ropes and " bridles "
connecting the stirrups, or rounded triangle-shaped " trawl
heads," with the fishing vessel.

* See, for this classification, Report, 1879, for Parliament.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 231

In Drifting, the nets are each about 60 feet long, and
extend, connected consecutively by a surface rope in an
aggregate or " fleet," for from one to three miles. These
drift with the tide ; the upper portion of their width is kept
near the surface by floats and buoys on a " back " rope,
whilst the remainder hangs like a perpendicular wall for
20 feet beneath the sea. Each net is attached at every few
inches by a short rope to the " back " rope, whilst the back
rope at every 20 feet is attached by longer ropes called
" seizings " (which may be altered in length to raise or
lower the back rope beneath the surface as may be desir-
able) to the surface rope or warp, which extends from the
vessel to the farthest net in the " train," and is indicated at
intervals by floating kegs or " bowls." Surface fish of the
first class, coming in contact with the meshes, force their
heads through, and are prevented from returning by the
expansion of their gills on the further side. Herodotus in
ancient days remarked on the obstinacy which shoal fish
display in continuing their course, instead of diverting it,
when they meet with an obstacle which at first does not
appear to them impenetrable. This pertinacity, which is
probably occasioned the leaders of a shoal by the pressure
of the myriads in their rear, still stands our unclassical
fishermen in good stead.

In Seaning, the single net (sean, seine, Greek a-dyrjvri) is
attached at one end by a long rope to a boat on the shore.
The net having been rowed out to sea, the other end is
drawn towards the first in a semicircle, and the fish of any
class found in the particular waters circumvented are em-
bosomed in the folds. On the north of Cornwall a compli-
cated variation of this method is applied to the pilchard
fishery ; on other coasts it is practised on a small scale only,
and amongst most of the fishing class ground seaning is

232 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

pursued rather as a profitable amusement on " off days," than
as a regular means of livelihood, at least in those localities
where either trawling or drift-net fishing by means of crews
is carried on. In pilchard seining the " huer " from an emi-
nence "cries " (compare "hue and cry") out the position of the
approaching shoals. The " seine-net " boat and the " stop-
net " boat leave. the shore at the same point. The " seine "
boat completes three-fourths or more of the circumference
of a circle, and meets the "stop-net" boat, which has
accomplished the remainder. The nets are then joined.
The " stop-net " boat shoots its net and then makes for the
shore, that the escape of the fish between the point of junc-
ture and the coast may be prevented. The " seine " boat
shooting its net circumvents the fish, and, retracing its
circle, completes it by meeting the stop-net boat on the
shore. The master seiner, in a small boat or "lurker,"
directs the operations, and the fish remain in the netted
area until taken out from day to day as required by the
curers. The six " stems " or divisions of St. Ives Bay,
together with their use, in turn allotted exclusively to seine
fishers, will fall beneath remarks on " principles " of fishery
legislation, rather than beneath those merely " descriptive "
of the modus operandi in fishing.

In Lining, hundreds of hooks, each carefully baited chiefly
for carnivorous fish of the third class, are attached indivi-
dually by a short line, called a " snood," to a main line of a
mile or more in length. This is anchored at the further
end, and, at intervals, in the sea buoys indicate its course ;
the other end is fastened in the boat, to which it is from
time to time hauled.

The Use of fixed engines little concerns the present
subject. These are principally " stow-nets " fixed beneath
a boat, or "garths," or "weirs" (the kydelli of Art. 33 of

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 233

Magna Charta), in estuaries or by the sea. All fish are
welcome. Beyond carefully providing the accommodation
and selecting its site their hosts display no particular skill
or energy in proffering an invitation. These engines are
adapted more or less on the principle of easy ingress and
impossible egress exemplified in the baited lobster-pot, or
the common inland-river eel-trap. There are valid reasons
which may not improbably lead legislation to discourage
those engines which, like weirs, but unlike lobster-creels or
stow-nets, are permanently fixed to the sea-bed. They
produce an "unearned increment" to the owner of the
grant, irrespective of his skill or of his being a member of
the fishing community proper; they are a restriction on
the common freedom of the sea-bed ; they catch all fish,
irrespective of size, without the possibility of returning
them otherwise than moribund to the water ; and their
position on the coast may often render them an inconve-
nience to the Crown.

The order of the importance of the above fisheries is that
in which they have been placed, except that the first two,
in addition to being more important than the others, are
perhaps of equal consideration. In the first and the third,
in trawling and ^r0#;&/-seaning, one net alone is used, and
the working of these (as well as the choice of the locality)
requires great skill. In drifting there are many nets, and
although much skill is required in shooting and hauling them
up, in the water, when the site has once been chosen, they
chiefly work themselves. The skill displayed in keeping a
herring-boat at the right distance from its drift-nets is the
skill of navigation ; the skill of the smack in slowly drawing
its trawl over a sandy bottom at a regulated pace, and that
which it displays in drawing it round the edges of rocks
where fish resort, so as to catch the fish without tearing the

234 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

net, combines something of the alternately active and medi-
tative sport of the angler in trying holes, with skill in navi-
gation equal to that required by the herring-boat.

In deep-sea lining there is again a much closer analogy
to angling, for the principle of hooks and bait, not seen in
the other modes of sea-fishing on a large scale, are directly
introduced, whilst the fish are assiduously tempted and
caught individually, and not in shoals, although they are
hauled up collectively. The skill of choosing and fixing
the bait is here seen.

The first three classes into which fish have been divided
for commercial classification afford the large harvests of the
sea. The capture of the fourth class, such as crabs and
shrimps, or the careful attention paid to the protection of
oyster-beds, and the means of bringing shell-fish to the
surface, may be said to bear the same analogy to large-net
and long-line fishing as is borne by the assiduous gathering
in of the products of a nursery garden to the rough reaping
of a large farm.

The legislation of 1868 has divided fishing-boats into
three classes : those of 1 5 tons and upwards ; those less
than 1 5 tons navigated otherwise than by oars only ; and,
lastly, those navigated by oars alone. The chief trawlers
and smacks, usually cutter-rigged, and herring and mack-
erel-boats, with their lug-sails, belong to the first class.
Boats carrying small trawls and shrimpers belong to the
second, whilst row-boats are sufficient to tend fixed instru-
ments, and in some cases to manage line-fishing on a small
scale.

For convenience of treatment the subject of this essay
generally will, perhaps, come beneath a fourfold division.

Reference will first be made to the home legislation
which, besides regulating the relations of the State with

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 235

fishermen, concerns fishing vessels and the other imple-
ments of a fisherman's calling : next to the locus in quo,
or the fisheries where the industry is plied, and here the
regulations affecting the protection of spawning-beds can
be dealt with.

Thirdly, those salt-water fish over which the right of
capture is most frequently exercised, and their close times,
where they exist, will deserve a few remarks ; and, lastly,
other matters which concern the protection and regulations
affecting the subject generally will be treated of.

CHAPTER I.

A CARDINAL point on which modern legislation affecting
sea fishermen hinges is the Fisheries Act of 1868 (31 &
32 Viet, c. 45). Its objects were to give effect to a Con-
vention into which this country and France had entered,
and to amend generally our sea fishery laws.

The first of its objects does not directly concern the
present subject, but falls properly beneath an essay on the
International Law of Fisheries.

Since, however, many of the articles of the Convention
are incorporated in the clauses of the Act for the express
purpose of regulating the relations of the British State with
British fishermen, and as the common-sense and untech-
nical language of this Treaty clearly indicate throughout
the main principles which must underlie the relations borne
by any State to its own fishermen, the Convention itself is
worthy of careful consideration. In addition to containing
the text of the Convention, the Act itself, by repealing
either wholly or in part more than sixty previous statutes,

236 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

has thus established an epoch at which our sea fishery
laws have somewhat approached codification.

For the present purpose it is sufficient to watch its opera-
tion on British fishermen only, and under this term are
included the catchers " of all fish found in the sea, with the
exception of salmon."

By this Act the fishing class becomes further than
before regulated by Orders which may from time to
time be issued by Her Majesty in Council, and it is thus
rendered subject to Sea Fishery Officers. These officers are
either those appointed for the express purpose by the Board
of Trade, or Commissioned officers of Her Majesty's Ships,
Customs Collectors, Inspectors of the Coast Guard, or other
authorised persons. By them fishermen may be compelled
to produce their official papers on demand, to give all
necessary explanations thereof, and, when it is necessary
to discover offenders against the fishery regulations, the
whole crew of a boat may be mustered. Suspected offenders
may be taken to the nearest port without warrant, and they
may be detained there until the offence has been adjudi-
cated upon.

To prevent disorder, and the injury which might be
occasioned each other by fishermen, boats are not allowed
to anchor between sunset and sunrise on grounds where
drift-net fishing is actually going on ; and fishermen com-
mitting assaults or occasioning loss are, in addition to the
enforcement of compensation, liable to penalties not ex-
ceeding £50, or to three months' imprisonment.

Owners not carrying with them their certificates of regis-
tration are liable to arrest, and their respective crews are
restrained generally from interfering with each other's
operations.

With regard to their vessels, fishing-boats are deemed

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 237

to be "ships" within the meaning of any act relating to
offences committed on board a ship, whilst under the term
fishing-boat is included every vessel, of whatever size, and
however propelled, used for the business of a sea fisher-
man. They must (under the Act of 1868) carry on their
masts two lights, placed over each other three feet apart,
and these must burn all the time that the boat's drift-nets
are in the sea between sunset and sunrise.

Trawlers are not permitted within three miles of the
fishing ground of a drift-net vessel, nor may a decked-boat
shoot its nets within a quarter of a mile of an undecked
boat.

Fishing vessels must be registered, lettered, numbered,
and conspicuously named ; in default they are not entitled
to any of the privileges of the Act, although they continue
subject to its liabilities.

The letters, which are usually the first and the last of the
name of the port of registration, must be at least ten inches
in depth on boats under fifteen tons, and not less than
eighteen inches on those over that tonnage.

The fact may here be noted, that until 1880 the question
of fishing-boat lights required fresh legislation. The
Merchant Shipping Act of 1862 directed fishing vessels
to carry one "bright white light," and no others. The
Fisheries Act of 1868 required two perpendicular lights.
An Act of 1875 declared that the Fisheries Act of 1868
should alter no regulations in the Merchant Shipping Act
of 1862. The Merchant Shipping Act of 1862 therefore
appeared to be the main Act regulating fishing, lights :
but these vicissitudes of legislation occasioned much con-
fusion in the understanding of the ordinary fisherman.

An Order in Council of I4th August, 1879, altered cer-
tain of the provisions in regard to lights contained in the

238 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

Act of 1868. By article 10 of this Order open fishing-boats
under way, instead of carrying the side lights required on
other ships, must exhibit on approaching vessels a green
and red globular lantern. A fishing vessel at anchor
must show a bright white light, and, when drift-net fishing
two red lights vertically on the mast. Trawlers at work,
in addition to side lights, must carry a red and also a green
light vertically, or else a lantern with a red and green
glass.

Publicists at one time held that fishing vessels, in con-
sideration of the necessity and industry of fishermen, were
exempt from seizure in time of war. Now that sea fishing
has become a national and commercial industry, as op-
posed to that which formerly supplied subsistence and
articles of first necessity alone to those who plied it (with-
out a profit beyond to owners, contractors, and others) the
position has become untenable, and it has been abandoned.

Nets are now totally unrestricted as to the size of their
meshes, and as to their form and the mode of their use.
The enactments of 1843 (6 & 7 Viet. c. 79), whereby herring-
nets were not to exceed one inch from knot to knot, nor
mackerel-nets an inch and one-sixth, were finally repealed
in 1868.

Except by mutual consent, and unless it be found impos-
sible to clear them by other means, nets which have fouled
others may not be cut ; and they may not be used as
an anchorage for boats, nor lifted by others than their
owners.

It is illegal to fix any nets where drift-nets are floating,
and when found lost at sea they are at once to be taken to
the Receiver of Wreck.

Sails, buoys, floats and other principal implements, must
be marked with the letters of the boat to which they belong;

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 239

and signals are regulated, like lights, on the same principles
as those contained in the Merchant Shipping Acts.

The Act of 1843 (the 6 & 7 Viet. c. 79 before referred
to) was in its main principles repeated by the Act of 1868,
which repealed it. Its objects were similar, and its inten-
tion was to preserve peace and good order amongst fisher-
men generally, and to carry into effect the Anglo-French
Convention previously signed by Lord Aberdeen and
M. Ste Aulaise. The numerous restrictions on the size of
nets and meshes were, as before stated, not repeated but
repealed ; nor was the enactment that British trawlers, by
carrying at the masthead a red vane, should be distin-
guished from British drift-boats, whose vanes were to be
of red and white. The distinction made by this legislation
between " weaker " and " stronger " boats is worthy of note,
and also the fact that the former because " more exposed to
bad weather," were allowed recourse to otherwise pro-
hibited ports.

So far as the jurisdiction of British courts over French
subjects is concerned, the convention embodied in the Act
of 1843, and not the Convention embodied in the Act of
1 868, now prevails. The latter Convention was not to take
effect until a fixed day, but the day was never subsequently
fixed (although the first Convention ceased before 1868), and
until 1875 the British courts had no jurisdiction under
either Convention. (Parliamentary Blue Book. Messrs.
Buckland and Walpole's " English and Welsh Sea Fisheries
Report," 1879, p. xxx.) In 1875, however, the first Con-
vention was revived. These facts must be noted in this
essay for two reasons, firstly to show that the Fisheries
Act of 1868 is far more a piece of home legislation than
one of international importance ; and secondly to make
clear the fact that although the Act of 1868 repealed

240 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

the Act of 1843, the Convention embodied in the Act of
1843 nas greater validity than that embodied in the Act
of 1868.

Reference must next be made to certain legislation which
was in part expressly left unrepealed by the Sea Fisheries
Act of 1868.

During the Stuart period fishermen had been subject to
exactions imposed by the lords of the manor and others in
the form of top-money, of stallage for the use of markets by
the sea, of allowances of fish, such as the species of heriot
called Saturday night's fishing, with other gratuities. In
the reign of Anne these restrictions were removed, and in
1756, because the improvement of the British fishery was
still retarded by similar impediments, the legislation of
Queen Anne's reign was confirmed, and it was enacted that
all inhabitants of Great Britain should have power to take
and cure without hindrance herring, cod, ling, and other
white fish from the seas and bays of Scotland ; whilst
persons receiving gratuities for according their permission
to fish were liable to penalties recoverable either at West-
minster or in the Exchequer Court of Scotland. These
principles of free fishing, and the infliction of penalties on
those who prevented it were confirmed by the Act of 1868.
(See its second schedule, and sections I and 17 of 29 Geo. II.
c. 23.)

In 1761 the metropolis futilely struggled with a difficulty
which a hundred and twenty two years have not succeeded
in removing. An Act was then passed " for the better
supplying the cities of London and Westminster with fish,
to reduce the present exorbitant price thereof, and to protect
and encourage fishermen." An ancillary object of this
statute was to prevent forestalling. When it is remembered
that to forestall is to buy up commodities on their way

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 241

to market, or to dissuade persons from bringing their
goods there, or to enhance the price of goods when they
arrive, it will be perceived how far the object has been
attained. At that time the " East End of London " did not
exist, as a reference to Rocque's map* of 1745 may inferen-
tially show. London ended where the Great Eastern
Railway Station, the present chief fish-traffic terminus of
our railway system now stands, f Kingsland and Finsbury
were fields, Bethnal-green was in reality verdant, and along
the Thames, east of Billingsgate, the population was meagre
and scattered. In 1761 Parliament perceived that an
article of food which might readily be rendered cheap, was
denied to hundreds of the starving poor because " fore-
stalling " and artificial expenses removed it from their con-
sumption. Parliament, in 1883, is none the less alive to the
claims for a cheap fish supply which may be advanced now
by the poor, not in their hundreds but in their thousands.
It is to be hoped that in the future a prudent consideration
of the best means to be adopted in order to ensure success
will occasion the only delay in acceding to the urgent
demand for a cheap supply of fish. That portion of the
eighteenth century Fish Supply Act which gives facilities
to the transit of fish, as by permitting fish-carriages to
travel to and from the markets on Sundays and holidays,
was left intact in 1868. The remainder, including the en-
actments which exempted fishermen from impressment for
the navy, was repealed, whilst the abolition of press-gangs

* Rocque's Map is referred to in an article in the ' Gentleman's
Magazine,' April, 1883.

t Of 88,000 tons of land-borne fish — as distinguished from water-
borne fish which arrives at Billingsgate — brought to London in 1881,
no less than 57,000 tons were carried by two railway lines alone — the
Great Northern and the Great Eastern.

VOL. IX.— E. 7. R

242 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATED WITH

and other reasons have rendered its continuance in other
respects unnecessary. The fact, however, that at a time
when England was acquiring her naval supremacy, and was
displaying vast energy in perfecting her fleets, the privilege
of exemption from compulsory service should have been
accorded a particular seafearing class must not be omitted
from consideration, since it indicates a prominent feature in
the relationship of the State with Fishermen during the past
and present centuries. It has previously been stated, that
the interests of fishermen are generally subservient to those
of the State at large. Regarded from one point of view,
their exemption from naval service will show their indi-
vidual interests to have been, in one case at least, para-
mount to those of the State. As a fact, the British State
has long perceived that the maritime prosperity of an
island is almost as dependent on its fisheries for develop-
ment as it is on its naval forces for security (2 Geo. III.

c 15.)

So much of the sea-fishery legislation of 1771 as confirms
to fishermen the free use of the British seas, of unartificial
ports, and of adjacent waste land for the erection of huts
and landing-stages, remains unrepealed ; whilst the liability
to a ioo/. penalty, equally divisible between the Crown
and the informer, of persons demanding dues for such use
within certain limits continues. (See 2nd Schedule of Sea-
Fisheries Act, 1868, and sects. 11-13 of n Geo. III. c. 31.)

It is doubtful whether in any case for the furtherance of
fishing a fisherman can have a general right at common
law to use waste land within a few hundred yards of the
sea for the purpose of drying his nets ; but in some
cases, apart from any express grant, the uninterrupted
user of the land of others for that purpose has ripened into
a right by prescription. By statute-law, on the other hand

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 243

(by sect. 11 of 11 Geo. III. c. 31, expressly left unrepealed
in 1868), fishermen, in addition to the use of unartificial
harbours below high-water mark, are permitted the free use
of waste ground for one hundred yards above, for the
purpose of drying their nets.

In 1786 (by sect. 19 of 26 Geo. III. c. 81) the same
unimpeded right to exercise certain otherwise restricted
trades, as had previously been permitted to soldiers after
their discharge from honourable service, was extended to
fishermen of seven years' standing. Lest there should still
remain any trade restrictions of the particular class referred
to which might be an impediment to the following of a
fisherman's calling, this privilege was particularly left
undisturbed in 1868.

An Act relating to the British Society, so far as it is
consistent with the altered circumstances of the case,
remains unaffected. The above company had been esta-
blished for the extension of fisheries, and for the purchase
of land on which to erect fishing-stations in Scotland. In
1799 (39 Geo. III. c. 100) Parliament granted it express
powers to devote a portion of its capital to the grant
of loans for the erection of houses by deserving fishermen,
and for building net and hemp factories. It was also
enabled, in the pursuit of an object, the importance of which
by the end of last century our Legislature had become fully
prepared to acknowledge, to award prizes for expertness in
fishing, in fish-curing, in net-making, and in the preparation
of fish-oils. The British Society thus became in some
respects the precursor of the International Fisheries Exhi-
bition of 1883.

In 1808 certain British White Herring Fishery Com-
missioners were appointed (48 Geo. III. c. no). The
powers given this Board, with some additions and altera-

R 2

244 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

tions, have continued exercisable in Scotland, and in that
respect they were not very materially affected in 1868.
Their principal duties are to inspect the methods of curing ;
to place, when requested, a Government brand showing the
quality on barrels of herrings ; to enforce the registration
of boats ; to maintain order on the fishing-grounds ; to lay
out grants for the improvement of fishermen's harbours ;
and to prepare annual statistics. Although affecting Scot-
land only, three reasons will justify allusion being here
made to this Act. One reason is that it will be useful to
note that our modern legislative policy, by confining the
quality brands to Scotland, showed itself averse to the
extension of the grant of Government certificates of excel-
lence, in the form of brands on British fish, in order to
increase their sale in foreign markets ; another, that for
estimating their quality, most drift-net fish are divided into
three classes : those which are " full " of roe ; those which
have not yet developed roe, commonly called "maties"
(perhaps from Dutch maatje, a small measure, indicating
the form and size of the undeveloped germs of roe) ; and,
lastly, those which are "shotten," or whose roe is gone.
A remaining reason is that the word " British," as applied
to the Scotch Fishery Board, indicates the fact that, at an
earlier period, the practice of branding, now abolished, pre-
vailed in England.*

It may here again be pointed out that, whereas it is easy
to write separately of the Sea Fishery Legislation affecting
Great Britain as opposed to that affecting Ireland, the
natural custom of mutually fishing off the coasts of their
respective districts which obtains amongst both Scotch and
English fishermen renders it in many cases impossible to

* In 1876 the Irish inspectors very distinctly 'recommended that the
Scotch system of branding should not be extended to Ireland.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 245

speak of English sea fishery legislation as distinct from
legislation for Scotland on the same subject.

It may be well also to remember that the main principles
affecting the United Kingdom are the same throughout,
and that distinct legislation for distinct portions of it in no
case has for its object the variation of the principles them-
selves. The only variation consists in the difference in the
means used for producing for the same principles their
intended result ; and these means necessarily vary according
to the different necessities of different districts.

There is a principle that boats must render their identity
readily discernible, and for this reason they are registered
and lettered. If in Scotland a Fishery Board long super-
vised registration, it is unnecessary for the mere sake
of uniformity to transfer that duty to the collectors of
customs, who, in England, undertake similar supervision.

Again, there is a principle that immature fish should not
be unnecessarily destroyed. The unintentionally iniquitous
legislation of 1860 enforced a five months' close time for
herrings on the West of Scotland. The ostensible object of
this Act, before its promotion was detected to be a mere
trade scheme, had in view the worthy desire to enable
small fish to reach the Minch, where they might thrive
undisturbed and attain full size. The Act of 1843, 'm order
to protect small fish in the deep sea off the English coast,
restricted the size of meshes. Both restrictions have been
abolished (with the exception of an unenforced close time
in the territorial waters below Ardnamurchan), but both
endeavoured to promote the same principle by means
varied in different localities. In the land-locked bays of
Scotland and the inland seas of the Hebrides it was
thought feasible to directly arrest the fishermen themselves
when they plied their calling in close time ; but to check

246 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

the destruction of immature herrings on the wide expanse
of the North Sea, an indirect method by the seizure of
of small-meshed nets when landed at the quays, or hung
on the shore to dry, was held more practicable.

There is, again, in addition to many others, the principle
that fishermen must not unnecessarily interfere with each
other's operations. In the deep seas it is deemed sufficient
to prohibit trawlers, for instance, from fishing within three
miles of drift-nets, lest the latter should become entangled
or cut through. In St. Ives Bay, on the other hand,
particular legislation (3 & 4 Viet. c. — confirmed by the 68th
section of the Sea Fisheries Act, 1868) gives to sean fisher-
men the exclusive use of the coast waters. This privilege
has been considered necessary to the pilchard fishery ;
but, as it may probably be considered too unimpeded to be
just to other fishermen, it will perhaps become more limited
by legislation, unless it can be shown essential to the
advantage of the whole district.

The Act of 1 868 also expressly leaves in force, so far as
it relates to Scotland, the greater portion of an Act of 1815
(55 Geo. III. c. 94). By the latter Act a legal element
was introduced into the constitution of the Fishery Board,
and the Advocate- and Solicitor-General for Scotland were
added to the number of the Commissioners. These were
thenceforth to report annually to the Board of Trustees
for Fisheries and Manufactures before each ist day of
November, and a copy of their Report was to be laid
before both Houses of Parliament within fourteen days of
the commencement of each session. In these enactments
another proof, by reason of their classification with manu-
factures, of the further growth of the recognition of
Fisheries as a large national industry is given ; and by
the submission to Parliament of annual Reports, evidence

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 247

is afforded of the ever-increasing interest taken in fishermen
by the State. The Admiralty was authorised to appoint
a superintendent of coast-fishing, who might seize nets of
illegal size and those used on a Sunday. Imperfect barrels
might be seized by the fishery officers, or by those of the
excise or customs ; and the Commissioners were to regulate
the cran as the standard fish measure. Herrings were to
be gutted within twenty-four hours of their capture, whilst
the remainder of the Act is principally concerned with the
now obsolete questions of " bounty money " and the quantity
and kind of " salt " to be shipped

Of the Act of 1821 (i & 2 Geo. IV. c. 79) three sec-
tions wer£ permitted to survive so far as they affected
Scotland ; the constitution of the Commissioners was con-
firmed ; and they were empowered to make from time to
time fresh regulations, and to insure the forfeiture of unjust
measures.

The greater part of the legislation of 1824 (5 Geo. IV.
c. 64) remains unrepealed, but as its object was to further
ensure the abolition of Bounty-money, reference to it is
here unnecessary.

The legislation of 1830 (11 Geo. IV. and I Will. IV.
c. 54), so far as it related to England was repealed in 1868.
Its principal effect on Scotland is to further authorise the
branding of herrings, and to extend the powers of the
Commissioners over the fishery for "round fish," such as
cod and ling. This class of fish, as before mentioned, is not
caught by drift-nets, but is either incidentally found in
trawls, or is systematically fished for with hooks and lines.
The rest of the Act regulates the appointment of Fishery
Officers for Ireland.

Two sections only of the Act of 1.851 (14 & 15 Viet,
c. 26) were repealed in 1868. The chief objects of this Act

248 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

were to give a preference to drift-net fishermen over traw-
lers, and to prohibit the use of trawl-nets. After a con-
sideration of the fact that the policy of Modern Fishery
Legislation is to give the greatest possible latitude con-
sistent with the preservation of fish from wanton destruction
to all methods of fishing, it is unnecessary to state that the
trawl-net restriction regulations are contained in the re-
pealed portion. The remainder of the Act enables the
Commissioners to brand herrings at any time within fifteen
days of salting, and it removes the restriction which pre-
viously compelled, in certain cases, the use of " great salt "
only. Additional facts to be noted are, that the fourth-
cran was established as the smallest legal measure for fish,
and that penalties were to be recovered either in the name
of the Secretary of the Board of Trade, or by a Sea Fishery
Officer.

In the repealed portion of the Act of 1860 (23 & 24
Viet. c. 92), the restriction on use of nets, other than drift-
nets, was further enforced, and also the close time on the
whole West Coast of Scotland, elsewhere alluded to. The
noteworthy features in the remainder are the close time
below Ardnamurchan, and the authority given the Com-
missioners to appoint a superintendent, who has all neces-
sary powers, with the exception of inspecting the curing and
branding of fish, whilst those who obstruct him become
liable to a penalty of ^"50, or to sixty days' imprisonment.

The Sea Fisheries Act of 1868 also leaves unrepealed ,
five sections of a short Act for Scotland passed in 1861
(24 & 25 Viet. c. 72). By this a penalty extending to £20
is imposed on persons in the possession of herrings during
the close time for the West Coast of Scotland. In addition,
boats, nets, creels, boxes, or other articles containing the
fish, become liable to forfeiture, and the onus probandi that

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 249

the fish were not illegally taken is thrown on the possessor.
Previous legislation made a close time for the East Coast
of Scotland, which the Act of 1861 confirms, with the
exception that the Commissioners were authorised to sus-
pend the close time in the Firth of Forth west of Queens-
ferry Pier, in order to permit Sprat Fishing. The reference
to close time, with the exception of that on the lower half
of the West Scotch Coast has become now a matter of
historical interest only.

In 1865 (by 28 & 29 Viet. c. 22) the close time on the
West of Scotland was reduced by one month, and it is
interesting to observe that this legislation was left unre-
pealed by the Fisheries Act of 1868, so far as it is in-
consistent with that legislation. This, on the whole, is
unfavourable to any close time at all, and, in fact, outside
territorial waters distinctly forbids it, .except so far as
oysters are concerned.

Hitherto reference has been made to some legislation
which has to a limited extent been expressly left unre-
pealed by the Fisheries Act of 1868.

Having taken this Act as the anchor of our modern law
of Sea Fisheries, other concurrent legislation attached to
and floating round it will be next considered.

The legislation of 1771, which confirmed to fishermen
their present exemption from dues for the use of unartificial
harbours and waste land, and their exemption from forced
service in the Navy, granted in the London and West-
minster Fish Supply Act of 1762, have both been con-
sidered. An Act of 1 8 10 (50 Geo. III. c. 108) recites that
"it hath been found" (since the Act of 1762) "that various
sorts of fish retire in the winter season into deeper water,"
and that this being the case, larger boats with larger crews
had been found necessary to follow them. For this reason

250 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

a larger proportion of each crew, including besides regular
hands, "fishing landsmen," was exempted from forced
service, and commanders of press-gangs became liable to a
penalty of £20 for impressing exempted fishermen. Their
freedom from press-gangs, now a subject of antiquarian
interest only, and the ichthyological discovery made by
Parliament in 1810 are not matters of importance for this
essay. The vast importance of sea-temperatures and the
migration of fish, both of which materially affect the Fishing
Industry, would fall beneath an Essay on the Natural
History of Fish, and not in one showing the relation of the
State to Fisheries. The quaint manner in which a natural
history fact was announced by Parliament in 1810, may
doubtless have amused the late Mr. Buckland, if ever he
read the Act, the latter portion of which, however, contains
provisions of present use. By these enactments penalties
are imposed for the breach of contracts for fishing voyages,
and for hiring or enticing apprentices from fishing vessels.
Magistrates, besides determining difficulties between masters
and men generally, are to issue warrants for the arrest of
absconding hands, who, under this Act, become liable to a
£5 penalty : and all ship-captains and others harbouring con-
tracted fishermen become liable to a penalty of £20. The
prosecution must be within three months, whilst the penalty
was equally divisible between the prosecutor, and, at that
time, Greenwich Hospital. The latter moiety reads some-
what like a small quid pro q2w for exemption from press-
gangs.

In 1854 the Principal Merchant Shipping Act was passed,
and in 1862 it was amended by another. By section 13 of
the Act of 1862, fishing boats are subjected to the opera-
tion of the whole of the third part of the Act of 1854, with
the exception of twenty-eight of its sections. The re-

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 251

maining hundred and fifty-two (found passim between 109
and 290 of 17 & 1 8 Viet. c. 104) relate to the certificates,
apprenticeships, and engagements of seamen (and fisher-
men) ; to the allotment, remittances, recovery of and right
to wages ; to leaving hands at foreign ports, to their dis-
charge, and to volunteering into the Navy : regulations are
also made concerning their food, health, accommodation, and
causes of complaint, whilst discipline and crimes at sea are
dealt with generally. A perusal of the above provisions of
the Shipping Acts is important, as it exemplifies the
sanction which State Legislation affords the relation of
master and servant on registered sea-going ships, although
employed exclusively in fishing off the coasts of the United
Kingdom.

It will be observed that the mere fact of registration in
many instances brings fishing vessels within the operation
of the Merchant Shipping Acts. As another instance of
this, by the Shipping Act of 1873 (36 & 37 Viet c. 86),
agreements with "seamen fishing off the coasts of the
United Kingdom " have been authorised where the remune-
ration consists in a share of the profits alone.

The system of payment by shares is very frequent in
our fisheries. Few industries require so much the personal
interest of each individual employed. The whole business
is more or less speculative ; there are occasionally large
and successive prizes in the form of " miraculous draughts,"
whilst large blanks may still more readily be drawn. To
attempt to secure the former the alacrity of each fisherman
must be aroused, whilst, in the event of the latter, by means
of payment by share, and not by wage only, the loss is less
heavily felt by those whose capital has been invested in the
•equipment of the boat. Large fishing companies in Ireland
and elsewhere, paying mostly by wage alone, have signally

252 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

failed, whilst concurrent private enterprises have reaped
fair harvests. Mr. Aloysius Blake, in his Parliamentary
Report of 1870, says, at page 31 : "There is no industry
which requires closer attention to make it pay ; unless
those engaged in it have a positive interest in every fish
captured, and in the saving of expenditure, success cannot
be looked for." Payment by dole has in addition an
elevating tendency. It removes a fisherman from the bare
position of a journeyman to one akin to that of a master
trader, and opens up to the industrious and lucky the
ambition of becoming boatowners. After a good fishing,
enough is frequently saved to enable a fisherman to buy a
plot of land, and in a subsequent year to erect his cottage.
The speculative element in the fishing industry does not
injuriously affect the lower orders with the malice of that
in a gambling concern. This arises from the fact that
English crew-fishermen, amongst whom the very frequent
custom of the Scotch does not extensively prevail, have
not necessarily, although paid by share, invested, apart
from their labour, a share in the capital of the boat and nets.
After a bad season their loss consists in not gaining, not
in the loss of a disbursement. The independence and
prosperity of this class of fishermen may particularly be
observed amongst the coast peasantry of Suffolk and
Norfolk. Landsmen engaged in the fishery, principally
in hauling up nets at the capstan, together with more
regular hands, return with their share-money to the villages
and to farm work, so that deriving profits from more than
one harvest in the year, they become little affected by times
of agricultural depression.

Section 8 of the Act of 1873 enables the master of a
fishing vessel to agree that any person employed shall be
wholly remunerated by a share in the fishing adventure.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 253

The agreement is to be in writing, signed by the contract-
ing parties in the presence of the superintendent of a
mercantile marine office, and it is to be explained by him
and attested. This agreement is, moreover, to be valid,
notwithstanding section 182 of the Merchant Shipping
Act of 1854. This section was to the effect that no
seaman should by any agreement forfeit his lien for wages
upon the ship, as by the loss of the vessel in part

A Sea Fisheries Act of little importance to fisheries
other than those relating to oysters, was passed in 1875
(38 £ 39 Viet c. 15). This Act will be further mentioned
when spawning-beds are subsequently considered. It may
be referred to here, since it indicates the continuing cen-
tralisation of all sea fisheries beneath the control of the
Board of Trade. This position, besides giving sea fisheries
increasing importance as a national industry, places them
directly beneath the immediate investigation of Parliament
itself.

By the Customs Consolidation Act of 1876 (39 & 40
Viet. c. 36, sect. 48), " No goods, except diamonds, bullion,
lobsters, and fresh fish of British taking and imported in
British ships, which may be landed without report or
entry," are permitted ashore except at fixed hours and
under supervision. The valuable companionship with
diamonds and bullion, in which fresh fish and lobsters
accidentally find themselves placed, is of no particular
significance ; but their express exemption from the delay
occasioned by reports and entries in official registers,
exhibits an important confirmation of the privileges
granted to the fishing trade in the Act of 1868.

The legislation of 1877 (40 & 41 Viet. c. 65) had a direct
influence on a certain kind of sea fishing. Miners and
others who could readily obtain small quantities of the

254 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

dynamite and gun-cotton used by them on shore for
blasting, had been in the habit of catching fish by explo-
ding such substances at sea. For one fish caught for food
in this way, a hundred were wantonly destroyed, and
neighbouring nets and vessels were rendered insecure. In
1877, fisri and fishing-boats became nearly as amply pro-
tected against dynamite as public buildings then were.-
By the Dynamite-fishing Act, all persons using explosive
substances for catching fish in public fisheries become
liable to a fine of £20, or to imprisonment for two months.*
Such offences committed on the coast, or at sea within
three miles, are deemed committed within a public fishery,
and, for purposes of jurisdiction, they are held to have been
committed on the land adjoining such sea. The prompt
Explosives Act of the present Session, aimed against
grosser malefactors than dynamite-fishers, might possibly
occasion even the latter greater severity. By the Act passed
this April (i.e. April 1883), the mere possession of explo-
sives may render the possessor liable to fourteen years'
penal servitude. Mr. Stansfeld, in the House of Commons,
argued against the punishment, as it might render liable a
land-poacher with an ounce of gunpowder. This is possibly
the case, and the penal servitude under the Explosives
Act might therefore, with greater possibility, be used
against a sea-poacher in possession of an ounce of dyna-
mite.

The rating of fishermen was regulated in 1880. In the
Merchant Service, a seaman to be rated A.B. must have
served four years before the mast (43 & 44 Viet. c. 1 7, s. 7).
Fishermen who have been employed for three years or
longer in a registered decked fishing vessel may be

* The Dynamite Act, 1877, is distinctly a Sea Fishery Act, as it
was not extended to rivers until 1878 (by 41 & 42 Viet. c. 39).

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 255

reckoned A.B. if, in addition, they serve for one year only
in a trading vessel. The proof of service consists in
certificates of discharge, whilst, in order to cast no pecu-
niary impediment in the way of fishermen, the fee for a
certificate, if the proof has to be supplied by the Registrar-
General of Shipping, must not in any case exceed sixpence.
The above is a practical recognition of the fact that our
fisheries are a " fruitful nursery of able seamen" for the
Navy and Mercantile Marine.

When the Sea Fishery Laws received further amend-
ment in 1 88 1 (44 Viet. c. n), clam and bait beds received
protection, and a restriction was placed on one class of
fishermen for the benefit of another class, who fished with
hook and line. The Board of Trade was empowered to
prohibit the use of beam-trawls in the territorial seas,
wherever it could be shown to be injurious to clam or bait
beds ; but the orders, when made, do not take effect until
they have been confirmed by Parliament.

In the preceding will be found an outline of the relations
borne by the State to fishermen : it is intended next to
speak very briefly of the locus in qiw of the fisherman's
labours, and then more fully of the legislation which
protects spawning-beds.

CHAPTER II.

THE principal English ports which equip large fishing boats
are those of the East Coast, washed by the North Sea.
The chief in order of importance are Yarmouth, Grimsby,
Hull, Lowestoft, and Scarborough, whose boats of the first
class, over 15 tons, range in number from 550 to 120
respectively.

256 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

On the South Coast, Dover, Rye, Teignmouth, and
Brixham are fishing ports on a smaller scale. The fisher-
men along the rest of this coast generally work with their
families to obtain a livelihood rather by individual enter-
prise than by joining the crews of owners. Their boats
consequently are chiefly those of the second and third
classes, and are under 15 tons. Intermediate between
fishing singly and fishing in large crews, is the Cornish
sean-net fishery. The staple fishery of this locality, as
before mentioned, is for pilchards, which are probably the
full-grown Bay of Biscay sardines, in the same way that
conversely Thames whitebait are the fry of North Sea
herrings.

On the Welsh and north-west English Coast the chief
fishing stations are Swansea, Aberystwith, Bangor, Liver-
pool, and Morecambe, the last-named place being chiefly
interested in the mussel fishery.

The inexhaustible mine of British fisheries is the North
Sea.

Within its extent — 600 miles in length, with a maximum
breadth of 350 miles — are the chief British and International
fishing and spawning grounds ; whilst the estuaries of the
Thames, Tyne, Tay, and other rivers on its west, and of
Continental rivers, like the Elbe, Rhine, and Scheldt,
on its east, afford nurseries for shell-fish and fry on either
side.

Mr. Olsen, in his ' Fisherman's Practical Navigator/
enumerates thirty-five North Sea fishing-grounds. Amongst
them are the Little Silver Pits, seven leagues east of the
Humber, and a winter resort of soles ; the North-east
Hole off Cromer ; and most important the Dogger Bank,
commencing off Flamborough and running to Jutland.
This affords a summer resort to plaice, haddock, and cod ;

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 257

whilst drift-net fishing is carried on in the North Sea
generally.

In the English Channel the chief fishing grounds are the
Ridge and the Varne off Dover, Rye and Teignmouth
Bays, and the waters by Brixham and off the Cornish
coast. Trawling and drifting are carried on in the Irish
Channel from the Welsh ports before mentioned. Tenby
adjoins a large trawling ground, and the sea off St. David's
Head will probably form a successful ground in the future.

The Isle of Man alone possesses more than 230 boats
of the first class, and this fact in itself affords a proof that
the fishing grounds in the surrounding waters are numerous.

Although a fishing ground is not necessarily a spawn-
ing ground, it is obvious that those parts of the sea are
most fished which are believed to contain the most fish, and
the most fish will naturally be found near spawning grounds.
Little, however, is known of the exact locality of spawning
grounds, and it is probable that many of them vary in
situation from year to year. The knowledge of the site
both of fishing ground and spawning ground is acquired by
experience alone ; and experimental knowledge increases
very slowly amongst fishermen. Directed by prudence, they
naturally prefer using the same known grounds year after
year to the risk of seeking entirely new ones, although it is
of course possible that many localities much more profit-
able than any of those known may exist. When more is
understood of the migration of fishes, it is possible that bad
seasons may be entirely prevented by learning how to
follow the fish systematically from place to place. Shoal-
fish are already followed round the coast, but our whole
system of fishing may be said to consist more in passively
waiting for fish on their presumed grounds than in actively
hunting them down.

VOL. IX. — E. 7. S

258 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

A distinction may be drawn between spawning grounds
and spawning beds. The former would include all those
vast and indefinable spaces where fish instinctively breed,
and the latter those limited portions of the sea which have
been artificially established for fish propagation. Examples
of spawning grounds would be the districts between Egmont
in Holland and the entrance to the Cattegat, where it is
believed soles breed ; the district between Specton Cliffs
and Robin Hood's Bay off Yorkshire ; and the rocky pits
scattered through the North and other Seas surrounding
the United Kingdom.

Spawning beds may be exemplified by the small portions
of districts near the coast or in estuaries which, under the
Third Part of the Sea Fisheries Act of 1868, or by other
enactments, may be allotted by the Board of Trade to
private individuals, and which are principally devoted to
the rearing of oysters.

Intermediate between spawning grounds and spawning
beds are a third class of spawning spaces, which are near
the shore or partially enclosed by headlands, but which are
not artificially managed. Swansea Bay and numerous
other bays in which fish spawn, but which legislation is
almost powerless to directly protect, are instances of this
class. The exceptional enactments affecting St. Ives' Bay
must not be considered as in protection of a spawning place
of fish, but only as regulating the use of a resort of pil-
chards.

From these considerations the threefold division of
spawning fields into — I, Spawning grounds ; 2, Spawning
places ; and 3, Spawning beds — is reached.

The limits of the first are most imperfectly known, and
for this reason alone legislation can do nothing directly for
them. British legislation could not with any substantial

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 259

result restrain British fishermen from fishing on certain
spawning grounds, whilst foreigners remained unimpeded
by their own laws, even if the now almost disproved suppo-
sition were admitted, that any fishing, however incessant,
could materially lessen the vast resources of the deep seas.
The only methods, and these are indirect, by which legisla-
tion can protect spawning grounds, are either by insisting
(a) on the general use of large meshes which will allow the
escape of spawn and fry ; or (b) on the prohibition of beam-
trawls where spawn may be disturbed or fry destroyed ; or
(c) on close times which may enable spawn and fry to fully
develop. It has been before shown that nearly all such
restrictions have been removed owing to the futility of all
endeavours to successfully enforce them. The enactment
of 1868, which prohibits the use of oyster-dredges in the
English Channel between the i6th of June and the 3ist of
August, must be regarded as affording indirectly a close
time for that particular class of fish known as oysters, and
not as protecting the spawning ground of fish generally.

Spawning places, fr&m being within the territorial seas,
and from possessing more definable limits than spawning
grounds, might more readily become the successful subject
of legislation. With the exception of those spawning
places, principally in estuaries, which have been converted
into spawning beds, they have not been more directly
protected than the first class. The unenforced close time
for herrings below Ardnamurchan in the territorial seas
would come nearest as an example of protection, except
that by this restriction immature fish are more protected
than spawn. The suggested abolition of the early spring
fishing of the East Coast would also protect large fry rather
than spawn, whilst its operation would extend to the spawn-
ing grounds of the deep sea as well as to the spawning

S 2

260 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

places in territorial waters. This prohibition is unlikely to
be effected, since at the port of Lowestoft alone over
£20,000 is put into circulation every spring through the
sale to the Dutch and French fishermen of young herrings,
as long-line bait for halibut and turbots. The Board of
Trade, as before stated, may, by 44 Viet. c. 1 1, prohibit the
use of beam-trawls wherever they are injurious to clam-
beds in territorial waters, and this constitutes almost the
only direct protection afforded spawning places of the
second class.

Spawning beds, or the pisciculture plots originated or
continued by the permission of the Board of Trade, are the
direct result of enactments or a Crown Grant. For these
reasons they readily become the subject of such legislation
as can materially affect the relationship of the State with
fishermen. In the same way that weirs have in some
instances been permitted to individuals for the destruction
of fish on the coast or in estuaries, in certain similar places
plots have more recently been assigned for fish-culture and
the protection of spawn. The chief deep-sea oyster-beds
are those in the Channel and those off Grimsby, whilst
important oyster-beds within the territorial waters have
long been established off Portland, Falmouth, and Whit-
stable, and in the Solent and Milford Haven.

In 1778 (18 Geo. III. c. 33) an Act was passed for the
better protection of fish in the Severn and Verniew. This
enactment is now a matter of historical interest, but so far
as it related to the estuaries of the rivers defined, it may
be here referred to as an early endeavour towards the
protection of spawning beds. At the commencement of
the present century the estuaries of the Teign and Plym
were similarly protected. The protection extended chiefly
to salmon ; for this reason its consideration may be dis-

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 261

missed in the same way as the protection under the Scotch
Act of 1828 (9 Geo. IV. c. 35), whereby salmon were not
to be " slain from the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady
until the Feast of Saint Andrew in winter," and the enact-
ments " Anent Cruves " * were confirmed.

In 1 840 (3 & 4 Viet. c. 74) Scotch oyster-beds received
protection, and seven years later (by 10 & 1 1 Viet. c. 92)
similar protection was extended to mussels.

The thirty sections contained in the Third Part of the
Sea Fisheries Act of 1868 regulate the relations of the
State with fishermen in regard to spawning beds. These
provisions relate only to oysters and mussels, together with
their brood, ware, spat, or spawn generally, by whatever
name designated. They apply to the territorial seas only
of Great Britain, with the exception of those of Ireland,
the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands.

The following procedure is adopted in order to establish
protection.

The promoters, having first given notice to the adjoining
landowners, who may raise objections, forward a memorial
to the Board of Trade, praying for an order to protect
a certain portion of the bed of the sea. In reply, the Board
of Trade appoints an inspector to investigate, at some place
in the locality itself, the desirability of making an order,
and, influenced by his report, the Board either grants the
order or withholds it. If granted, the order must be pub-
lished in the district, and it does not prevail until it has
been confirmed by an Act of Parliament. If opposed in its
passage through the House, it will be referred to a Select
Committee ; but the Board of Trade has limited powers
subsequently to amend the order. The heavy expenses of

* Cruves = "fish-traps."

262 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

the memorial and Board of Trade fees fall upon the pro-
moters, and this is a great drawback to the utility of the
provisions. Companies and capitalists can bear the expense,
but it is beyond the capacity of a poor fisherman, who
might successfully cultivate two or three acres of sea-bed.
It has been elsewhere pointed out that it is less to the
undertakings of companies and capitalists that the national
fishing industry must look for its prosperity than to the
individually small, but widely extended, successes of separate
members of the fishing community.

An order, when confirmed, has an alternative result : —

1. It either makes the grantee (or grantees) the owner of

a several fishery ; or

2. It gives him (or them) the right to regulate a defined

district.

In the first case, the grantee has in himself alone the
exclusive right of depositing, propagating, dredging, and
taking oysters or mussels ; and at all seasons such a grantee
would most frequently be a private individual or a com-
mercial company.

In the second case, the right to regulate gives the grantees
powers to impose restrictions, to levy tolls and royalties,
and to provide improvements. Grantees of this class might
be a philanthropic society or an urban or other improvement
corporation.

Neither of the above grants may extend over sixty years ;
if the grant is not properly or productively utilised, the
Board of Trade may determine it at any time, and for this
purpose inquiries will be from time to time directed. The
area of the grant must be properly defined by stakes or
buoys, and sufficient evidence of its unmistakeable definition
will be a certificate from the Board of Trade to that effect.

If the proposed area belongs to the Crown personally or

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 263

to the Duchies of Lancaster or Cornwall, the consent of the
Woods' Commissioners, or of the Chancellor of Lancaster,
or the Duke of Cornwall respectively, must be first obtained ;
whilst any shore landowners may claim compensation under
the Lands Clauses Acts. The orders further will not abridge
a private fishery granted by a local Act, or by Royal grant,
or immemorial usage, such as are frequently weirs. To
afford publicity throughout the district, the Third Part
of the Fisheries Act, together with the order itself, and
the subsequent Act confirming the order, must be sold by
the grantees to any applicant for sixpence, and the Board
of Trade is to report annually to Parliament upon the
working of the grants it allows.

For judicial purposes, the area of the grant is held to be
in the county to which it is opposite ; and if only the bed
is properly marked out, all oysters in it are held to be the
property of the grantees. This must be noted as a restric-
tion on title by " occupancy," which prevails in regard to
almost all other sea-fish. He who is first to catch a
herring is the only lawful owner of it, but it is as illegal
to fake an oyster from an authorised bed as a fowl from
a poultry yard.

All oysters removed from a granted area remain, not-
withstanding removal, the property of the grantee of the
bed. The only title to such must be derived either from
the owner of the bed himself or through sale in market
overt ; the person selling in the latter is scarcely likely to
be a thief, and, if he is, it has long been a general principle
of English law that the publicity he has courted gives him
a title, — not as a reward for his audacity, but simply as a
matter of legislative convenience and to avoid endless
disputes.

In regard to the removal of oysters from an authorised

264 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

bed, a novel principle of evidence is introduced into our
legal system. It lies midway between the onus probandt
(that the oysters were honestly obtained) resting upon the
prisoner, and the proof (that they were fraudulently removed
from the prosecutor's possession) resting on the prosecutor.
It is expressly enacted that, if two beds belonging to dif-
ferent owners are contiguous, it is sufficient to show that
any oysters stolen must have been removed from one or
other of the adjoining beds, if not actually from that
belonging to the prosecutor.

The direct protection of spawning beds is also provided
for. All fishing implements, except a line and hook, or
a net adapted solely for catching floating fish, and so used
as not to injure any oyster- or spawning-bed, are prohibited
in the defined district. Ballast, except such as is lawfully
authorised for the improvement of navigation, may not be
removed thence. Rubbish may not be deposited, nor may
any apparatus prejudicial to the bed be placed there,
except such as is absolutely necessary for anchorage. And,
lastly, if the bed is disturbed in any way, compensation
may be Awarded the grantees, and penalties varying from
£2 to^io are incurred.

A perusal of the foregoing provisions of the Sea Fisheries
Act of 1868 will show them to be so equitable and simple
that, with the one drawback of the expense involved in
procuring and confirming an order, modified in 1877 (by
section 7 of 40 & 41 Viet. c. 42), it is difficult to perceive
what more legislation can do to promote oyster culture and
protect oyster spawning-beds. All vested interests are
considered ; in spite of the inconvenience which it may
possibly occasion navigation, private property in the bed of
the sea — a most unusual gift— is permitted; Parliament,
through the Board of Trade, becomes directly interested in

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 265

the matter, and ready means of convicting offenders are
given to courts of law.

In the very next year the South of England Oyster
Company took advantage of the Act, and The Oyster and
Mussels Fishery Orders Confirmation Act, 1869 (No. 2),
was passed. This confirmation Act is worthy of considera-
tion, as it shows how the means accorded in 1868 were put
to practical use. The Act itself is a short one of three
sections only, with a schedule containing in ten articles the
order confirmed. Its second section amends section 45 of
the Sea Fisheries Act of 1 868. Section 45 implied that by
a certificate that a grant was improperly utilised the whole
grant must be determined; but the amending section 2
enacted that a certificate might apply to part only of a
grant. This in itself is a matter of but trivial importance,
but it proves that these confirmatory Acts may from time
to time be utilised for the amendment of our sea fishery laws
generally, without, now that the question of fishery legisla-
tion is on a clearly defined basis, either passing express
amendment Acts, on the one hand, or re-opening the whole
subject of 1866 on the other, for the sake of a new enact-
ment to supersede that of 1868.

The company in question obtained by their order
200 acres in Langston Harbour and round Hayling
Island, and deposited plans with the Board of Trade.
They acquired a several fishery, which was to be marked
by poles and beacons at intervals not exceeding 100 yards.
Obliterated marks were to be replaced at once, and notice
was to be given at the first establishment of the fishery to
fishermen and others by placards in the harbour and at
Hayling Bridge. The grant was for sixty years only, and
no works other than the marks and beacons mentioned

266 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

were to be erected on it without the express sanction of
the Board of Trade.

1875 was a year of legislative activity, and the Sea
Fisheries Act of 1868 was materially amended by a short
express Act (38 Viet. c. 15). Any oyster company,
established by any local Act passed since 1863, and subject
to the control of the Inspectors of Fisheries under the
Salmon Fishery Act of 1861, was thenceforth deemed to
have obtained an order under the Third Part of the Sea
Fisheries Act of 1868. It became subject to the Board of
Trade, as if it had been originally established by the Act
of 1868, and the powers over such a company vested in the
Salmon Inspectors ceased ; whilst any provisions in the
local Act at variance with the control of the Board of Trade
given by the Sea Fisheries Act were repealed. The growing
preponderance of the Board of Trade in all commercial
matters, whether connected directly with trade, like
Fisheries, or, less directly, like Bankruptcies, has before
been noted. The third section of this Act affords a further
exemplification, and nothing in the Sea Fisheries Act of
1868 was to alter the regulations in the Merchant Shipping
Act of 1862. This had the effect of enforcing for fishing
vessels the one "bright white light," and not the two
vertical lights of the Fisheries Act, and has been elsewhere
mentioned. The second section enables an Inspector of
the Board of Trade to examine upon oath when he con-
siders the desirability of the cesser of a several oyster
fishery, in the same way that he may (under section 32
of 31 & 32 Viet. c. 45) when he holds an inquiry as to the
desirability of establishing a grant.

In 1 876 the protection afforded the more-favoured oyster
was extended to crabs and lobsters and their spawning-beds.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 267

This was done by the Norfolk Crab and Lobster Act, which
was repealed in the following year. The enactment neverthe-
less deserves notice as a specimen of a Local Act, and because
it contains the principles more widely carried out in the
Public Statute of 1877. It commenced by reciting that the
" crab and lobster fisheries on the sea-coast of Norfolk had
been greatly injured," and its operation extended from Salt-
house on the north to Mundesley on the south so as to
include midway Cromer of crustacean notoriety. Lobsters
less than 7 inches long, and crabs of less diameter than
4^ inches, were declared " unsizeable," and to " take "
signified to capture " without forthwith returning alive into
water with as little delay as possible." It became illegal to
-" take " or possess any lobster irrespective of size between
the 25th of June and the 25th of July ; or to sell at any
time or season, under a penalty of £$, " unsizeable " crabs or
lobsters. The penalty was recoverable within six months
of the offence before two Norfolk justices, and half of it
might by them be awarded to the complainant (39 & 40
Viet. c. n).

The Act of 1877 (40 & 41 Viet c. 42), which repealed
the Norfolk enactment, amended the oyster, crab, lobster,
and other sea-fishery laws generally. It treated, firstly, of
oysters, unlike the Norfolk Act, which concerned crabs
and lobsters only ; secondly, of crabs and lobsters ; and
thirdly, it regulated the procedure necessary for the
enforcement of its provisions.

In Great Britain, under a £2 penalty, persons are pro-
hibited from selling deep-sea oysters between the I5th of
June and the 4th of August, and other oysters between the
1 4th of May and the 4th of August, unless the oysters were
either taken in foreign waters, or preserved in tins or re-
moved for cultivation within certain districts. One of these

268 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

districts was the Thames estuary west of a line drawn from
Orford Ness to the North Foreland. The next provision
is of great importance. By it the Board of Trade, on
application, and after inquiry and notice, may prohibit the
taking of oysters during any period less than a year. The
Board of Trade may, in addition, renew its prohibition
from year to year, vary its orders, and enforce them by
penalties ranging to £20. This part of the enactment
does not, however, apply to grants of oyster rights under
the Third Part of the Act of 1868. The application for a
prohibition on oyster-taking may be made by any persons
" appearing to the Board of Trade to represent the fisher-
men of any locality, or others locally interested in the
fisheries." Justices, town councils, urban or rural, sanitary
authorities, bodies corporate, or persons regulating a
harbour, are examples of the possible applicants. By the
seventh section, the expense of obtaining the confirmation
of an order under the Third Part of the Sea Fisheries Act
of 1868 is reduced. If for an area of less than 5 acres the
grant of a several oyster-fishery does not exceed twenty-
one years for its duration, and if no objections are raised
in the locality against the order, the latter may be con-
firmed by Her Majesty in Council without the expense of
a special Act. By the Second Part of the Act now under
consideration, no person may either have in his possession,
or sell, or buy, any crab of less diameter than 4^ inches,
nor those crabs which carry spawn, commonly called
" berried crabs," nor those which have recently cast their
shells, and which are known as " white " or " soft " crabs.
The penalty for the first offence is £2, and for subsequent
offences £10, together with the forfeiture of the crabs.
Exception is, however, made in the case of crabs intended
for bait " for fishing only." Under the same penalties no

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 269

lobster less than 8 inches in length may be possessed or
sold. The extension by one inch of saleable lobsters under
this Act will be noted, but it will also be observed that the
principles in the present Act and those in the repealed
Norfolk Act are the same. Section 10, corresponding to
the previous 5th section, is of importance. By it the
Board of Trade may prohibit the taking of edible crabs
and lobsters for any periods, whether for years or for
portions of each year, which may seem to it advisable,
upon proper representation. The Irish Fishery Inspectors
also were given the same powers as the Board of Trade
derived from this section. For convenience of jurisdiction,
any offender against this Act may be deemed to have
committed the offence where he is found, and all oysters,
crabs, and lobsters, the possession of which is rendered
illegal by this Act, may be searched for by those persons
who are authorised to search for unwholesome food, such
as Market and other Sanitary Inspectors. In England, any
two justices sitting at Petty Sessions may convict, and, in
addition to Great Britain, the Act applies to Man and
the Channel Islands. The i5th section has been before
alluded to. It is of great Anglo-French international im-
portance. The Convention in the Act of 1843 is revived
so far as it regards the jurisdiction of British courts over
French fishermen. It will be remembered that the Act of
1868 repealed the Convention in the Act of 1843, and also
that the Convention contained in the Act of 1868 never
came into operation, because the day to be fixed for its
commencement was, in fact, never fixed at all.

The enactments briefly noticed above embody the only
legislation which now prevails for the protection of either
spawning-grounds, spawning-places, or spawning-beds. It
will be seen that the last named are now alone protected

270 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

by direct legislation. Spawning-places are in one instance
indirectly protected by the legislation of 1881, which pro-
hibits the use of beam-trawls near clam-beds ; whilst
spawning-grounds, although they have been formerly indi-
rectly protected by restrictions on the size of meshes and
the modes of fishing, are now left, not to the protection
of legislation, but to the protection afforded by the com-
mon-sense of fishermen and the recuperative energies of
nature, with its ceaseless supply of fish.

CHAPTER III.

A NATURAL history classification of fishes does not fall
within an essay on Fisheiy Legislation. Mr. Buckland
divided fish into three classes for commercial consideration,
and to these three may be added a fourth. It is only
necessary to repeat here briefly the four classes more fully
spoken of elsewhere. They were : —

1. Round surface-fish, usually caught in drift-nets, such
as herrings and mackerel.

2. Flat ground-fish, like soles and brill, caught in trawl-
nets.

3. Round-fish, found at all depths, caught either inci-
dentally in trawls or drift-nets, or systematically fished for
with hook and line.

4. Shell-fish and crustaceans.

With regard to salt-water fish of the first three classes,
Close Time, with one exception, does not exist. This
exceptional Close Time, which is not enforced, lasts from
February ist to the 3ist of May: it relates only to the
territorial waters below Ardnamurchan Point, which stands
midway on the west coast of Scotland, to the Mull of
Galloway at the extreme south-west corner of Wigtown.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 271

This result may be historically traced from the following
facts.

In 1860 the Glasgow fish-curers desired to enhance the
price of summer fish by checking the supply of fish caught
in the spring ; and they succeeded in passing an Act
(23 & 24 Viet. c. 92) whereby a close time for herrings
was fixed from the 1st January to the 2Oth May, between
Cape Wrath in Sutherland and Ardnamurchan Point ; and
from the ist January to the 3ist May between that Point
and the Mull of Galloway, in all the Scotch western waters,
whether territorial or not.

Fishermen starved, and clamoured for repeal. In 1862
and 1864, Royal Commissions investigated their hardship,
and at no time was the Act of 1860 fully enforced.

In 1865 (by 28 & 29 Viet. c. 22) the close time was
reduced to the period between the ist February and ist of
May, and limited to the western seas between Ardna-
murchan and Galloway Mull.

The Fisheries Act of 1868 altogether abolished close
time in the deep seas ; the result of this is therefore to
confine the operations of the Acts of 1860 and 1865 to
within the three-mile limit of the territorial sea off the
lower half of the west Scotch coast.

With regard to the fourth class of fish, by the Sea
Fisheries Act of 1868 a close time for oysters was imposed
within the irregular parallelogram comprising the English
Channel, and defined by the Land's End and the North
Foreland at its angles on the British side, and by Dunkirk
and Ushant on the French. The period extends from the
1 6th June to the 3 ist August, and during this time no
boats may carry an oyster dredge, unless it has been
previously sealed by the Customs House authorities in
order to preclude its use.

The close time for lobsters off the Cromer coast, between

272 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

the 25th of June and the 25th of July, was noted when
reference was made to the repealed Norfolk Act of 1876.

Also the legislation of 1877, which affords an indirect
close-time to oysters, by preventing their sale between
either the I4th of May or the I5th of June (as the case
may be) and the 4th of August.

It may here be observed that a confusion has sometimes
arisen between the close-time for, and certain precautions
enforced to prevent the premature destruction of, salt-water
fish. The Ardnamurchan close-time for herrings and the
repealed Cromer lobster close-time are examples of close-
time proper; examples of precautions (sometimes impro-
perly referred to beneath the heading of close-time) which
may prevail all the year round are the obsolete enactments
of 1843, which limited herring-nets to a i-inch mesh, and
the legislation of 1881, still in force, by which beam-trawls
may be prohibited near clam-beds. It is now sufficient to
observe that both close-time and improper " close-time "
substantially ceased in 1868, when, with the exception then
made in favour of oysters, &c., and the subsequent protec-
tion granted to clams, all restrictions both on the time and
on the mode of deep-sea fishing were removed.

Reference has been made to close-time both as defining
the period during which fish may not be actually caught
on the one hand, and as defining the period during which
they may not be offered for sale on the other. Ardnamur-
chan herrings may not be caught between the 1st of Feb-
ruary and the 3ist of -May, and oysters may not be sold
between the I5th of June and the 4th of August. Close-
time is thus twofold ; it either relates to time of catching
or to time of sale. As in Mother Glasse's receipt (" First
catch * your hare, then cook him "), so with fish ; the catch-

* If at least it be not more correctly, " First case," or skin " your hare,"
£c. as Mr. Augustus Sala has more than once pointed out, I believe.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 273

ing is primary and the sale secondary. The secondary
method of enforcing close-time would, however, appear to
go further to the root of the matter, because more fish are
caught for sale than for the actual consumption of fisher-
men. The secondary method has this further advantage :
it never can withhold the direct supply of fish food from
fishermen so as to occasion starvation ; the most it can do
is to deprive them of the extra articles bought with surplus
profits. Messrs. Caird, Huxley, and Shaw Lefevre came
to the conclusion in 1866 that, "leaving oyster fisheries out
of consideration," the1 sea fisheries neither were, nor need be,
under restrictions in regard to close-time ; but since, outside
Blue Books, so little, if anything at all, has been written on
the relations of the State with Fishermen, any reasoning
showing the distinction between the intimately allied prin-
ciples of close-time for catching and close-time for sale will
perhaps be pardoned. There remains a further method of
protecting fish, which has sometimes been improperly
treated of under "close-time," but which relates to their
size at sale only. Examples of this are the obsolete enact-
ments of 1714 (i Geo. I. stat. 2), whereby, inter alia, no
turbot shall be exposed for sale if less than 16 inches "from
the eyes to the utmost extent of the tail ; " and also the
present valid legislation of 1877 already spoken of, by
which lobsters less than 8 inches long may not be possessed
or sold.

The whole question of fish protection might be com-
prehensively dealt with under the seven following head-
ings :—

I. Close-time during which the particular fish protected

may not be caught — e.g., Ardnamurchan herrings,
between ist of February and 3ist of May.

II. Close-time during which the fish protected may not
VOL. IX.— E. 7. T

274 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

be sold — e.g.y deep-sea oysters, between the 1 5th of
June and 4th of August.

III. Close-time during which certain implements preju-
dicial to fish may not be used — e.g., oyster-dredges
in the Channel, between i5th of June and 3ist of
August.

IV. Restrictions (irrespective of time) on the size or
condition of fish when either possessed or offered
for sale — e.g., lobsters under 8 inches may not be
possessed or sold at any time, nor may " berried
crabs."

V. Restrictions (irrespective of time) on the general use

of certain implements — e.g., the repealed enactment
which prohibited the use of all herring-nets, the
meshes of which were less than an inch.

VI. Restrictions (irrespective of time) on the use of
certain implements in particular places — e.g., beam-
trawls are prohibited near clam-beds.

VII. Restrictions established by creating private pro-
perty in the sea-bed — e.g., oyster-beds or mussel-
beds established under the third part of the Sea
Fisheries Act of 1868.

The first three headings concern close-time properly so-
called, because they relate to fixed periods during which
fish are protected. When, as in the first case, the capture
of a particular kind of fish is prohibited during a fixed
period, that kind of fish is directly protected ; when, as in
the second, a restriction is put on the sale of certain fish ;
or, as in the third, on the use of certain implements during
a fixed period, fish are protected indirectly only.

Divisions IV, V., VI., and VII. cannot properly be called
close-times at all. In IV., certain precautions are taken to
directly protect certain fish in a certain condition at all

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 275

times ; and in V. ambitious and perfectly impracticable
endeavours are made to indirectly protect, at all times and
at all places, small fish generally.

The following suggestion for the protection of fish may
perhaps be simple and practicable. It is suggested that
there might be three legislatively enforced schedules,
headed respectively " Close-time," Contraband Fish," and
" Protected Areas."

In the first might be named certain fixed periods during
which the possession of certain specified fish was illegal.
These periods might vary according to the spawning time
of different fish, and it would strike both at capture and
sale without being troubled about placing restrictions on
implements.

The second schedule might contain a list of fish, the
possession of which is at all times illegal. Any species of
fish apparently decreasing might be included in this list,
and removed from it when it appeared to be again abun-
dant It might also include fish of an " unsizeable " or
unmarketable condition ; whilst wholesome, large, or not
actually spawning (e.g., crabs not "berried," and over
4j inches) fish of the same species might be excluded.

The third might contain a list of defined places, which
Government might regulate, either morally by the bare
delimitation by buoys, or physically by the presence of a
gunboat. If the exact locality of a large spawning ground
be actually discovered, it might be proclaimed a protected
area ; and to enforce its protection either the use, or pro-
bable use, of implements of certain kinds might be re-
stricted.

The above principles appear to be, in fact, those towards
which legislation is now tending ; but they do not appear
to have been intentionally used as the text from which the

T 2

276 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

subject has been treated, or as the basis, the three principles
being taken together, on which our fish-protecting enact-
ments have been founded.

It is suggested that the first schedule proposed should be
as limited as possible ; and that, because there is no evi-
dence that deep-sea fish generally are really decreasing in
quantity, the interests of the fishing class should be held to
counterbalance those interests which protect such fish. It
might be confined chiefly to shell-fish and crustaceans, and
amongst these classes protection might be extended much
further than at present. These are proved to need protec-
tion because, from being more or less stationary on the bed
of the sea near the coast, when once their haunts have been
discovered, they may readily be rendered extinct.

In consideration of fishermen's interests the contents of
the secondly suggested schedule, so far as it concerns all
fish of certain classes, should be as limited as possible.
The hardship of enforcing a close-time for herrings or
shoal-fish would be great. Should mullet or whiting, for
instance, ever require protection, a close-time of a year or
more would impose no great hardship, for those who catch
such fish rarely derive their livelihood from one species of
fish only. So far as it concerns " unmarketable " and
" unsizeable " fish, the restrictions might with safety be
more widely extended than they are at present. In the
case of " unmarketable and unedible " fish, the combined
interests of consumers and fish protection outweigh those
of fishermen.

Every endeavour might be made to add to the third
schedule as many "protected areas" of a. few acres only as
can be properly cultivated by private enterprise. The
interests of fishermen and the interests which promote an
abundant supply of fish, of course, coincide. In most cases

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 277

fishermen are naturally loathe to recognise this fact. Living
as they do from hand to mouth, they can scarcely be ex-
pected readily to acquiesce in a cessation of fishing for
perhaps six months, or longer, in order that in the, to them,
remote future of a year or two there may possibly be more
fish. For the same reason, necessity compels them to
object to all restrictions, wise or unwise. In the case of
small protected areas the coincidence of the interests of
fishermen with those of fish protection are at once brought
within the grasp of the perception of at least the grantees
of the area. The only injurious effects protected areas may
have will be the restrictions they impose on the rights of
fishermen, other than grantees, such as trawlers ; if, how-
ever, the areas are small, the sea is so large that the pro-
tection extended over them need not unduly favour fisher-
men who are grantees to the detriment of others who are
not. In regard to the suggested proclamation of deep-sea
spawning grounds as protected areas, it is improbable that
at present anything can be done. Their exact locality
must first be accurately discovered, and then, if an Inter-
national Convention can be obtained, they may possibly be
worth the expense of protection. In any case, on large
spawning grounds and outside territorial waters, the evi-
dence of the fish supply certainly appears to indicate that
the interests of fishermen deserve to preponderate over
those of fish protection.

It will thus be seen that indirect methods of fish pro-
tection, such as restrictions on meshes, and on modes of
fishing, have ceased. Fish are, in fact, now directly pro-
tected under either the principle of close-time, or that of
contraband, or that of protected areas. Fishermen are
neither statute nor placard readers, and if the different re-
strictions now contained in different statutes and in different

278 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

notices, at different places, could be brought beneath their
observation together, the prohibitions might possibly be
more efficacious than they are at present. A large propor-
tion of fishermen neither know nor regard the restrictions
which now exist, more especially those which relate to
" unsizeable " fish.

It has been previously said that the State has seldom
interfered to regulate the rights of Fishermen as amongst
themselves. There are, nevertheless, exceptions.

The protection which certain classes of fishermen have
claimed against other classes, is not of itself a matter of
fish-protection ; but it has occasionally influenced legislation
when it has favoured one class beyond another. Drifters
have more than once accused trawlers of wantonly destroy-
ing floating fish, but there does not appear to be any
substantial ground for the complaint.

The most striking instance of class-protection in fishery
legislation is that contained in the sixty-eighth section of
the Sea Fisheries Act of 1868. Under a penalty of £20 no
person on the Cornish coast (except east of Trevose Head)
may between sunrise and sunset from the 25th of July
to the 25th of November, use a drift or trawl-net within
two miles of the shore ; nor may he anchor a boat or use a
net within half a mile of sean-boats fishing. This is in con-
firmation of the St. Ives Local Act before mentioned ; and
although a fixed period is named, it will be seen that this
favouring regulation comes within the principle of " pro-
tected areas " more than within that of " close-time."

Disputes between drifters and trawlers are of long
standing, and still exist on Loch Fyne, where by a " trawl "
is meant, not the ordinary purse-shaped drag-net, but a
" circle " net, more like a " scan."

It may readily be imagined that disputes amongst

FISHER.}fEN AND FISHERIES. 279

different classes of fishermen are of much easier origin, and
therefore of much more frequent occurrence on the deeply
indented western coast of Scotland than elsewhere in the
United Kingdom. A reference to the map will show that
islands abound there, that the seas are land-locked, and
that bays and estuaries adopt the most zig-zag pattern
conceivable.

From these geographical formations fishermen of different
crafts are brought into immediate contact with each other,
and especial care is necessary in holding the scales of
justice evenly for the reception of their complaints, if it
becomes necessary at any time to legislate between them.
Except as a matter of police, and to prevent actual brawls,
there can be no doubt that it is preferable that fishermen
should be left to regulate their respective rights as between
themselves to themselves, rather than that they should suc-
cessfully invoke the interference of legislation.

In 1851 (by 14 & 15 Viet c. 26, s. 6) trawling was pro-
hibited wherever the herring fishery was being carried on.
No nets other than drift-nets might be carried on board
vessels under forfeiture and penalties. This Act refers to
Scotland, but it possesses the peculiarity of nowhere stating
the extent of its application. Its prohibition was ineffectual,
and "trawling" (that is, circle, ring, drag, or scringe-net
fishing) still continued. The jealousy of drifters against
trawlers did not diminish, and in 1860 more effectual
methods were adopted in order to insure to the former
the preference which at that time the Legislature believed
they deserved. By the 23 & 24 Viet. c. 92 — an altogether
repressive enactment, previously noticed in regard to Ard-
namurchan close-time — the Commissioners were constituted
almost omnipotent over the herring-fisheries of Scotland in
regard to every class of restriction, and it was expressly

28o THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

enacted that every kind of net other than the drift-net
should be laid aside during the herring-fisheries. In the
body of the Act, and in its schedules, elaborate provisions
were made for its enforcement, and (a fact to be regretted)
it brought to vigorous life the principle of 1851, which had
become a dead letter. Again, in 1861 (by 24 & 25 Viet.
c. 72), this principle received fresh growth.

In 1862, 1864, and 1866, Parliamentary Commissioners
made enquiries, which resulted in strong recommendations
against the preference given to drifters. There was no
evidence whatever that trawlers unnecessarily diminished
the fish generally, or that they lessened the takes of drifters,
after it has once been remembered that a circle-net is a far
more potent engine than a drift-net, in which fact alone,
and not in a bona-fide desire, for fish-protection, lies the
jealousy borne by drift-net owners against trawlers. Since
1861, in fact, when trawling was prohibited, the drifters had
taken annually less fish than in the years before when
trawling extensively prevailed.

1867 was a statute-making year, and by one of its nume-
rous statutes (by 30 & 31 Viet. c. 52) the omnipotence
given the Fishery Commissioners in 1860 was restricted,
and all nets of every kind whatsoever became again per-
mitted, provided they had " meshes of a size not less than
that permitted or required by law." This qualification, on
the deep-seas at least, sunk to the ground in the following
year beneath the Sea Fisheries Act. The Act of 1867
was not repealed in 1 868 ; it therefore prevails in most
respects.

The above instance of Fishery Class Legislation will be
sufficient to exemplify what the State has done in that
direction, both as it directly concerns Fishermen, and as it
indirectly relates to Fish Protection.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 281

CHAPTER IV.

THE form of modern Acts of Parliament, which go direct
to the point without giving the causes which lead to it, is a
desirable advance towards simplicity ; but in the cumbrous
preambles and tedious recitals of older legislation, the prin-
ciples which have fluctuated in influencing the relations of
the State with different classes of its subjects are often
found enshrined in a few explanatory words. In regard to
the fisheries certain fixed principles constantly recur; as
that sea fishing generally " is of most essential importance
to the wealth and naval strength of the kingdom ; " that
the fisheries must be encouraged as a " fruitful nursery of
able seamen for our ships of war ; " that the superiority of
certain of our fish having become acknowledged " in foreign
markets, the credit of our fisheries must be maintained
abroad ; " that diligence must be observed in details, as that
inferior officers appointed to supervise barrels and fish-
packing must themselves have been " skilful coopers," whilst
the staves of barrels must be at least " half an inch in thick-
ness ; " that our own methods should be improved when
necessary by the adoption of those of other fishing com-
munities, as that certain fish should be prepared " after the
manner of the Dutch fishermen ; " that in every way " the
wanton destruction of fish " to the diminution of " a na-
tional source of sustenance" is to be avoided ; that
fisheries must be protected, because their protection " is
expedient for the purpose of providing a cheap and whole-
some article of food for the support of the poor ; " that they
provide employment for a " large class of industrious poor ;"
and that, finally, they should receive " every reasonable
encouragement which it is in the power of Parliament to

282 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

bestow." (29 Geo. II. c. 23; 2 Geo. III. c. 15; 11 Geo. III.
c. 31; 26 Geo. III. c. 8 1, et passim.)

In the reigns of George I. and George III., and many
years previous to 1 847, Trustees for improving the Hempen
Manufacture and for encouraging Fisheries, chiefly in Scot-
land, had been appointed, whilst money also had been
granted for promoting fisheries and manufactures. The
connection between fisheries and hemp — by reason of the
use of twine for nets — is obvious, and although the legisla-
tion of 1847 (I0 & ll Viet. c. 91) only affected Scotland
when it appointed additional trustees and Herring Fishery
Commissioners, it is worthy of note as once more con-
firming the general principle that the Fishing Industry is in
itself of the nature of a large national industry, and as such
deserving of State recognition and encouragement. The
connection between hemp and nets is not so frequent as it
was formerly. The majority of nets are now manufactured
of cotton ; this material, although less durable than hemp,
is of lighter weight, and it therefore renders the nets more
readily managed, whilst a less number of corks and bungs
is sufficient to float them. Again in 1866 (by 29 & 30
Viet. c. 72), and in 1867 (30 & 31 Viet. c. 32) the
commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury were further
authorised to grant loans out of the Consolidated Funds for
carrying on sea fisheries, provided that the whole grant for
these and other industries and manufactures did not exceed
£300,000 in one year.

So early as 1824, when (by 5 Geo. IV. c. 64) provisions
were made for the alteration and ultimate abolition of
fishery bounties, the principle was legislatively acknow-
ledged that it is occasionally expedient to pecuniarily assist
the poorest class of fishermen, who, from the absence of
capital with which to repair even the smallest loss, are

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 283

unable to develope their industry. As a premium divisible
amongst those vessels which obtained the most bounty-
money, since 1808 (by 48 Geo. III. c. no) £3000 had been
annually awarded, and subsequently £5000 also had been
given as an additional annual bonus. The abolition of
bounties removed the object of these sums, and in 1824 they
were devoted, amongst other purposes, to building piers, and
providing materials for the repair of the boats of poor
fishermen on the Scotch and Irish coasts. On the 1st of
October, 1869, the control of the Irish deep-sea fisheries
became vested in the Lord Lieutenant, and in 1870 the
Royal Commissioners on Irish oyster fisheries reported on
the Irish deep-sea fisheries generally. In this Report it
is shown that the advances authorised in 1824, and other
similar appointed sums, were not utilised to their full
extent, and it was pointed out that on the west coast of
Ireland, at least, good results were likely to follow from
further loans.

The change in 1824 from a policy of bounties to one
which aimed at providing capital is worthy of note. Bounty
money stimulated " owners," whilst it only indirectly bene-
fitted the fishing population upon whom boat-owners are
dependent. The policy which provides capital in deserving
cases goes further to the root of the matter. By increasing
competition it urges the industry towards perfection, whilst
by providing content and inducing prosperity amongst
the humbler classes it may, if judiciously applied, mate-
rially aid in developing the sea fishery into a national
and commercial undertaking, as opposed to one which is
commercial only, and in the hands of large capitalists.

Whether either a policy of bounties or a policy of un-
earned capital can in the abstract in any case be a correct

284 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

one, it is not to the present purpose to inquire here ; but in
the case of fisheries there can be no doubt that, as com-
pared with each other, the newer policy, which forbids
bounties, but which is not entirely adverse to loans in
exceptional cases, is the more satisfactory of the two.

Parliament has, since 1833, interested itself greatly in
sea fisheries through Royal Commissions. The most
recent investigation is that of last autumn (the autumn of
1882), the Report of which, I believe, is not yet published.
The case of Otto Brand, a Hull skipper, who was hanged
for the murder of an apprentice at sea, and other causes,
rendered an investigation into the treatment of apprentices,
and similar matters, desirable. This Commission contained
amongst its lay members — as distinguished from those
commissioners who are also legislators — a marine official
of the Board of Trade, and this fact is worthy of notice as
showing the preponderance which that department con-
tinues to acquire in matters relating to fisheries. The
abolition of the arrest without warrant of absconding hands
is, according to some evidence, occasioning considerable
expense and difficulty to boat-owners on our East Coast.
Temperate, hardy, and manly, though it is — and these
attributes are evidenced by the fact that the Royal
National Lifeboat Institution mans its boats from beach-
men and fishermen — the fishing class is naturally neither
possessed of the most rudimentary book-learning, nor of
those " powers of description " so necessary in order to
give conclusive evidence before Royal Commissions gene-
rally. The School Board and the general advance of educa-
tion will probably enable fishermen to keep satisfactory
log-books, to acquire a knowledge of water-temperatures,
of classes of fish, and of some other very rudimentarily

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 285

scientific, yet, nevertheless, simple practical matters, which
are essential as a basis for legislation in regard to deep sea
fisheries.

Government cruisers with scientific professors on board
have been most successfully used in putting the finishing
touch, by scientific classifications, to the knowledge of
facts of practical importance, and many discoveries, useful
to the simplest fishermen, have been made by this means.
Their surveys, however, can be periodical only, and cannot
be based on long-continued experience. " Experience,
itself, is fallacious," but it is only on the knowledge
acquired from day to day, and throughout the year, by
the incessant and systematised experience of fishermen
themselves, and on their capacity to place the results in
the form of evidence clearly and without prejudice before
commissioners and legislators, that legislation itself can
most satisfactorily act in providing regulations for Sea
Fisheries.

Since 1861, salmon alone, the fish particularly excepted
from the operation of the Sea Fisheries Act of 1868,
has received as much attention at the hands of the
legislature as all salt-water fish taken together. Its
scarcity, since the days when city apprentices expressly
stipulated with their masters that the latter should not
perpetuate the monstrous cruelty of feeding them on it
more than twice a week, amply justifies its present exem-
plary protection ; but although the salmon possesses fifty
different names, from a laurel, blue-pole, fork-tail, and
pugg-peal, to a bunting, yellow-fin, pink or fingerling (24
& 25 Viet. c. 109, sect. 4), there is no reason why, when
necessary and practicable, the protection of other salt-
water fish should not progress pari passu with that
extended to salmon. The legislature is fully alive to the

286 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

fact, but because the salmon is, to a great extent, a river-
fish, its protection has more readily become practicable, just
in the same way as the legislation of 1878 (41 & 42 Viet.
c- 39)> which protects fresh-water fish, may be enforced
without difficulty. Any jealousy salmon may feel at
equal protection being extended to their humbler salt-
water cousins, may, perhaps, be appeased by describing the
former as " Fluvio-Oceanic." As a legislative fact, it is
because salmon for the most part, and fresh-water fish
invariably, are found in rivers or estuaries, which, from
being limited spaces, are an easy subject of jurisdiction,
that they have received more direct protection than salt-
water fish.

The subject of fishermen and their laws will, perhaps,
be incomplete without some reference to royal fish and the
seal fishery. Royal fish are whales, which are, strictly
speaking, mammals, and not fish at all, and sturgeon,
comparatively rare in the waters of the United Kingdom,
but the subject of a staple Russian fishery ; both of these,
if either thrown ashore or caught near the English coast,
become the property of the Sovereign. The head of a
stranded whale was formerly presented to the King, whilst
the tail, with more generosity than grace, was assigned his
Consort (i Br. & Had. Comm. 260). It is unnecessary to
observe that the Crown is not now exacting in regard to
these rights. This may be inferred from the fact that a
sturgeon, six feet in length, having been caught during
the present month (April, 1883) in Southampton water, the
Mayor, after having purchased the prize, forwarded it to
Windsor as a due more complimentary than feudal. In
1875, the seal fishery, which, like that for whales, is con-
ducted from ports on the east of Scotland, became the
subject of a statute. Provision was then made (by 38 &

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 287

39 Viet. c. 1 8) for the promulgation by Order in Council of
a close-time for seals in the seas near Greenland ; and the
protected area was specified in a schedule to the Act.
This legislation is hypothetical ; granted a convention with
foreign powers, and granted the possibility of catching and
identifying offenders in so wide an expanse as the Arctic
Seas, its effect will be beneficial. At the end of last
century (see 11 Geo. III. c. 31), in some cases fishing
vessels competing for bounty-money were forbidden "to
wet their nets " before June 24th. This was the day fixed
for their arrival at Brassey Sound, in the Shetlands, or at
whatever place might have been named for their " rendez-
vous ; " it gave the opportunity for all boats to start fair,
and for small fish to reach maturity. How far a particular
boat had obeyed the injunction not to wet its nets could,
for the most part, only be calculated according to the date
at which it had left its port of equipment. In the same
way, the enforcement of a close-time for seals must depend
more on regulations affecting the date of departure for the
seal fishery of vessels from the Scotch ports, than in either
efficient police supervision in the Arctic Seas, or on
accusations brought against offenders by seal fishermen
who have observed the close-time.

The necessity for Conventions in order to give an inter-
nationally effective and legal right to regulate sea fisheries
outside territorial waters, combined with the difficulty of
supervising probable offenders on so wide an expanse as
the sea, has always been, and always will be, an impediment
to endeavours to regulate sea fisheries, even when they are
situated comparatively near our own shores. Fortunately,
as has been before pointed out, such regulation is not, on
the whole, very necessary. The fish of the deep sea do
not appear to decrease, whilst fishermen have, to a great

288 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

extent, by Usage established a law for themselves, which,
although it is occasionally disturbed by the jealousy exist-
ing between trawlers and drifters, and trawlers and liners,
on the whole works satisfactorily. There are, however,
exceptions, and notably amongst these, there is need for an
Anglo-Dutch convention. An efficient maritime police,
sanctioned by the nations on either side the North Sea, is
necessary for the protection of our East Coast fishermen.
The latter have long been harassed by the thefts of nets
perpetrated by the Dutch, and by the wanton destruction
occasioned by " Belgian devils " — infernal machines in the
form of anchors, which some foreign trawlers maliciously
drag through English drift-nets for the purpose of destroy-
ing or stealing them. Our own fishermen, in their disputes
with these foreign offenders, may not invariably be in the
right, but facts, so far as they are already known, certainly
point to the greater wrong being on the side of the
foreigners. A convention exists between France and
England, and disputes between French and English fisher-
men are rare : no convention exists between England and
Holland for the protection of sea fisheries, and disputes
between English and Dutch fishermen are constant.

The mere fact of the signing of a Convention cannot, in
itself, make it of any practical use, even when each signa-
tory Government conscientiously desires its success. It is
dependent on two circumstances : firstly, on the power
which the combined Governments may be able to exercise
in order to enforce it ; and secondly, and chiefly, on the
mutual forbearance of the fishermen belonging to either
country in their relations with each other internationally,
and amongst themselves as fellow-countrymen. The for-
bearance of fishermen will regulate their conduct in pro-
portion to their accurate understanding of what is a just

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 289

Usage in respect to the matters of their calling, and to their
knowledge of security in the enforcement of a just Usage.
For this reason their remedies should be made as simple
as possible. Fishermen, with the exception of salvors,
who are chiefly beachmen or long-shore fishermen, are not
a litigious class ; the majority prefer losing their remedy
to losing a day's fishing. Their knowledge of what is a
just usage will increase proportionately as their class
jealousies are dissipated, and as they learn many things
over and above the present mere practical routine of their
business. Drifters may be taught that trawlers, provided
that the latter do not actually come into contact with drift-
nets, so far from lessening the supply of fish, may, by
stirring the fish up, increase the catch of the drift-nets ;
whilst it may be shown to all that it is possible by learning
something of water-temperatures and other matters regu-
lating the haunts of fish at different seasons of the year,
that a bad fishing may possibly be turned into a good one.
In this direction it is not improbable that some successful
results might be achieved if those who are acquainted with
the rudimentary principles already discovered volunteered
technical instruction to fishermen over and above that
which fishermen already possess, and which at present
chiefly consists in the management of their boats and nets,
and going at fixed periods of the year to certain fixed
localities, and rarely to any others.

In some districts inhabited by fishermen, many of whom
reside in villages some miles from the coast, commercial
enterprise has induced railway companies to issue tickets at
reduced fares during those periods of the year at which
fishermen are either "making up " or habitually returning
between their boats and their homes. Philanthropic enter-
prise also has at many fishing stations provided them with

VOL. IX.— E. 7. U

2QQ THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

institutes and fishermen's shelters. These instances will
indicate that the nation generally, as distinguished from
the State — meaning by State the legislative and executive
identity of the country — is prepared to perform whatever
may be reasonably required of it in the interests of
fishermen.

In conclusion, the whole question of the State's relations
to fishermen is based upon two main principles : —

I. That an industry amongst fishermen, whereby the

national contentment and prosperity may be in-
creased, must be encouraged : and

II. That the supply of that which (for the reason that

fish may be had for the mere catching) ought to be
the cheapest form of food should be abundant to all
those classes, in addition to fishermen, which may be
shortly designated " consumers."

In furtherance of the first of these principles, the State
has done much by legislation. In furtherance of the
second, if the London and Westminster Fish Supply Act
is excepted, it has done but little. Both of these principles
are, it is needless to say, closely allied ; but, in the present
situation of affairs, each appears to demand separate regu-
lations.

Between the actual fisherman's fair price for the fish he
has caught, and the fair price to be paid for it by the
inland consumer, there are two intermediate facts for con-
sideration : the expense of carriage and the expense of
risk (in this case, as the matter now stands, " caveat
vendor," i.e. the fisherman or his representatives inter-
mediate between him and the consumer), because fish is a
perishable article. In the nature of things themselves,
artificial circumstances being removed, these two considera-
tions, and these two only, need prevail.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 291

It may be taken as a fact that fishermen receive upon the
average the fair price for the article they supply ; and, as a
further fact, that consumers pay enormously over the value
of the fish, of the carriage, and of the risk combined.

Whatever exceeds fair prime value, as in the fisherman's
hands, fair payment for carriage, and fair payment for risk
combined, is money wasted as between the fisherman and
the consumer ; and these two are, in fact, the only persons
for whom political economy, artificial circumstances being
laid aside, demands any consideration.

Carriers deserve their due ; those who risk deserve their
due ; but, as they are both only means, they deserve profit
only in accordance with the services demanded of them,
and not upon the speculations they may voluntarily
undertake.

The difficulty which the present generation is determined
to remove lies at neither end of the case. Fishermen catch
fish abundantly ; consumers are ever ready to buy ; the
excess money, after payment of fisherman's fair price, of
fair carriage, and of fair risk, is lost midway.

For the sake of the industrious poor who lead wholesome
lives at sea in fishing ; for the sake of the industrious poor
who lead unwholesome lives in the atmosphere of large
cities, and equally with both for the sake of every class,
whether high or low, which is justified in refusing upon
principle to pay more than the fair value for each single
thing it buys, all unnecessary receptacles into which the
excess money falls should be closed. The excess money
will then be found to be divisible between the fisherman
and the consumer. As it was before stated that there is
every reason to believe that the fisherman receives his fair
price, the greater portion of the excess money will be found
to remain as a saving in the consumer's pocket.

U 2

292 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

The receptacles into which all value intermediate between
fishermen and consumers falls appear to be five :

1. Carriers who receive fair remuneration.

2. Carriers who receive unfair remuneration.

3. Fair riskers, meaning thereby necessary intermediate

traders, who receive a fair profit.

4. Unfair riskers, or unnecessarily intermediate traders

or those who receive an unfair profit.

5. Space, as when wholesome or edible fish is thrown on

the land to rot as manure, or is otherwise lost as
food, because there is no accommodation for effecting
its sale, or because it is removed from consumption
for other reasons.

In regard to fair carriers and unfair carriers, including
under carriers, the receivers of market tolls and of other
similar incidental expenses connected with carriage, it may
be said upon the evidence that fish-carriers generally do
not receive more than their fair remuneration. Argument
on this point is unnecessary, as the evidence is ascertainable
and fixed ; it involves merely a reference to railway charges,
varying from 2is. to 40^. a ton, almost irrespective of dis-
tance, for land-borne fish ; or, in the case of sea-borne fish,
to the competition, upon ordinary mercantile principles, of
the cost of chartering a vessel from the fishing-boat or
fishing-port to the consumer's market, according to distance
and tons carried.

The question of drawing a distinction between fair traders
and unfair traders is one for consumers alone to settle ; if
there be unfair and unnecessary traders, consumers have
the power to discover and eliminate them. This power,
from being thus exercised by consumers, who are private
individuals, and not a political corporation like the State,
need not be hampered by any consideration for the vested

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 293

interests of traders, whether fair or unfair, if any such
vested interests there be which the apathy of consumers
has either condoned by its acquiescence or allowed to grow
up since 1761 or earlier.

In regard to such wholesome food as is now, perhaps, in
some instances, lost in space because of insufficient market
accommodation, both consumers and fishermen have a more
or less direct right to demand the assistance of the State in
rectifying the evil ; whilst if there be traders with vested
interests, which is much to be doubted, whom State assist-
ance to fishermen and consumers would actually, not in-
directly, injure, such traders may in some instances have a
claim for compensation. There can be no doubt that the
fish consumers in all large towns have a right to demand
assistance of the State for the erection of all necessary
markets, and that they should be unimpeded by any
restrictions imposed in favour of old-established markets,
because at the date of their establishment those markets
were alone necessary.

Any State legislation which gives encouragement to
consumers to buy gives encouragement to fishermen to
fish, and for this reason an essay on the relations of the
State with fishermen would be incomplete without an allu-
sion to the inland consumption of fish.

An effort has been made to trace in outline the principles
which have regulated the State in its relations with one of
the hardiest, best physically developed, and most industrious
of the classes which assist in constituting it. This class
has, with justice, formed an expectation of acquiescence to
its demands in most cases in which it has looked to the
constituted authorities for encouragement. This encourage-
ment has been almost annually extended, and with the more
readiness because at no time have the applicants clamoured

294 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

for assistance either by strikes or by popular pressure.
This encouragement the State is now ready to extend still
further, and it now only awaits the knowledge of the best
means of rendering assistance. It now, therefore, only
remains to hope, that the fishing class, assisted by the
invention of improved implements, incited by further dis-
coveries concerning the haunts and habits of fish, regulated
by that restraint, so to use as not to abuse, which fishermen
must apply to themselves in regard to fish protection, and
aided by the mutual consent of foreign nations to adopt
wise principles for the regulation of sea fisheries — that this
class thus assisted may proceed to develope in the future,
still further than it has done in the past, an industry of
vital importance to the national and commercial prosperity
of a maritime nation possessed of so large a sea-board as
our own.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 295

SOME PARLIAMENTARY REPORTS
AFFECTING FISHERIES

UPON WHICH

LEGISLATION HAS BEEN BASED RECENTLY.

1866. Sea Fisheries Commission.

1870. Deep Sea and Coast Fisheries (Ireland) Report.

1875. Norfolk Fisheries Report.

1878 Herring Fisheries (Scotland) Commission.

1879. Sea Fisheries Commission.

296 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH

AN ANALYSIS

OF

SOME STATUTES REFERRED TO.

Year.

1756
I76l
1771

1778
1786

1799
1804

Statute.

1 Geo. I. stat. 2 ..

29 Geo. II. c. 23 ..

2 Geo. III. c. 15 ..
ii Geo. III. c. 31 ..

18 Geo. III. c. 33 ..
26 Geo. III. c. 81

39 Geo. III. c. 100
44 Geo. III. c. xlv.

Title.

This Act imposes numerous re-
strictions on Sea Fishing. It does
not appear to have been expressly
repealed, but its provisions are
not enforced.

To Encourage Scotch Fisheries.
Repealed in 1868, except sections
i and 17.

The London and Westminster Fish
Supply Act. Repealed in 1868,
except section 7.

To Encourage the White Herring
Fishery. Repealed in 1868, ex-
cept sections n, 12, and 13.

To Protect Fish in Severn, £c.

To Encourage British Fisheries.
Repealed in 1868, except section
19.

To Amend Fishery Acts. Repealed
in 1868, except sections 2 and 3.

To Protect Sea Fisheries of Cum-
berland, Kirkcudbright, &c.

FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES.

297

Year.

Statute.

Title.

I8o8

48 Geo. III. c. no

To Encourage Herring Fisheries.
Repealed in 1868, except 33
sections, so far as they concern
Scotland.

1810

50 Geo. III. c. 108

To Impose Penalties for Breach of
Fishing Contracts, &c.

1815

55 Geo. III. c. 94 .,. ..

To Amend Legislation of 1808.

1820

i Geo. IV. c. 103 ..

To Regulate Bounties.

1821

i & 2 Geo. IV. c. 79 ..

To Repeal Bounties.

1824

5 Geo. IV. c. 64 .. ..

To Amend Bounty Acts.

1828

9 Geo. IV. c. 39 .. ..

A Scotch Salmon Act.

1830

ii Geo. IV. c. 54, and
i Wm. IV. c. 54.

To Revive certain Fishery Acts.
Repealed in 1868, except as to
Scotland, so far as inconsistent
with 1868.

1841

4 & 5 Viet. c. Ivii

The St. Ives Bay Act.

1843

6 & 7 Viet. c. 79 .. ..

The Fishery Convention Act. Re-
pealed in 1868. Revived so far
as " Convention " in 1875.

1847

10 & ii Viet. c. 91

To Increase the Scotch Herring
Fishery Trustees.

1847

10 & ii Viet. c. 92

To Protect Scotch Mussel
Fisheries.

1851

14 & 15 Viet. c. 26

To Amend British White Herring
Fishery Laws. In 1868 5 sections
were repealed entirely, 4 partially,
and 3 unrepealed.

185-

Fishery Convention (1843) Con-
firmation Act.

1854

17 & 18 Viet. c. 104 ..

Merchant Shipping Act. Part III.
partially applied to Fishermen
in 1862.

1858

21 & 22 Viet. c. Ixix. ..

To Impose Fees on Branding in
Scotland.

1860

23 & 24 Viet. c. 92

To Amend Scotch Herring Laws.

298

THE RE LA TIONS OF THE STA TE, ETC.

Year.

Statute.

Title.

1861

24 & 25 Viet. c. 72

Close Time Act, Scotland. Sections

2, 3, arid 6 repealed in 1868.

1861

24 & 25 Viet. c. 109

The Salmon Act.

1862

25 & 26 Viet. c. 63

Merchant Shipping Act. Section
13 applies Merchant Shipping

Act, 1854, to Fishermen.

1865

28 & 29 Viet, c, 22

A Scotch Close Time Act.

1867

30 &3i Viet. c. 32..

To Authorise Advances from Con-

solidated Fund.

1867

30 & 31 Viet. c. 52

To Remove Scotch Restrictions

on Nets.

1868

31 & 32 Viet. c. 45

The Sea Fisheries Act.

1869

32 & 33 Viet. c. 31

The Langston Channel Oyster

Act.

1875

38 & 39 Viet. c. 15.. ..

The Sea Fisheries Act, 1875.

1875

38 & 39 Viet. c. 18

The Seal Fishery Act.

1876

39 & 40 Viet. c. 36

Customs Consolidation Act. Section

48 exempts Lobsters and Fresh

Fish from Report.

1876

39 & 40 Viet. c. cli.

The Norfolk Crab and Lobster

Act. Repealed in 1877.

1877

40 & 41 Viet. c. 42

The Oyster, Crab, and Lobster

Act.

1877

40 & 41 Viet. c. 65

The Fisheries (Dynamite) Act.

1878

41 & 42 Viet. c. 39

The Fresh Water Fisheries Act.

1880

43 & 44 Viet. c. 16

To Amend Seamen's Wages and

Rating Laws. Section 7 extends

to Fishermen.

1881

44 Viet. c. ii

To Protect Clam and Bait Beds.

THE

HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES

THEIR

PROGRESS, DECLINE AND REVIVAL,

ESPECIALLY IN CONNECTION WITH THE LEGISLATION
ON FISHERIES IN EARLIER AND LATER TIMES.

" They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather
them in their drag ; therefore they rejoice and are glad '." — HABAKKUK i. 15.

[A. BEAUJON.]

VOL. IX. — E. 8.

CONTENTS.

PART I.

CHAP. PAGE

SEA FISHERY IN THE NETHERLANDS BEFORE THE

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC . 303

PART II.

SEA FISHERIES UNDER THE DUTCH REPUBLIC.

I. Grand Fishery ........ 332

II. Whale Fishery 397

III. Cod Fishery 430

IV. Coast Fishery 440

V. " Dominium Maris" ....... 460

PART III.

SEA FISHERIES SINCE THE END OF THE DUTCH
REPUBLIC.

I. 1795-1813 482

II. Protection at a Culminating Point ..... 502

III. The End of Protection .526

IV. Revival .......... 555

PREFACE.

THE following pages contain, not a complete history of
the Dutch sea fisheries, but merely the outlines of their
history as connected with legislation.

The subject is a vast one. Sea fishery has throughout
history been either the greatest, or among the most con-
siderable, of the industries of the Netherlands. Some of
its branches have during three centuries and a half been
regulated and organised by laws and bye-laws, and have
been constantly in the minds of the country's rulers, legis-
lators, and publicists ; and the mass of material for their
history is, of course, in proportion to the total of attention
bestowed upon the subject in former times. To read this
subject up and exhaust it would be the work of many years,
and involve a thorough search of the archives of the present
kingdom of the Netherlands, several of its provinces, and
many of its cities ; whereas the present author has only
had the seven months before him which have elapsed since
the subject for this prize essay was known in Holland, and
has during that short period by no means been master of
the whole of his time. Several minor parts of the subject
have for this reason been left out of the range of research ;
such are the sea fisheries of the provinces of Zealand,
Friesland, and Groningen, the whole of the oyster business,
and the salmon, herring, and other fisheries in the river
estuaries, which are very justly reckoned as sea fishery,
and treated as such in official documents of the present day.

302 PREFACE.

Zuider Zee fishery has come in for a share of attention
proportioned to the small area of the water so called, but
perhaps rather short of the historical interest inherent to
the trade and the measures taken respecting it. Even as
regards deep sea fisheries, many details, a perfect insight
into which might have thrown light upon the whole, have
not been investigated for sheer lack of time and opportunity.
I have, in short, had to be satisfied with the certainty of
not having omitted, and a reasonable hope of not having
misrepresented, any of the leading historical and actual
features of the subject. Such as it is, however, the work
contains a quantity of matter drawn from perfectly reliable
authentic documents, into which no former writer on Dutch
sea fisheries has ever looked, as none of them ever at-
tempted a complete historical treatment of the subject.

There is much about laws in the book, and perhaps less
about fishers and fishing. I have taken the centre of
gravity of the given prize subject to lie in the former, and
made it my business to show, first, what laws were made,
and why they were made ; next, what they wrought. For
the same reason, herring fishery, the only branch which
has been constantly legislated on down to twenty-five years
ago, occupies a very prominent place in the following
pages. The former and present proportions of the business
would perfectly warrant the pre-eminence if nothingelse did.

Many details will perhaps be more interesting to the
Dutch than to the British reader. The latter, I hope, will
remember, that if a work like this is ever read at all, the
chances are that it will be read most by the men who can
trace in it some of the thoughts and actions of their own
ancestors.

A. BEAUJON.

April i8/yfc, 1883.

THE

HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

PART I.

SEA FISHERY IN THE NETHERLANDS BEFORE THE
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC.

ANYBODY may conclude from a slight survey of a map of
the present Kingdom of the Netherlands, that the sea
must at all times have supplied food to its inhabitants.
The country is bounded by the North Sea on two sides ; a
gulf called Zuider Zee runs far inland and multiplies the
extent of its sea-shore ; and both this outer and inner sea
are pregnant with fish of several kinds. The several
river estuaries supply a number of ports and roadsteads
for fishermen's vessels ; for those river mouths, whose
shallowness was until a few years ago a serious obstacle to
the development of modern steam navigation in the Dutch
ports, and has accordingly had to be artificially corrected
in several ways, at the cost of many millions, afford, and
have at all times afforded, plenty of depth for the largest
of fishing craft. A glance on the map along the sandy
and havenless North Sea coast north of the rivers will,
moreover, at once show the existence of several villages
separated from the fertile part of the country by leagues
of sand-downs, and which, therefore, can never have had

304 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

another source of livelihood than such sea fishing as may
be carried on in vessels having no keel, and liable to be
put ashore on the beach at every tide.

Sea fishing has accordingly been mentioned as a means
of existence of the inhabitants of these countries by the
very earliest writers. The early history of the Dutch sea
fisheries is, however, fragmentary for lack of documents.
Some writers mention herring to have been first caught
and eaten by the Dutch in the year 1163.* But this
statement can scarcely be exact, for it is likewise stated
that fishermen from Kampen and Harderwijk, being two
small seaports on the Zuider Zee, used to fish for herring
"off Sconen," i.e. on the shores of the Baltic, before the
end of the twelfth century, f and the trade must have been
carried on for a considerable time before so far developing
itself as to be exercised at such a distance from home.
The first document on record relative to Dutch trade on
the Baltic shore is a privilege granted to the men of
Amsterdam by the Lords of the Germanic Order of Livonia
in 1277, and confirmed by the Bishop of Livonia in 1495.$

This privilege, indeed, does not especially mention the
right of fishing ; it contains simply a general promise of
protection to merchants from Amsterdam in the Livonian
dominions. But it has probably, judging by the unre-
stricted terms in which it is drawn up, been of avail to
fishermen as well as to traders, inasmuch as a similar
privilege granted to the men of Amsterdam, Enkhuizen
and Wieringen by King Albert of Sweden, in I368,§

* Semeyns' Corte beschrijoinghe over de Haringvisscherije in
Hollandt, p. i. The same date is mentioned by a writer in the
periodical called Den Koopman, vol. i. p. 349.

f Boxhorn, Tooneel van Hollandt, p. 234.

\ Luzac, Hollands Rijkdom, vol. i. Appendix B.

§ Ibid. Appendix C.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 305

explicitly allows the said merchants to have their own
boats and implements "of fishery in Schoonen aforesaid,
and use them and fish at will, paying a tax of half a
Schoonen merk on each boat, and no more." A certain
toll on herring imported by Dutch fishermen is established
by the same edict. There were regular and privileged
markets for herring and other fish in the Netherlands even
before this period ; such market rights were granted to
the town of Brouwershaven in 1 344, and to that of Naarden
in 1355, by the Counts of Holland then reigning ; and in
1388 another fish market was established at Katwijk, a
village on the North Sea coast* The fact of Dutch sea
fishery having had considerable extension in the latter part
of the Middle Ages is further placed beyond doubt
by an order issued by Edward I in 1295,! by which the
said King " having understood that many people from
Holland, Zealand, and Friesland, who are our friends, will
shortly come and fish in our sea off Yarmouth," lays his
commands in " custodi orae maritimae suae Jernemuth
and Baillivis suis de Jernemuth" to see that these foreigners
be treated civilly, and not molested, robbed, or plundered,
by the king's subjects.!

Such scanty documents as these are all the footing on
which a notion of the extent of Dutch sea fisheries can be
based, up to the end of the fourteenth century. But, records
failing, it may be assumed as certain that their produce
cannot have gone far beyond the necessities of immediate
home consumption, so long as no proper method of pre-

* Van Mieris, Groot. Charterboek der Graven van Holland,
Zeeland, (enz.), vols. ii. pp. 688, 826, and iii. pp. 498-9.

t Luzac, Hollands Rijkdom, vol. iii. p. 57. v. Mieris, Charterboek,
vol. i. p. 566.

\ Luzac, Hollands Rijkdom, vol. i. p. 136.

VOL. IX.— E. 8. X

3o6 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

serving fish was in use in these parts. Fish, indeed, and
herring especially, must have been salted from the very
earliest times, or there could have been no possibility of
catching them off Yarmouth and in the Baltic and carrying
them home, in probably slow sailing vessels, with any
chance of finding a market for them. Salted herrings are
accordingly mentioned in a charter of Louis VII. of France,
dated 1179, and, as regards the Low Countries in particular,
a regulation dated 1177, and issued by Margaret of Alsatia,
Countess of Flanders, on the manner of salting herring,
was preserved in the town of Ostend as late as 1816.*
But there is an immense distance between packing or
strewing fish with salt so as to preserve them for a short
time, and curing them so as to last for years and become
an article of foreign trade.

The man who in any country first found out the latter
method, and thereby first opened up the possibility of
lucrative sea-fishing on such a scale as considerably to
exceed the wants of immediate home consumption, may
therefore be truly called the father of such a country's sea
fishery.

The Netherlands' history records the name of such a
man, which accordingly is till this day known to every
school-boy in the country as that of one of the nation's
benefactors. But history unfortunately does not yield
much information about him beyond his name, which was
William Beukelsz, and his dwelling-place, which was
Biervliet, now a village in the southern part of the
province of Zealand.

Volumes of subtle inquiry and learned controversy have
been written about this personage, among which the above-
quoted paper, read in the Brussels Academy of Science,

* Raepsaet, Note sur la ddcouverte de caquer le hareng, p. 6.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 307

in 1816, by the celebrated Belgian politician Raepsaet, is
perhaps the most concise and interesting. But the pre-
vailing feature of these many disquisitions is the extreme
scantiness of the facts on which they are based. Beukelsz
is universally stated to have lived at Biervliet about the
middle of the fourteenth century, and been a " Stuyrman,"
or skipper, and concerned in the herring fishery. The
year of his death has especially been the subject of much
controversy, being stated by some to be 1347, by others
1397, and by a few 1401. His family are proved by deeds
still extant to have been citizens of wealth and note, and
his coat-of-arms is said to have consisted of two crossed
" kaeckmeskens," or knives used in curing herrings (kaken)
after the manner invented by him, and to which his name
will be for ever attached. But how or by what circum-
stance he lighted upon his great invention is utterly
unknown.

The operation called " kaken " is still in use with the
Dutch herring fishermen, pretty much, it would appear, as
first practised by Beukelsz. It is described in the same
constant terms throughout Dutch history, and consists in
opening and gutting the fish the moment the net is hauled
aboard, salting them carefully, and packing them in barrels
in a peculiar manner highly favourable for their conservation.
The barrels used were anciently called " kaecken," or " kaeck-
jes," and the name of the curing process is probably
derived from theirs.*

With further regard to the great inventor's person it is
stated by all his biographers that the Emperor Charles V.

N.B. — I am not aware of an English term for the method of
curage here described. Whenever, in the course of this work, the
words " curage " and " cure " are used without a further expletive, they
will stand for curage in Beukelsz's fashion, or " Kaken?

X 2

308 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

visited his tomb at Biervliet in 1556, and there offered

up prayers for the benefit of his soul. The sepulchre must

have been an apocryphal one, or at best a cenotaph ; for

it is tolerably well established that the whole of the town

of Biervliet of Beukelsz's time, including the church where

he may have been buried, was destroyed by floods between

the period of his death and that of the Imperial visit, the

place having since then been rebuilt in a safer spot.

Whether the Emperor may have been acquainted with the

circumstance or not, his act of devotion is an instance of

the deep veneration in which Beukelsz's name was held by

his countrymen for centuries — a circumstance which may

have induced Charles V., even after he had surrendered

the government of the Low Countries to his son, to perform

a demonstrative ceremony highly gratifying to his former

subjects of Flanders and Holland, for whom he always had

a strong predilection. If so, he succeeded ; for whenever

Beukelsz's biography has been entered into, the writer

never omits to mention the Emperor's posthumous homage.

Whatever may have been Beukelsz's real character or

his true merits in the case, it appears that about the time

of his invention, his countrymen, the Zealanders, were the

greatest herring fishermen of the Netherlands,* although, as

shown above, the most ancient evidence of extensive sea

fishery is relative to the more northerly provinces as well

as to them. The Zealanders appear, however, to have

lost their pre-eminence in the business soon afterwards,

and writers of later date attribute this falling off to their

having taken to the still more lucrative one of privateering.

An important change in the annual migrations of the

herring shoals, which about this period left the coasts of

Denmark and Norway and began to concentrate about

* Den Koopman, vol. i. p. 237.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 309

the shores of England and Scotland, may likewise have
had something to do with the decline of the Zealand
herring fishery.* At any rate, the next considerable pro-
gress in the fishing art was accomplished by men from the
North ; for it is stated that the first large herring-net was
made at Hoorn in I4i6,f and though the dimensions of
this net are of course unknown, its fabrication appears to
have contributed much to the rise of the trade. Leastways
the latter became an object of legislation and warlike pro-
tection soon after the said period.

John Duke of Bavaria and Count of Holland issued
regulations on the fabrication and marking of herring
barrels and the curing of herrings in 14244 Though no
historical mention of cod fishery is made at the time, this
branch of the fishing trade must also have been then
practised to a certain extent ; for the two great political
parties which divided the country under the Counts of the
Bavarian dynasty took their noms de guerre from it. The
Bavarian coat-of-arms bears some resemblance to the
scales of a codfish, and the followers of the first count of
that dynasty, who wore his colours, were accordingly nick-
named codfish (Kabeljauwen) — an appellation from which
the opposition party took occasion to style themselves
Hooks (Hoekscken), and thereby transmitted to posterity
a certain proof that cod was fished for in this period, in
something like the manner in which it is caught to this
day.

* This reason is alleged on p. 12 of the Committee's Report of 1854.
But without further adstruction it is not apparent why the Zealanders
could not fish off Yarmouth as well as off Sweden and Denmark.

t Velius, Chronijk van Hoorn, pp. 32-3. Brandt, Historic der
vermaarde Zee- en Koopstad Enkhuiscn, p. 17. Wagenaar, Vader-
landschc Historic, iii. p. 499.

\ v. Mieris, Chartcrboek, vol. iv. pp. 728, 739.

310 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

The Sovereigns of the Burgundian dynasty established,
or confirmed, a special tax, called last-money, to be paid by
Dutch herring fishermen as a contribution towards the
equipment of the convoying ships provided for their pro-
tection. Another edict dating from the Burgundian period
prohibits herring caught by the Duke's subjects to be sold
in foreign ports ; and another was enacted against the
salting of herring in barrels before St. Bartholomew's Day,
or August 24th, and the use of salt other than of certain
prescribed qualities.*

Besides this evidence of the herring fishery having had
considerable importance in the course of the fifteenth
century, the fact is established by a remonstrance, or
memorial, delivered to the Grand Council at Malines, by
the inhabitants of Brielle, in 1476. This document states
herring fishery to be one of the nation's principal
industries. An edict relative to trade in herring barrels,
dated June 24th, 1495, has also been preserved,f in which
an annual meeting of delegates of those concerned in the
herring fishery is ordered to take place at the Hague, to
confer on the trade's interests, as long as such conferences
shall be found necessary. Beyond such general indications
as these, however, no clue to the extent of the Dutch sea
fisheries in the course of the fifteenth century is to be
found. A placard emanated under the Emperor Charles
V., on May i8th, 1519^ and "being very great," as its title
says, inaugurated systematical legislation on sea fisheries in

* See Mr. van Limburg Brouwer's collection of Boergoensche
Charters, pp. 51, 57, 59, 82, (1439 and 1440).

f Eerste Memoriaelboek 's Hofs van Hollant, fol. 451.

\. Placaet ende Ordonantie of V Stuk van den Haringvaert, 't
branden van de tonnen en V zouten van den Haringh, wesende seer
groot. Derde Memoriaelboek van den Hove van Hollant, fol. 1 14,
verso).

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 311

the Dutch provinces. The practice of branding barrels, in
which Dutch herring laws have centred ever since, was
first made obligatory by this law, and it is very remark-
able that the principal warrant for the quality of the
fish was as yet looked for in that of the barrel. The
obligatory brand certified nothing but the latter, and
stamps indicative of the quality of the fish were facul-
tative, except in so far as early herring was to bear a
peculiar mark. The principal contents of the edict are as
follows : —

Every barrel of herring brought to market is to be
provided with two marks or brands ; the first to be apposed
by the cooper who made the barrel, and the second by the
master of the vessel on board which it was filled. Assayers
(keurmeesters) are to be appointed in each town and village
from which fishery is exercised, to control the brands
(" omme den brand te regeren "). The attributions of these
officers, however, involved a control over the barrels only,
not over the quality of the fish. They were to test the
materials and construction of each barrel, and keep a
register of brands, stating the name of each brand's
owner. The brand, in accordance with its meaning, was
called barrel-brand (tonnebrand). None but new barrels
were to be used ; and it was prohibited to " carry to
herring," i.e. to take to sea for the fishery, empty barrels
already used. Besides the obligatory brands certifying the
quality of barrels, towns anxious to secure a high renown
for their produce were allowed to have a peculiar town
brand (here called back-brand) apposed to the barrels
exported from them as a certificate of the quality of the
fish. This faculty was largely used, as will be shown
hereafter.

No other salt was, by the law of 1519, allowed to be

312 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

used for salting herring than either "salt sodden from
salt " (meaning refined) or " moor-salt." * Lisboa salt was
excluded — a fact the more remarkable as no other than
Spanish or Portuguese salt was allowed to be used in later
years. No salt was allowed to be taken on board a herring
ship unless covered by a certificate as to its quality ; and
skippers were to be sworn in against breach of this rule,
which was considered extremely important. Four barrels
of moor-salt, or five and half of " salt from salt " were to be
used for one last of herring ; whence it is evident that the
curing qualities of the former (styled either " moer-zout or
zout van zelle ") were even stronger than those of refined
salt.

The quality of the herring and its packing are next
regulated to some extent in the law of 1519. Herring
caught before St. James's Day (July 25) is prescribed to be
packed in separate barrels, on which a peculiar brand
representing a " St. James's shell " (St. Jacob's schelpe) is to
be apposed. Skippers are ordered to observe peculiar
" diligence " in the packing of all sorts of herring, and to
have the fish carefully disposed in layers, and on no
account poured out of the basket into the barrel in heaps.

* Zout van goeden graauwen zelle. These words refer to a peculiar
industry now extinct since centuries. In the alluvial grounds of some
of the Dutch river mouths, which are covered by sea-water at every
tide, a kind of briny moor or turf (darincK) was formerly found in
great quantities. This substance was burnt, and its ashes, when
moistened with sea-water, yielded a peculiarly fine gray salt. This
moor-salt-making industry (zelle-neeringhe) was of course exercised
only about the mouths of the rivers, especially at Zierikzee. Boxhorn
(augmented edition of Reijgersber gen's Chronijk van Zeelandf)
describes the whole process on page 1 14, and adds : " No other salt
than this was in times of yore used throughout the Netherlands." An
engraving representing the digging and burning of " darinck " is to be
found in Wagenaar, Vad. Historic, vol. iv.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 313

Herrings of different quality, such as full, lean (ijdel),
spawn-sick, and damaged (wrack), are to be sorted, and
each description packed in separate barrels, which are to
be kept asunder from the rest. But there are as yet no
separate brands for these several qualities ; and all
dealers, when disposing of any herring, are enjoined to
declare it to the buyer as either " full and sweet " or of
inferior quality. While at sea, herring already barrelled is
to be pickled, or moistened with sea- water every fortnight ;
whence the name of " pickle herring " (pekelJtaring) still
applied to the fish salted at sea. Herring caught in
the Y,* as being generally of inferior quality, is not
allowed to be salted and exported, but kept for home con-
sumption, and smoked to bucking when carried ashore.
This is perhaps the first evidence of the existence of the
smoked herring industry in these countries, and certainly
the first vestige of the Grand Fishery's curing monopoly
of later days. In order to enforce the rigid execution of
these rules, all fishing skippers are enjoined, before dis-
missing their crews, to make them declare upon oath before
the competent magistrate that no infraction whatever has
been committed during the voyage.

This placard of Charles V. may, as already remarked,
be considered as the beginning of the era of working
regulations on herring fishery — an era which has lasted
until twenty-five years ago, and witnessed the immense
prosperity of the business, but also its most profound
decline. The placard of 1519 has been often renewed, or
quoted in laws of later date as the original statute on the
subject. It is not, however, until a few years after its date
that anything like a connecting link between the several

* An inlet of the Zuider Zee, formerly the only access to Amsterdam
by sea, now drained and traversed by a canal.

3 H THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

facts and laws on record may be traced, by the resolutions
of the States of Holland, of which a register has been kept
from the year 1524 downward. As the province of Holland
has always been prominent in fishery as well as in all other
seafaring trades, this register is indeed the principal source
from which the history both of sea fisheries and legislation
relating to them may be constructed, down to the present
century.

Under the government of the Emperor Charles and his
son King Philip of Spain, the main feature of the fisheries''
history is a succession of quarrels about money. The
Sovereign wanted to raise money from the fishermen
towards the equipment of convoying ships for the herring
fleet, and wanted it, not in the shape of temporary subsidies,
but in that of a permanent tax, as to the employment of
which control would of course be inefficient. Against these
pretensions the fishermen's attitude was one of constant
grudging and reluctant granting. Continuous wars in the
meantime occasioned constant need of efficient convoy, and
kept the money question in the foreground as a subject of
unceasing and painful wrangling, in the midst of which,
however, the trade somehow managed to prosper. Such
was, in outline, the course of affairs from the beginning of
the domination of Charles V. and his successive deputies,
clown to his son's ultimate deposition from the sovereignty,
i.e. for more than sixty years.

The wars between the Emperor and France first
brought this convoying question into open dispute. The
French, indeed, used much forbearance, and their admirals
were in the habit of offering sauf-conduits for sale to the
Dutch herring fishermen, subjects of a sovereign at war
with theirs. These sauf-conduits were purchased by many
for a consideration of fifteenpence per head of the crews

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 315

for the cod-fishing vessels, and of twenty-five for the herring
busses.* Still much damage was done to the herring fishery
by the. enemy, especially in the fishing season of 1537, to
the effect that those who had not bought sauf-conduits
complained of the straits of the war, and those who had
were discontented about having to pay the enemy for
protection which, in their estimation, was due to them from
their own Government. A plan for equipping and arming
six of the busses so as to be in a condition to serve as
men-of-war in time of need was advised by the Emperor
and much discussed in the States of Holland at the time,
but suffered to drop, mainly because the shipowners who
had taken out sauf-conduits from the enemy declined to
contribute towards the costs, on the plea that such a
measure had become useless. Thus, by the Government's
inaction and dissensions among the parties concerned, part
of the fleet remained at the enemy's mercy ; and in the
year I543t the coast was infested by French privateers
to such an extent that both traders and fishermen found
it impossible to sail without facing imminent danger.
Delegates from the fishing towns and villages met at the
Hague and discussed the expediency of taking their pro-
tection into their own hands ; but they did not come to a
conclusion, although Government, in order to induce them
to fit out their own convoy, resorted to a threat of pro-
hibiting the fishing for the next season. In the States'
sitting of May 2Oth, 1544,$ the town of Schiedam's
representatives again broached the convoying question ;

* Resol. van Holland in Aert v. d. Goes' Register, 1537, p. 279, sqq.

Cf. a Placard of Sept. 18, 1536 (2° Memoriaelboek van Mr. J. de

Jonge, fol. 62, verso).

t Resol. v. Holland, in Aert v. d. Goes' Register, 1543, p. 357-
\ Resolutions of the States of Holland, 1544, p. 30.

316 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

and as the war with Scotland added to the fishermen's
distress, the point was a subject of frequent resultless
deliberations in the next years. In 1547 another fruitless
appeal was made to Government, who were content to
advise the fishermen to equip one-tenth of their boats as
ships of war,* and at last, on June I ith, issued a prohibition
to fish, to last till September ist.t This induced delegates
from three of the towns most concerned, Dordrecht, Amster-
dam and Rotterdam, to crave an audience from the Queen,J
and earnestly speak up for their interests. The Emperor,
they said, had been granted taxes or supplies (beden) by
the States under promise of all available protection to
the country's mercantile and industrial interests ; and he
therefore owed the fishermen such covering by ships of
war as should enable them to fish in safety without any
special contribution on their part. Having met with a flat
refusal, for which the Emperor's distressed finances indeed
gave the most stringent of reasons, the delegates came to
terms, and after some protracted negotiations the States of
Holland at length, in 1548, granted six thousand florins
towards the equipment of five convoying ships. These,
however, were not yet ready on the Qth of August, when a
prohibition was issued against any busses sailing till the
convoy should be ready to put to sea, involving the loss of
the best part of the fishing season.§

The States' tardy concession by no means put an end to
the disputes. What Government wanted was not a grant

* Res. Holl. 1547, p. 1 86.

f Eerste Memoriaelboek 'j Hofs van Holland, van Mr. Jan van
Dam, fol. 256. Cf. Wagenaar, Vad. Hist. v. p. 297.

J Mary of Austria, Queen of Hungary, appointed governess of the
Dutch provinces by her imperial brother, in 1530.

§ Eerste Memoriaelboek van Mr. Jan van Dam, fol. 344, verso.
See Res. Holland, 1547 and 1548, p. 197 sqq., and 245 sqq.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 317

of money for one year, but a perpetual tax under the name
of last-money, such as had formerly been levied by the
Dukes of Burgundy. To obtain this, prohibitions against
fishing were again threatened in 1 549, whereupon the States
offered a gratuity of tenpence on the last of herring for the
current season only.* The offer was at once rejected, the
Queen demanding " not a gratuity, but a tax." Holland
then doubled its offerf on the 2Qth of August, 1550, and
last-money was accordingly levied from the fishermen of
the province to the amount of one florin per last of herring
caught, Zealand having before granted two, and the men of
Flanders consented to equip convoying ships at their own
expense. The tax was granted again in the next year,
when a prohibition against fishing was issued notwith-
standing, to which, however, little observance seems to
have been paid.t

The armed protection thus obtained by the States at the
fishermen's expense was very ineffectual. The Imperial
convoying ships appear, indeed, to have been utterly
inadequate to their task. They could neither cover the
whole of the herring fleet, nor be of any use to the busses
sailing home with their cargoes ; they could not even keep
the sea in rough weather, but had frequently to make for,
the nearest port and leave the fishermen to their destinies.
The States, therefore, towards the beginning of the fishing
season of 1552, begged the Queen to give up convoying and
get safe conducts for the busses from the King of France.§
A similar request was made in ISS3,|| when the shipowners

* Res. Holland, 1549, p. 288.

t Idem. 1550, pp. 372-380.

% Res. Holland, 1551, pp. 415, 431 ; Wagenaar, Vad. Hist. v. p. 368.

§ Ibid. 1552, p. 454 ; Cf. Wagenaar, Vad. Hist. v. p. 377.

|| Ibid. 1553, pp. 484, 504.

318 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

even offered to sail without any protection from Government,
and arm some of their vessels for war, so they might be
freed from last-money. But the offer was rejected. The
Imperial Government was ready, if needed, to send out
some worn-out ships of war after the herring busses, and
would not give up the tax, part of the produce of which
may be confidently supposed to have gone to the Imperial
coffers instead of being employed for the purpose it was
granted for. Accordingly, the last-money, which had
been granted by the States at two florins per last of herring
in 1552,* was demanded to the amount of three for 1553 ;
and when refused by the States, a prohibition to sail
without convoy was once more resorted to on the 3Oth of
May, in order to enforce acquiescence.! The quarrel on
the subject between the States and the Queen Gover-
ness rose higher as the fishing season approached, J
but was brought to an accord ; for a few days before
the sailing term, the Queen's consent to the shipowners
sailing at their own peril, and equipping their vessels
for armed resistance in case of need, was notified to the
States.§

A placard issued July 3Oth, 1553, and "ampliated," on
July 5th of the next year, determines the number of cannon,
pikes, swords, and the quantity of ammunition to be
carried on board each fishing vessel, subject to inspection
before sailing. The extent of the armament was in virtue
of these placards (4e Mem.-boek v. Dam. fol. 117, 232) to be
proportioned to each vessel's size, the largest mentioned
being forty lasts ; and the amount of warlike preparation

* 4e Memoriaelboek v. Dam, p. 260.
t Ibid. p. 91, verso,

% Res. Holland, June 14th, 1553, p. 506.
§ Ibid. July i Qth, p. 512.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 319

prescribed is such as to constitute a heavy charge upon
vessels of such a capacity.

It would be tedious to pursue the further course of these
money quarrels between Sovereign and subjects, which, as
said above, lasted intermittently as long as the House of
Austria held sway in the Dutch provinces. The depressed
condition of the fisheries under these circumstances is
testified to, not indeed by any statistics, but by several
legislative acts. Desertion was of frequent occurrence
among the seamen hired for service in the herring fishery, as
appears from several edicts against it. The business was
subject to immense risks of war, and crews were difficult to
hire, and apt to disband when hired, as their duty on the
armed busses was more of a soldier's than a fisherman's,
and " shooting " and " fighting " are mentioned in several
placards as a part of their customary work. Shipowners
were often tempted to sell their boats and fishing gear
abroad, as appears from prohibitions against such sales ;*
and, while forced by Government to keep their vessels in
the concern, were during a series of years repeatedly
annoyed by prohibitions against sailing without a Govern-
ment convoy, which appears to have been seldom or never
forthcoming in due time. Frequent grants of money
made by the States to shipowners or their representatives,
in order to enable them to cover losses and repair damages,
likewise testify to the trade's depressed condition as a
result of the Sovereign's unceasing wars. Not only did
these wars expose the fishermen to constant danger, and
occasion frequent extortions of grants from them ; the
fact of the Sovereign being at war with one half of Europe
also gave rise to prohibitions against exporting fish, which

* Placards of July 22nd and Sept. I2th, 1553; 4e Mem.-boek, v.
Darn, fol. 112, 126, verso.

320 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

of course depressed the markets and occasioned bitter
remonstrances at the hands of the parties concerned.
Working regulations on fisheries must in these evil days
have greatly contributed to the trades' depression ; for
being, one and all, calculated to warrant the excellence of
the fisheries' produce with a view to secure the foreign
markets at the cost of severe restrictions upon the industry's
liberty, their favourable effect of course was lost in times
when many markets were closed, and their only result was
to clog the fisherman and preclude him from taking
instant advantage of such favourable conjunctions as might
occur.

Such working rules were indeed issued with an unsparing
hand both under Charles V.'s and his son's government.
It has been shown that under the placard of 1519 herring
was allowed to be caught and cured before St. James's
Day ; and the beginning of the season seems to have been
left to the fisherman's discretion.

A prohibition to fish for herring before St. James's, or the
25th of July, seems to have been first thought of in the year
1526, when it was adopted by the States of Holland upon
the advice of all the towns concerned in the fishery,
Amsterdam alone excepted.* But this enactment was at
once complained of on the plea that, not being applicable
to the French fishermen, it would put the Dutch at a dis-
advantage against them. A sharp debate occurred on the
subject in a meeting of delegates from Holland, Zealand,
Friesland and Flanders, on March I2th, 1526, when by
way of a sharp taunt, the Flemings were upbraided with
having sold early herring at a low price, which imputation
they at once declined in indignant terms. The Northern
delegates persisted in the new rule ; and the matter was
* Res. Holland, in Aert v. d. Goes' Register, p. 35.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 321

laid before Our Gracious Lady Margaret of Savoy, then
Governess of the Netherlands, in the name of the Emperor
She, however, declined to enforce the new prohibition in
the province of Flanders, upon which the towns of Delft
and Schiedam likewise refused to observe it, which the
other fishing towns of Holland and Zealand were content
to do by way of an experiment.* The question was again
moved in May, 1528, between the delegates of Holland,
Zealand, Brabant, and Flanders ;| but no agreement was
come to, and herring fishing appears to have gone on
both before and after St. James's, until the Emperor pro-
hibited the former by a placard dated June 24th, 1536, \
and thereby sanctioned the principle that no early herring
was to be caught or sold by Dutchmen, which has since
been religiously observed as a fundamental fishery law. It
should be noted that initial dates for herring fishery have
been frequently shifted. About the period now spoken of,
a Burgundian law prohibited herring to be salted, i.e. to be
caught, before August 24th. A period of liberty as to the
date came next; it was fixed at July 2$th, in 1536, and
shifted more than once in latter years, until definitely
appointed on June 24th. Variations in ttie annual migra-
tions of tJte herring shoals must have occasioned these
several alterations of laws.

Besides the edicts just now referred to, police regula-
tions for fishing vessels were issued by Charles V. on
August 4th, 1545, and July pth, 1546, and renewed by his
son Philip on the same day of the year 1 564. This edict,
which was afterwards re-edited by the States, in the King's

* Res. Holland, in Aert van d. Goes' Register, pp. 38, 39.
t Ibid. p. 80.

% Tweede Memoriaelboetfs Hofs van Hollant, fol. 43.
VOL. IX.— E. 8. Y

322 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

name, on April 26th, 1578, and March pth, 1580,* contains
dispositions against the ^stealing or destroying of nets, &c.,
which prove the fishermen, three centuries and a half ago, to
have been similarly addicted, in the way of petty piracy, as
they appear to have been until the late International Conven-

•

tion. Besides penalties against such piracy, sailing orders
to hoist certain signals by day and night while the nets are
overboard, and to straighten the helm for fear of getting
caught in them, and regulations as to the treatment of fishing
gear lost at sea, are found in these statutes. Whoever finds
a " fleet," or set of nets, afloat and unowned, and hauls it
aboard, is enjoined to carry aloft as many empty herring
baskets as there are brails on the nets found ; and with
these baskets in his rigging, as a sign that he has another
man's nets on board, the finder is obliged to sail till their
owner has claimed them, in default of which he is to
hand them over to the nearest magistrate on coming into
port. It is easier to issue laws of this nature than to
enforce them ; and the several renovations of the placards
in question make it very probable that Dutch fishermen
were in the course of the sixteenth century by no means
averse to make free with the property of friend and foe
when occasion offered, or destroy it if coming across their
own. It would indeed appear that fishermen, who live by
appropriating the unowned and masterless treasures of the
sea, are easily brought to stretch the principle a point or
two, and appropriate objects which have distinct masters

* Groot Placaetboek, i. pp. 684-91. The placards of 1546, 1564 and
1578 have been registered by the Court of Holland, and are to be
found in their memorial books (ist van Dam, fol. 198 ; 3rd Ernst, fol.
173 ; 7th Ibid. fol. 236). It appears from the exordium of the placard
of 1 580 that both this and that of 1564 were renovations of another
dated August 4th, 1545.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 323

and owners ; whence the North Sea has for centuries been
the theatre of a bellum omnium contra omnes^ which the
legislation of all countries has till now never succeeded in
thoroughly restraining. The constant presence of con-
voying ships with the busses did not prevent abuses of
the above nature ; nor was this end attained by a more
stringent measure enacted in most of the placards just
named, viz. the skippers' obligation, when home from a
voyage, to have three or four men out of their crews
examined upon oath by the competent magistrate as to
damage done to others or suffered at their hands, or other
breach of statute committed.

Besides police and working rules, taxes were frequently
applied to the herring fishery by the Austrian lords of the
land. Last-money, which we have seen exacted by a
proceeding little short of actual compulsion towards the
end of the first half of the sixteenth century, and which
was then reluctantly granted, " in the hope of its being for
the last time this year,"* became, on the contrary, a
perpetual tax, the amount of which was determined
annually, and varied accordingly as the Government's
wants were greater or lesser, or the occasion for convoying
ships more or less pressing. The tax, however, never
exceeded two florins (or " pounds of twenty pence *') till
the end of the century. To this tax, originally a retribu-
tion for convoy, an excise duty on herring was added in
I57i,t amounting to twopence on the barrel, to be paid by
the last seller. A third tax, the exact nature of which I
have not been able to ascertain, is mentioned about 1555
by the name of tithe or tenth penny (" tiende penning"}

* Res. Holland, 1550, p. 172 and following.
f Ibid. 1571, p. 512.

Y 2

324 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

of all herring.* The levying of this tax was deferred
to William of Orange, appointed Stadtholder, or Lord
Lieutenant, of Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht, when King
Philip left the country after the peace of Cateau Cambresis,
in the spring of 1559. If the youthful Lord Lieutenant
ever levied this tithe at all, he certainly - did so with
exemplary leniency. Upon taking charge of the Provinces'
affairs he found the tax considerably in arrear, as appears
from a resolution of the States of Holland dated June 6th,
I559,t by which they begged to know the herring fishery's
returns for the years 1553 and 1557, in order to determine
the amount due as tithe for trie said years. The Prince
answered their request by a prayer to suspend the recover-
ing of the tax till his Highness's return from France, and
it was still due in 1561,} nor have I found any positive
evidence of its having ever been recovered at all.

A very different method of drawing money out of the
fisheries was pursued by the Spanish governors. The
Duke of Alva, who was sent to the Netherlands in 1567
with orders to put down heresy and generally break the
country to the iron Spanish rule, first obtained a loan of
28,000 fl. from the States in 1571,$ by a menace of with-
drawing the fishermen's convoy if the money were not
forthcoming. The exaction was the worse, as the ineffi-
ciency of Government convoying ships was as bitterly
complained of about this time as twenty years before, and
the Commissioners of the herring fishery, of whom more
anon, were obliged to equip men-of-war for their safety at

* Wagenaar, Vad. Hist. v. p. 386, mentions this tax to have been
first exacted in 1553 ; but is not at all sure about the matter, and
abstains from giving particulars.

t Res. Holland, 1559, p. 289.

\ Ibid. 1561, p. 483. § Ibid. 1571, p. 569.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 325

their own expense in 1570, and sued for a loan from the
States in 1571 in order to do the same during the fishing
season of that year.*

Fresh taxes to the fisheries' detriment were exacted
under the terrible Duke's successor in 1575, when a
twentieth penny, or 5 per cent, duty, was ordered to be levied
on all fresh fish brought to market in the towns and town-
ships of Holland, and a new excise duty of Sixpence per
ton of salt fish was moreover established, to be paid by the
buyer during the four months succeeding the 1st of March.f

Whatever may have been the fisheries' condition in
these times of violent warfare and constant danger, it is
evident that they were never entirely stopped, though it
may be readily assumed that many fishing vessels and
crews left the nearly unprotected trade and joined the
bold privateers, who, under the name of " Watergeuzen,"
took a prominent share in the military events of the time.
Still, requests of the fisheries for either subsidy or pro-
tection are of annual occurrence even in this period, as
proofs of the fisheries' continuation ; and it is indeed a
strong instance of the trade's vitality that it was never
completely given up in years when fishing vessels were
constantly beset by many enemies, and never obtained
anything like efficient protection.

The year 1575 marks the beginning of a new era for
the sea fisheries of Holland and Zealand. The sovereigns

of the house of Austria and their several lieutenants had

f

generally considered fishermen and shipowners as subjects
from whom considerable sums might be extracted under
promises of protection which never was efficiently given.
No sooner, on the contrary, did the Prince of Orange take

* Res. Holland, 1571, p. 555.

f Ibid. i«;75, PP- 88, 108, 113, 123.

326 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

the provinces' government into his own hands after the
revolution's first successes, but the fisheries came in for
Government's most earnest solicitude, and were treated as
so important an industry deserved. Up to the said year,
the point at issue between Government and fishermen had
been, who should obtain most from the other and do least
for him. The situation at once became the reverse when
a national government was virtually established, and a ready
willingness to do their utmost for the trade's benefit pre-
vailed on both sides.

This altered state of things was first clearly seen when,
towards the beginning of the herring season of I575>
William of Orange called a general meeting of the fisheries'
delegates, and earnestly represented to them the expediency
of sustaining their trade by their own energy at any cost,
as the state of the country's affairs for the moment left no
possibility of effectual Government assistance.

A body representative of those concerned in the herring
fishery, which in 1575 was recognised by the Prince as a
semi-official institution, had in truth borne such character
long before. The herring shipowners' habit of appointing
some of themselves to forward their common outward
interests appears indeed to have been about as ancient as
the trade itself, inasmuch as " the common merchants " of
certain towns of Holland are mentioned as grantees of
privileges extending to the fishery, in the edict of Albert
King of Sweden (1368), which has been mentioned above.
An organised body of local fishery committees, however,
does not appear to have existed before the middle of the
sixteenth century, when such an organisation seems to
have been the result of constant need of common defence
against both enemies abroad and Government exactions at
home. A committee of the herring fishery is first mentioned

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 327

in 1548, as having conferred with a Government officer
on the ways of furthering the herring fishery's interest.*
In I556,t the same Board, or Corporation, gave a receipt
for moneys granted by the States for the trade's benefit ;
it was then composed of the Burgomasters of the several
towns and townships where herring ships were owned, viz.
Delft, Rotterdam, Schiedam, Brielle, Enkhuizen, Wormer,
Jisp and Grootebroek. About this period requests for
subsidy and convoy to the herring ships are generally
mentioned as having been preferred by " the fishery," " the
common fishery," or " those of the fishery ; " and the
variations in the name by which the corporation was
designed at the time confirm the supposition that its
existence as a recognised public authority cannot date from
a period much anterior.

At any rate, they held considerable official power and
responsibility at the time mentioned. The delegates of
Delft, Enkhuizen, Brielle, Rotterdam and Schiedam in 1558
agreed to an " accord "J by which the fishing boats of the
coast villages were bound, in return for the enjoyment of
warlike protection, to pay into the hands of the Delegates'
Commissioners such a sum per ton of fresh herring sold
either at home or in England, as should be appointed by
the delegates aforesaid ; and this agreement was ratified
and registered by the Court of Holland. By another accord,
dated September 26th, I558,§ and registered by the same
authority, the " Deputies of the Herring Fishery " agreed to
have every tenth fishing buss equipped for war ; the
expense of such armaments to be borne by the ten

* Res. Holland, 1548, p. 288.

t Ibid. 1556, p. 92.

I Eerste Memoriaelboek. B. Ernst, fol. 136.

§ Ibid. foL 133, verso.

328 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

vessels together, forming what is, in very un-nautical
style, denominated a band (bende). The arrangement
must have been short-lived, if ever executed at all ; but
it testifies to the public authority of those who made it on
behalf of the rest. Again, in 1562, a loan of 10,000 florins
was granted to " Deputies of the Herring Trade " by the
States of Holland and West Friesland.* They were there-
fore at the said period a recognised public body qualified
to act in the name of all concerned in the trade. A much
more extensive range of official qualification was opened to
them after the proceedings between them and the Prince of
Orange, which, as said above, took place in 1575.

The Herring Commissioners' attitude in this conference
is a strong evidence both of their extensive acting powers
and the considerable resources of their constituencies, in
spite of bad times. The Prince having explained to them
the impossibility of any considerable financial aid out of the
public exchequer, the delegates, with a readiness strongly
contrasting to the reluctant grants formerly wrung from
the States and the fishing towns, voted a supply of three
thousand Carolus florins for the first month of the fishing
season, and two thousand more for each of the three months
to follow, the said charges to be borne by the shipowners
according to a fair repartition.! Twelve convoying ships
of war were to be equipped out of this money, and further
funds, in case of insufficiency, to be found out of the custom-
house duties (licenten) on herring. But the Commissioners'
task did not stop at the granting of money. They were
now for the first time to have a fair share in the disposal
of it. A committee was to be appointed by the States and
the fishers' delegates jointly, for the organisation of the

* Res. Holland, 1562, pp. 689, 694-696.
t Ibid. 1575, p. 549,

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 329

convoying service, the appointment of officers to command
the ships of war, and the regulation of all further matters
thereunto pertaining.* This agreement between the Prince
and the parties concerned was readily ratified by the States
on July 5th, I575,t and the Herring Commissioners were
further empowered to levy such last-money on the herring
busses as they should see fit, for the gradual reimbursement
of the sums advanced ; i.e. properly, to distribute the
charges of their safety among shipowners as they should
judge equitable. Last-money was accordingly decreed to
be levied at thirty pence per last of herring in the year
1576,^ not by the States' collectors, but by officials ap-
pointed by the Herring Deputies in each of the fishing
towns. Thus the tax, formerly a loathed and hard-grudged
Government exaction, took the shape of a contribution
willingly granted by the parties concerned towards their
mutual protection and safety ; and fishing shipowners, as
soon as the management of their joint interests was put
into their own hands, formed themselves into an extensive
corporation and at once proceeded to take the measures
most urgently required. It is a fact worth mentioning, as
an instance of the national energy of former times, that the
whole of the men concerned in one of the principal indus-
tries thus organised their business, and readily assumed
heavy pecuniary obligations to keep it going, at a moment
when every nerve of the nation was strained in self-defence
against an ovenvhelming enemy, and the very heaviest
financial sacrifices had to be demanded by Government to
keep up a war, the duration and event of which no one
could at the time foresee.

* Res. Holland, 1575, pp. 550, 551.

t Ibid. p. 588.

% Ibid. 1576, p. 89.

330 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

The Herring Committee's official attributes were soon
further extended. They had been appointed administrators
of their own tax in 1575 ; they had judicial functions
granted to them two years later.

By a placard of May 3rd, 1577,* the States, as in the
King's name (who as yet was the legal Sovereign), enacted
severe penalties against selling herring or fishf caught
by Dutchmen elsewhere than upon Dutch markets, and
exchanging them for salt or barrels with foreign fishermen
at sea. A resolution of the States of Holland, dated
July I2th,t appointed the Fisheries Delegates (" die van de
Vissckerije") to enforce this statute and proceed against all
who should infringe it, the fines pronounced to be for the
common fisheries' benefit, as a means of ensuring the
Committee's utmost vigilance.

Legislation on herring fishery had now gradually become
rather extensive. But it was disseminated in divers laws and
placards, the observance of which must have been fraught
with considerable difficulty, as the method of publishing
laws was at this period very defective. This circumstance
probably led to something like a codification of the fishery
statutes, which took place in the year 1582, after the formal
defection of the Northern Provinces and their constitution
as a free State. This statute, in which all former ones were
resumed, may therefore be considered as the first instance
of legislation on fishery under the Dutch Republic.

* Groot Placaetboek, vol. ii. p. 2145. The statute was re-inforced
on April 26th, 1578, and registered in the 7th Mem. Boek. B. Ernst,
fol. 234, verso.

f The vfor&Jish is not used in the ancient Dutch fishing vocabulary
for herring. " Fish " means other fish, generally cod.

% Res. Holland, 1577, p. 415.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 33'

PART II.

SEA FISHERIES UNDER THE DUTCH REPUBLIC.

THE history of the Republic of the United Netherlands
embraces the period of Holland's utmost political greatness.
It is likewise in this period that the Dutch sea fisheries
reached their culminating point, at which they exceeded
those of most foreign nations ; while in the latter days of
the Republic the nation's glory and the trade's prosperity
were both swept away by the effect of one common cause.

In accordance with the tremendous development of the
fisheries, and of the herring trade especially, during the
first century of the Republic's existence, both literature
and legislation relative to them are plentiful in the course
of this period, and a better idea of the trade's importance
may be formed than before, when laws, indeed, were fre-
quently made, but facts on record are few. These several
circumstances make the republican period a peculiarly
interesting part of the fisheries' history.

It is not till this period that some knowledge can be ob-
tained of the different branches of fishery, one of which (the
whaling trade) did not exist before, while as to another
(the cod business) only a few indications exist during
former centuries. The several branches of the fishing
business have throughout the Republic been separate con-
cerns, or nearly so. They were carried on under circum-
stances so different, that laws held necessary for one were
never thought of for others. It is therefore advisable to
divide this part of their history into several chapters, rela-
tive to, i, the "grand " or cure-herring fishery ; 2, whaling ;

332 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

3, cod fishery ; and 4, the minor industry of catching
fresh fish of different kinds, both in the North Sea and
Zuider Zee.

Differences with other nations about the right to fish in
certain parts of the sea have been frequent during the
period which will be treated in the annexed pages, when as
yet there were no generally adopted rules of international
law. As these differences were of vital interest to a nation
whose fishing vessels once frequented the shores of
several States, a brief account of them will be given in a
separate chapter.

CHAPTER I.
GRAND FISHERY.

THE distinctive points about the cured-herring fishery
under the Republic are the following : —

ist. It was exercised in the second half of the year,
chiefly about the coasts of England and Scotland.

2nd. It was carried on in keeled vessels known by the
general denomination of busses (buizeit}, the size of which
afforded room to cure the herring on board as soon as
caught, and thus produce the excellent and easily export-
able article for which Holland has long been famous
throughout the world.

3rd. It was, by reason of the immense market open to its
produce, at one time very far ahead of all other branches
of fishery as regards actual importance, and its preservation
was one of the chief objects of the Government's solicitude,
whence the history of fishery legislation is chiefly that of
regulations on herring fishery.

It has been said at the conclusion of the first part of this
work, that something like a codification of the laws on

I

r

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 333

herring fishery was aimed at in the very first year of the
Republic's existence. As these statutes have been in
vigour, with slight alterations, for two centuries and more,
and their influence on the fishery's destinies has been very
considerable, it is necessary to expose their tenor at some
length.

Part of the fishing code alluded to was indeed anterior to
the Republic, being contained in several placards dated
March 9th, 1580,* and issued in King Philip's name,
though his actual authority had then ceased to prevail in
the country, and he was no party to the laws issued, for
form's sake, as under his authority. Besides the police
regulations referred to at the conclusion of Part L, these so-
called Royal placards contain certain rules to be observed
in the hiring of sailors for service in fishing vessels, and
the relations between them and the ships' masters or " steers-
men." The prohibition to carry Dutch herring abroad or
dispose of it at sea to foreign fishermen is likewise repeated
in one of these Acts. The most interesting part of them
is, however, the fixation of the season for " salting herring
in barrels," between June 1st and January ult, being a
derogation to former placards prohibiting the trade before
St. James's Day, which seem to have ere this fallen into
oblivion. To preserve the ancient reputation of the Dutch
brand-herring was once more the object of this enactment.
" Whereas," says the placard, " it has come to Our knowledge
that some for their singular profit do catch the herring
before its season and time, ere they be good and right
natural to eat, and salt them in barrels and sell them in the
market, though such herrings be quite untimely and often
prejudicious to the consumer thereof, thereby causing in

* Groot Placaetboek v. Hollandt en Westvriesland, vol. i. pp. 684-
691, 696-707, 715-717, 748-75 I-

334 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

these countries not only, but also and in particular in other
lands, whereunto herring is carried and diverted, a great
disgust, dishonour and contempt of herring, so that the
taste for good and timely herring is likewise spoiled, the
latter being thereby made unwilling and often remaining un-
sold along with the bad, to the loss of the merchants, and
consequently to the prejudice of the fishery, which is one
of the principal mines of our common countries' welfare ;
against which sundry abuses wishing promptly to provide,
We do well and expressly prohibit," &c. It is a constant
and prominent feature of Dutch fishery legislation that
people are always forbidden to do what they saw fit to do
" for their singular profit"

Legislators never, until twenty-five years ago, could
realise the notion that, upon the whole, the fisherman is the
best judge of his own interests. Constant infractions of
the herring laws, instead of bringing the governing powers
and their advisers to acknowledge that to break the law
must upon the whole be more profitable than to observe it,
only caused them frequently to renew the different Acts,
and enact still heavier penalties against transgressors who
were uniformly considered as reckless and unprincipled
men ready to sacrifice the common interest to the success
of their own misdoings. It was considered laudable to
seek profit by catching herring, provided the profit should
only be looked for where Government pointed it out. All
other profit-seeking was a heinous offence.

The same anxiety to maintain the reputation of the
Dutch cured herring abroad, which speaks from the above-
quoted considerations, also dictated another part of the
herring legislation of 1580, viz. the prohibitions against
tampering with brands. It has been said in the first part
of this work that the branding of herring barrels was ever

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 335

since 1519 subject to control by assayers (" keurmeesters")
appointed for the purpose in each town ; and the brand
thus constituted an official certificate of the article's
excellence. In order to preserve this character, and like-
wise to protect the Dutch fishermen against foreign com-
petition, it was in 1580 prohibited under severe penalties,
firstly, to privately mark barrels containing spawn-sick and
other defective herring with counterfeits of the controlled
brands, or even with fancy marks,* and next, to pack
herring caught by foreigners in barrels properly branded
before. The use and even the importing of foreign or
unrefined salt f was also prohibited by this Act, and the
prohibition was even extended to " small salt " made or
refined in the country, which it was forbidder! either to
sell or use, unless to foreigners and for the purpose of
exportation.

But these regulations were not deemed sufficient. The
brand inspector's control, which till now only served to
warrant the quality of barrels, appears not always to have
been sufficiently close ; and the deputies of the herring-
fishing towns found upon inquiry that the quality of both
herring and barrels exported under the official brand was
sometimes deficient " because of the small control hitherto
exercised thereon." Wherefore, "having often been col-
legially assembled at Delft and ripely communicated on the
matter," they drew up a regulation " touching the making,
assaying and branding of herring barrels, the time of
catching, salting, handling, and packing of herring," which

* Literally, " with ornamented bye-marks or otherwise."
t "Salt not sodden of salt." The "moor-salt," or " zelle " highly
recommended in the placard of 1519, appears to have been utterly out
of use towards the end of the i6th century, as it is not even mentioned
in the laws of 1580.

336 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

was arrested by the States of Holland on April 2/th, 1582,*
and is the first instance of Republican herring legislation.
The principal provisions of this Act, which has for more
than two centuries been the base of all working regulations
upon the herring trade, are the following : —

Besides the cooper's private mark, already prescribed by
the placard of 1519, a town-brand, which in the said year
was admitted in such towns as should see fit to use it, is
now ordered to be established in every town where barrels
are made. All barrels, whether whole, half, quarter
(kinnetgens), or eighth part, are to be marked with this
town-brand (here called tonnebrand] previous to their being
carried out of the town. The cooper apposes his own
brand, but the town-brand is added by municipal officers
or branders, under the assayer's supervision. These
branders are forbidden ever to let their tools and marking-
irons go out of their hands, or send them to the cooper's by
their wives, children, or servants. They are enjoined, before
branding each barrel, to examine it well and roll it over
three or four times containing a certain quantity of clean
water, and refuse it if found to leak, or to be worm-eaten,
made of light wood, or otherwise defective. No branding of
barrels is allowed between sunset and sunrise, and when
the brander comes to the cooper's to perform his business,
the latter, his wife and journeymen are not to be present at
the operation, but keep within call either in the house or a
street's width from it, in case the brander should want to
show them any defectivity in the barrels. The number of
staves to each barrel is to be twelve or thirteen as a mini-
mum, and the dimensions of barrels, staves and hoops,| as

* Groot Placaetboek, vol. i. pp. 718-727.

t A standard measure of herring barrels appears to have been kept
at Dordrecht. According to van der Lely's Recueil (p. 15) the

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 337

well as the places where to appose the cooper's and the
town-brand, are accurately determined by the law. Branders
are allowed to exercise the coopering trade on their own
behalf, but they are in this case to have their article
examined and branded either by a colleague or by the
assayer or " keurmeester " himself. The barrels carried to
sea by fishermen are to be either new, or provided with
fresh hoops and assayed and branded afresh since last used.
The packing of herring and piling up of barrels is ordered
to take place either in the public street or with doors open,
so as to enable all and sundry to control the execution of
the aforesaid dispositions as regards the quality of the
barrels used.*

The nature of the salt to be used by fishermen at sea is
regulated in detail. Gross salt, if used at all, is to be
previously examined by the assayer, and, for full herring
caught after St. James's, Bartholomew's, or Elevation day,
" small salt sodden from salt " is the only sort allowed. No
salt is to be sold, bought, or taken on board, unless accom-
panied by a certificate as to its quality, delivered at the
place of fabrication.

As to the fishery itself, the most important disposition of
this Act is the fixation of the fishing season for cured-
herring between July 1st and December ult. of each year.
The former, or opening date, which had been appointed at
June ist two years before, was again shifted to St. John's

Herring College in 1593 resolved to have the assayers' measures
adjusted to this standard, and a general " equalization " of all barrels
was ordered to take place in 1624.

* It was commonly done in public ; whence probably the name of
" Haringpakkery " still applied to one of the broadest quays of
Amsterdam.

VOL. IX. — E. 8. 7

338 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

(or the 24th of June) in 1588* as an evidence of the un-
certainty about, and probably the variations of, the true fit
herring-season. It cannot be doubted that by these suc-
cessive enactments fishermen have often been prevented
from exercising their trade at times when it might have
been done with a fair result. To bind a business to certain
dates and seasons is at all times a dangerous practice in
legislation ; but whenever nature shows the fit season for
such an industry to be variable, all restrictions ought to be
abolished at once. The mere fact that an alteration of
laws of this nature is found necessary should be a reason to
repeal them altogether ; for there can in that case be no
certainty that the new law is better than the old.

The treatment, or mode of handling f herring when
caught, is accurately prescribed in the State's placard of
1582. Besides a reiteration of former prohibitions against
disposing of herring either abroad or at sea, the masters of
herring-busses are enjoined on their responsibility, and
under considerable penalties, to see that the fish be laid in
the barrels in regular layers, four in length, from bottom to
bottom. The packing of bad herring together with good
is severely prohibited, and it should be noticed that the
sale of the very worst \ article was allowed, provided it
should be classed and owned as such when sold.

* See also a placard dated March 17th, 1593, Gr. Placaetboek,
vol. i. pp. 726-29, where the date is likewise fixed at " St. John's Day
in midsummer."

t " Havenen," a word actually used only in the sense of "damag^
ing."

% " Yelen-, nachtschamel-, kuytsieck-, melk-sieck-, stanck ofte want
haring." The latter words were substituted in 1584 for the original
term : sterke haring. The one means " stinking," the other " bad "
or " strong," in the sense of " strong butter." " Kuytsieck " and
" melk-sieck " are the words indicating extreme ripeness of the spawn

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 339

In order to ensure the observation of these statutes, each
fishing captain is enjoined as heretofore to have his private
mark apposed to each barrel before letting it out of his
vessel, and have this mark and his name entered in a
register kept by the town magistrate. Obligatory inspec-
tion of the fish, if for exportation, is now for the first time
added to assay of the barrels ; the inspector's duty being
to prevent herring of different qualities being packed in
one fust, and to see to the quality of the salt used. It is
prohibited, as formerly, to wash, clean, pack or otherwise
manipulate foreign herring. The present law is ordered to
be annually promulgated afresh in every fishing town, on
the 1st of March, at which date most herring captains are
stated to be at home ; and all such alterations and fresh
statutes on the subject as may be found necessary are
ordered to be drawn up by the Deputies of the towns where
the herring trade is exercised, and promulgated after the
States' approval. The Herring Deputies or Commissioners'
functions, which till now involved the police of the trade
and the administration of its common financial interests,
are thereby completed with what is, in fact, legislative
power ; for it will appear further that their draft statutes
were always approved without any alterations by the proper
Legislature, i.e. the States-Provincial or General, as the case
might be.

It will be seen from this brief account of what may
perhaps, though improperly, be styled " the herring-fishery
code of 1580-82," that its chief object was to uphold the
reputation which herring of Dutch brand tKen already
enjoyed in all foreign markets ; its next, to keep the staple

and milt ; " nachtschamel " I take to stand for " overnight " or herring
not cured immediately after the catch.

Z 2

340 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

market of the article in the country, and have it exported
from the Dutch emporiums only.

The first-named and chief pre-occupation of the suc-
cessive Dutch governments had indeed been apparent,
besides laws, from several facts on record previous to the
Republic's establishment. In 1552 it was reported that
citizens of Antwerp had presumed to tamper with the
town brand of Dordrecht, erasing it from certain herring-
barrels and substituting another, mark for it, " notwith-
standing the brand of Dordt is older and more authentic,
and known all over Germany, France and other countries."
Dordrecht laid the matter before the States of Holland,
who thought it of sufficient importance to send their
Advocate (whose functions had some analogy with those
of a Secretary of State) to Brussels on purpose to obtain
redress.* In the next years regular lawsuits were carried
on against the authorities of M alines, Ghent, Flushing and
Nieuwpoort respectively, for having repacked herring from
Holland in other barrels,f thereby enhancing their Zealand
and Flemish marks or brands with the excellence of the
Hollands produce, and perhaps using the empty barrels
marked with the Hollands brand to pass off foreign fish
of inferior quality. Again, in 1582, the States of Holland
intervened in a lawsuit then pending between certain
citizens of Spires and Worms, in the heart of Germany,
about the quality of herrings bought and sold between
them, merely because the herring in question bore a Dutch
brand, t

The importance of the salt-herring fishery and trade

* Res. Ho II. 1552, pp. 482-3.

t Res. Holl. 1554, p. 584; '555, P- 697 ; 1561, pp. 480, 517 ; 1565,

P- 33-
% Res. Holland 1582, pp. 241, 248.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES, 341

about this period is testified to by many more credentials.
In 1581, the States thought it worth their while to des-
patch an embassy to Bremen,* in order to obtain the
removal of certain edicts there issued, prejudicial to the
Dutch herring trade's interest ; and let it be remembered
that the Provinces were at this very time occupied by so
very momentous a plan as the abjuration of their Sove-
reign the King of Spain, and their constitution as a free
republic in the face of the world. It is likewise a fact
not to be overlooked that at this most critical juncture of
their history, while weighed down on all sides by cares
innumerable of war, finance, and politics, the Province of
Holland never once let her herring-fishermen lack convoy,
when imminent danger from the enemy at sea did not
force them to prohibit the fishery altogether.

The fishers fully responded to their government's care
and energy ; for though many of their busses were taken
year by year, either by the enemy's cruisers or by Dunkirk
privateers, they never lost heart, but still continued the
trade, under protection generally insufficient, and in the
face of the enormous financial liabilities laid upon them
by their disasters, and borne by them in common, under
their self-appointed commissioners' administration. The
name of Grand Fishery, f which in 1580 and afterwards was
generally applied to the cured-herring concern to indicate
its being " the chief industry of the country and principal
gold-mine to its inhabitants," is indeed justified at the period
now spoken of, by the splendid pluck and untiring tenacity
displayed by the men who exercised it, under circumstances
which reduced to insignificance many industries less directly
exposed to the war's calamities than theirs.

* Res. Holland 1581, pp. 579, 732, 766 ; 1582, pp. 240-1.
t " Groote Visscherye."

342 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

The war, indeed, took manifold effect upon the herring-
fishery. Besides losses at sea and taxes ashore, the trade
had to bear the consequences of a prohibition to export
victuals, fish included, which was one of the most un-
popular measures adopted by the Earl of Leicester during
his short-lived and infelicitous administration of the United
Provinces. The interdiction was indeed, at the Herring
Commissioners' request, repealed in 1586 as regarded
exportation to neutral States ; * and traders managed to
get their produce carried to Germany by a circuit, the
Rhine being closed by the town of Nijmegen having
embraced the enemy's cause,f and refusing to let any
merchandise pass out of the revolted provinces, even upon
the States' urgent request. Still the prohibition was
maintained as against exportation to the enemy's do-
minions, and sometimes enforced by the exporters being
obliged, upon their ships' return, to show an attest
mentioning the place where the herrings had been sold.f
It is a curious example of the political status of the
day, that an Englishman sentt to govern the Republic
should have enforced a measure which closed the im-
portant markets of Belgium against the herring traders of
the country, while the States were at the same time
making considerable money sacrifices in the latter's
behalf.

Among these sacrifices it is now time to mention the
immunity of excise duty on salt used in curing herrings at
sea, which was conceded to the Grand Fishery as a special
boon by the Prince of Orange, and ratified by the States-
General soon afterwards. This privilege is first mentioned

* Res. Ho II. 1586, p. 308.

t Ibid. 1585, p. 245 ; 1584, p. 538.

t Ibid. 1585, p. 808.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 343

in 1586;* it has been maintained ever since and exists to
the present day, as will be seen in another part of this
work. It was extended to the whole of the Republic as
emanating from the central legislative power ; but the
province of Holland very soon bought the privilege off, for
their province, by an agreement with the College of the
Grand Fishery, in virtue of which the fishermen paid the
excise duty, and a consideration of fl. 6000 a-year was
granted to the College out of the provincial treasury*!

The duty in Holland then amounted to fl. 14 per hundred-
weight of fine white salt ; whence the quantity of salt
annually used by the sea-fisheries of the province would
appear to have been something less than 43,000 pounds.
It would not, however, be safe to attach much importance to
this average calculation ; for compared to the far superior
quantities of salt now used free of excise by the Dutch sea-
fisheries, it does not correspond to the probable extent
of the trade in the province of Holland at the period
now spoken of. Many considerations, which it would be
highly interesting to trace at leisure, may have led the
Fishery College to sell their immunity for an inequivalent
sum.

Besides the Spanish fleets, the great bane of the Dutch
sea-fisheries at this time were the privateers from Dunkirk,
who may be said throughout the Republic's history to have
been to herring fishers what the dog-fish is to the herring.
Constant complaints were made of busses taken and des-
troyed by these audacious filibusters, against whose superior
strength and seamanship such convoy as the States could

* Res. States-General 1586, June i2th and November 4tb, 1587
September 4th.

t Res. Holl. 1588, pp. 133, 231 ; 1589, p. 459 ; 1593, p. 407 ; 1595,
p. 69, &c.

344 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

afford was insufficient. The plan of self-help, which had
been pressed upon the fisheries by Charles the Fifth's
lieutenants, was now once more adopted ; and by a States
of Holland placard, dated May I4th, 1596,* busses were
forbidden to sail unless either under convoy or " in admiral-
ship " i.e., in squadron of twenty at the least. In the latter
case each of the vessels was to carry a certain quantity of
artillery and ammunition, and the whole squadron to be com-
manded by an " Admiral " appointed by the captains out
of their number. This expedient was especially recom-
mended by the promise of a gratification to the fishing
commander who should capture or sink a vessel of the
enemy's. It does not appear that the premium was much
contended for, as the paying of ransom, or safeguard -
money, was at the time resorted to by numerous fishermen,t
until the passports delivered were denounced by the enemy
in 1 599-t A special committee of ship-owners and Govern-
ment officials had meanwhile been appointed § to draw a
plan for the fisheries' perpetual preservation ; but there is
no result of their deliberations on record, and in the end,
as the prevailing financial distress made it impossible to
provide sufficient convoy by Government men-of-war, the
States granted an extraordinary subsidy of fl. 20,000 to the
fisheries' commissioners in i6oo,|| out of which they were to
find their own convoy. The grant was repeated for a long
series of years, when fishermen accordingly sailed under
cover of conveyers equipped at their own expense. These
vessels, afterwards called " Direction-ships," (Directie-

* Groot Plac. Boek, i. 711.

t Res. Holland 1598, pp. 135, 193.

% Ibid. 1599, pp. 27, 623.

§ Ibid. 1598, pp. 128, 193.

j| Ibid. 1600, p. 71.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 345

schepen)* to signify their nature as belonging to the
Fisheries' directors, were nevertheless commanded by
officers appointed by the Stadtholder and under oath of
fidelity to the States-General. A pusillanimous plan for
pacifying the Dunkirk Vikings, by issuing letters of safe-
conduct under the States' seal to such enemies as should
reciprocally let the United Provinces' vessels fish unmo-
lested, "in the hope," as the States of Holland candidly
aver, " that fewer pirates will this year put to sea from the
ports of Flanders," f was indeed tried a few years afterwards,
but there is no evidence of its having had anything like
success. And this, indeed, seems highly improbable ; for
there was not much promise in an attempt to make the
Dunkirkers give up piracy by offering them a permission
to fish within range of the guns of the States' men-of-war.

The fishery laws were in the meantime strenuously main-
tained, although under considerable difficulties. It was not
easy to enforce the prohibitions against carrying herring
caught by Dutch fishermen directly abroad ; and moreover,
the inevitable " gain-seeking " people, who " for their
singular profit " did not fear to break the law, managed to
smuggle herring not lawfully packed and branded through
the United Provinces, and elude the authorities' vigilance.
Notwithstanding the yearly reminder to the herring-skippers,
the placards, in a word, got out of observation "by the
slowness and the passing of years," and were frequently
re-enacted in the first years of the seventeenth century, t

* Cf. de Jonge, Geschiedenis v&n het Nederl. Zeewezen, i. pp. 257-8.
This institution is also mentioned in Meynert Semeyns' " Beschryuinge
over de Haring visscherye in Hollandt? but with the lack of precision
usual in that otherwise precious contemporary author.

t Res. Holland 1606, p. 783.

% Viz., the years 1604, 1606, 1607, 1612, 16 5, 1620, 1621, 1632,
Groot Plac. Boek, i. p. 733, and following.

346 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

They were, besides, altered in some points, among which
some importance may be attributed to the shifting of the
salt-herring fisheries closing-day to January ult, the
express prohibition against curing salt-herring ashore, the
prohibition to cure herring with other salt than Spanish or
Portuguese, and the institution of divers brands, each to be
solely exported to certain towns or countries. The leading
idea of these several enactments is an extreme anxiety, not
only to have the foreign markets constantly supplied with
a good article, but also to have that article packed and
otherwise made up in the fashion customary in the several
markets. For instance, a " Rouen brand " was consecrated
to exportation to France, and there was also a " Cologne
brand." The principle of having distinct brands for herring
caught at different parts of the season, which we have seen
established in 1519 by the prescription of a "St. James's
brand/' was much extended in the early years of the seven-
teenth century, when a " Lady Day " (Vrouwe brand), an
" Elevation Day " (Kruis brand), and a Bartholomew brand
were, if not first used, at least first mentioned in the herring
laws.* Each of these brands was to have the peculiar look
customary in the several markets ; and to this effect very
detailed prescriptions were given as to the number of hoops
to be applied to the barrels marked with each brand. In
short, having undertaken in many points to regulate
the fisherman's business, legislation by degrees took the
dealer's, broker's, and expeditioner's likewise into her own
hands, and the merchant's activity and acuteness were
superseded by Government rules. Constant changes in
the different markets' requirements of course led to fre-

* Brands stating the time of capture were then the only distinctives.
The quality-brands stating herring to be " full," " matties," or " ylen,"
are ot much posterior invention.

THE HISTORY OP DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 3^7

quent alterations of these enactments, and the branding
and packing legislation of the period now spoken of is,
as a consequence, rather intricate.

But of the several ampliations to the herring fishing laws
in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, those rela-
tive to the practice of "sale-hunting" are the most im-
portant This peculiar trade has originated in the Dutch
fisheries' particular situation. Being obliged to fish far from
their own shores, the busses would have lost much precious
time if they had been obliged to sail home as soon as their
cargo was completed, and land their fish before catching
more. They would, moreover, in most cases have lost the
advantage of landing herring very early in the season, and
being first in the market, which was, and is, of great im-
portance, as freshly salted or " new " herring has always
been very much appreciated, and paid for at several times the
price of fish caught or sold later in the year.* To secure the

* In fact, a frantic eagerness to be first in the market has always
been an interesting characteristic of the Dutch herring trade in the
early season ; so much so, that it may be doubted whether the very
real advantage of selling the first barrels in any given market was
often worth the outlay of money and trouble made to secure it.
Throughout the Republic's time, slow coaches and slower canal boats
were the only conveyances; the Dutch never were great horsemen,
and journeys on foot were not disdained even by those endowed with
worldly goods. But on the day when the first " ventjagers" arrived at
Rotterdam, or Vlaardingen, no speed was deemed sufficient to carry
the first barrels of " new " herring to the inland towns. Dealers kept
light curricles and fleet horses on purpose, and the minute a few
barrels were unshipped and assayed, a furious race to the Hague,
Amsterdam, &c., began. Each of the vehicles could carry a few
barrels only, and the profit of the thing perhaps did not generally
cover the expense. But to be first in the market anywhere was always
a point of honour with the Dutch herring-dealer ; and the day when
the first herring arrived, and the barrels were posted across country in
chaises, with foaming teams and streaming flags, was a day of general

348 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

advantage of the early market, fast-sailing vessels, called
" ventjagers " or " sale-hunters," used to accompany the
herring-fleet, buy up the first herring caught and cured, and
carry it home with the utmost speed, leaving the busses to
fish on at leisure. This trade, if not attended to, might of
course have afforded ample facilities to elude the prohibi-
tion against selling herring elsewhere than in the Dutch
emporiums, and " sale-hunting " was therefore, soon after
the fishing laws before quoted came into vigour, an object
of the legislator's peculiar supervision and solicitude.

From the fact that no particular legislation on the subject
existed before, it appears that the custom of sale-hunters
following the busses did not come into use before the
beginning of the seventeenth century. " Ventjagers " are
indeed mentioned as early as the year 1556, but from a
placard of January nth of that year * it is evident that
at that time they did not go beyond the rivers' mouths, and
the wording of the first law relative to sale-hunting at sea,
(dated 1604), plainly shows the practice to have been then
very recently adopted. The first enactments on the subject
are chiefly calculated to prevent the laws on catching,
curing, landing, and branding herring to be eluded by

rejoicing. Even to the present time, when herring brought home by
the first "hunter" is prosaically sent inland by rail, some of the
traditional festivities are kept up. Dealers in fish sport bunting from
their house-tops ; " New Herring " is cried through every city, and an
old-fashioned one-horse chaise on immense wheels, decked with the
national colours, may be seen to race to the King's palace at the
Hague, in order to supply the royal table with the very first barrel of
herring. The whole of this pageantry , however, is now little more than
a remembrance of the time when " New Herring " actually meant an
influx of millions into the country, and a shower of gold upon
thousands of its inhabitants.

* Vierde MemoriaalboeK's Hofs van Hollant, van Mr. J. van
Dam, fol. 37 ; Vijfde, ibid. fol. 201.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 349

" sale-hunters." They prescribe that every skipper who sails
after the fleet for the purpose of buying up herring shall be
provided with a license under the seal of, and delivered by,
the " magistrate and treasurers of the fishery," i.e., the local
fishery boards. Every such skipper is, before sailing,
to take oath not to buy any salt-herring but from
Dutch steersmen, and to have every lot he takes on board
covered by a certificate from the seller, stating the latter's
name and his vessel's, his domicile and the quantity of fish
transferred. Sale-hunters are besides, like skippers, pro-
hibited from carrying their ware abroad.

Sale-hunting appears at the outset to have been allowed
during the whole of the season ; though of course the
business could only pay as long as high prices lasted. A
restriction as to time was first put upon it, and a " hunting-
time " (jaagtijd) established in 1632, the closing date after
which it should not be lawful to transfer herring at sea,
being then fixed at July I5th. The object of the enact-
ment evidently was to prevent an overstocking of the
market at a period when prices naturally declined, the
first eager demand for early herring being satisfied. But the
practice of " hunting " sometimes occasioned a glut at the
very outset of a favourable season, or, as a placard of the
time has it, " so threw the herring-market prostrate * that
neither fishermen nor dealer could make a profit upon it."
This evil was, in later times, prevented by the hunting-
monopoly, i.e. the prohibition to fishermen to sail home
during " hunting-time " unless with a full cargo. This
monopoly never legally existed imder the Dutch Republic ; it
has been a creation of the present century, or may possibly
have been established as a College bye-law late in the eight-
eenth century ; and those who in the course of the dis-
* " Sulcks onder de voet ivort geiuorpen?

350 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

cussions on Herring Law Repeal have given it in part the
credit of the fishery's former greatness, argued from a state-
ment utterly erroneous. The old Dutch herring laws, never
for the hunters' benefit, restricted herring carriage by fishers ;
when a glut occurred they prohibited hunting, and .such pro-
hibitions are frequent enough.* As a fact, the industry was
either permitted or prohibited, upon the College's annual
advice, as the state of the market seemed to require abun-
dant or slower supplies. Opinions were generally divided
on the subject in the College ; Rotterdam, Schiedam and
Brielle generally moving to allow sale-hunters to sail, and
Delft and Enkhuizen opposing them. Delegates from
these five towns have for a long period composed the
College, and the point whether three cities could overrule
two was frequently contested d propos of the hunting
question, and generally decided by the majority having
their mind.

The said College about this time showed considerable
activity. Besides the extensive administration of the con-
voying ships, and the collecting of the shipowners' contribu-
tions out of which they were equipped, they were constantly
advising or petitioning the States for such legislative
measures as the times seemed to give occasion for, and
accordingly had their eye always upon the herring-fishery
trade and market in the most extensive sense. Not content
with these functions, " they of the Grand Fishery " con-
stituted themselves as guardians of the laws enacted upon
their advice. Every town where herring-ships were owned
had a fishery board of its own : and Delft, Rotterdam,
Amsterdam, Brielle, Schiedam, Hoorn and Enkhuizen, and

* See the placards on the subject of the years 1604, 1606, 1607, 1612,
1614, 1615, 1621, 1632, Gr. PL Bcek I., pp. 731-748 ; v. d. Lely.
Recueil, pp. 20, sqq.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 351

probably more towns not particularly mentioned, were by
means of these local boards constantly on the look-out for
each other's trespasses, which, as soon as discovered, were
reported to the central College residing at Delft, who took
steps for the better enforcement of the law. Thus in 1604*
it was discovered that skippers from Enkhuizen sometimes
acted against the fishing laws, and the magistrates of the
said city were compelled, upon the remonstrances of one of
the Burgomasters of Rotterdam and of " them of the Grand
Fishery " to issue an order for the observance of the exist-
ing rules by fishermen hailing from the Enkhuizen port.
On the other hand, some of the fishing towns took upon
themselves considerable responsibilities in the way of
mitigating the laws when found too severe. On the i$th
of December i6o9,f the local boards of Delft, Rotterdam,,
Schiedam, Brielle and Enkhuizen met at the first-named
town, and agreed, on their own authority, upon a "mild
execution " of the statutes against selling herring at sea,,
provided such herring should not have been caught before
the lawful season. This striking instance of open tamper-
ing with the law is strongly illustrative of the very ill-defined
and swaying conditions under which public power was held
in the Republic. Still more strongly does it testify to the
fact that, even in the first outset of systematic fishing legis-
lation, its flaws and nuisances were realised by those con-
cerned, who knew their immediate interest even where the
law precluded them from following it up.

The Central Fishery College's influence manifested
itself afresh in 1606, by a prohibition against exporting
herring-barrels, whole or half-staves, nets and cross-
gear,:!: which prohibition was suggested by " those of the

* Res. Holland, 1604, p. 158.

t Res. Holland, 1609, p. 1089. \ Kruyswant.

352 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

Fishery " to the States of Holland, and by them applied
for to the States- General, who at once enacted it to be a
law for the whole of the Republic.* Nor was the College's
vigilance against transgressions of the herring laws
confined to stopping them at home. When any were
detected abroad, diplomatic intervention was resorted to
upon their advice, and sometimes successfully. As an
instance of this, an " accord," of the nature of what would
now be called a commercial treaty, was concluded between
the States-General and the Senate of Hamburg on May
22nd, 16094 by which the latter city bound itself over not
to let any herring caught before St. John's be sold in its
market. This treaty, about the observation of which
considerable difficulties arose a century afterwards, was
urged by the States, upon the College's advice, who had
detected the sale of early herring at Hamburg, in dan-
gerous concurrence with the Dutch exporters, who were
bound by law not to fish before St. John's. J

The year 1609 was a momentous one for the Dutch
Grand Fishery, for more reasons than the treaty with
Hamburg. It was in this year that James the First of
England, by the famous " proclamation touching fishing,"
menaced the trade with a blow which, if not averted,

* Res. Holland, 1606, p. 934 ; Gr. Placaetboek I. p. 755.

t Res. Ho II. 1609, p. 918. A copy of the document is inserted in
Ned. Zaarboeken, 1752, p. 483.

\ Treaties, or contracts of a similar nature seem to have existed be-
tween the city of Cologne and those of Rotterdam, Delft, and Schiedam,
at even an earlier period, by which the former bound itself not to admit
any herring unless branded under the Hollands' regulations. In 1754
the Dutch Consul at Cologne reported that herring from Zealand was
admitted there against the treaties, " whereas no other herring than
from Holland had been seen there since more than two hundred
years."

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 353

might have prevented its further development, and the
rivalry between England and the Netherlands as regards
sea-fishery first came to an open outbreak. The several
phases of this rivalry, down to its end in the war of 1652,
are of considerable moment in the Dutch fisheries'
history ; but as they belong to an order of events entirely
separate from the trade's home regulations, it is preferable
to treat of them in a separate chapter.

As regards home legislation, the now following years
offer little or no matter of interest, and are only marked by
a series of renovations of the placards before mentioned,
occasionally varied by alterations of little importance.
The only novelty in any way suggestive of the state of
the business, besides the placards on sale-hunting already
alluded to, is an Act of May I2th, 1620,* by which it is
prohibited to fish for herring among the cliffs of Shetland,
Ireland and Norway ; not in order to avoid collisions with
the inhabitants of those countries, but merely, as appears
from the entire tenor of the statute, because the herring
caught in the said waters was said to be of inferior
quality and unfit for curing. By this edict, besides, a
very notable extension of the Herring Fishery College's
functions is sanctioned for the first time, viz., their being
invested with judicial power. Any person sentenced by
the common magistrate for catching herring in the pro-
hibited waters, or salting, barrelling, or selling herring so
caught, is granted the right of appealing to the college,
who shall examine the matter in their next session, and
finally decide it by a judgment from which there shall be
no further appeal. The college is thus appointed to be a
court of appeal in some fishery cases, and its attributions
as such were in the course of times extended to most other
* Groot Placaetboek I. p. 752.

VOL. IX.— E. 8. 2 A

354 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

contraventions against the fishery laws, besides those
against the particular statute now mentioned. Nor were
the judicial functions of this board confined to cases of
breach of common law. According to a manuscript
"Recueil of the Grand Fishery," or register of notes
concerning it, kept, or owned, about 1753, by one Mr. J. v.
d. Lely and preserved in the Royal Netherlands Library,*
they have " from all old times " vindicated for themselves
the right of disciplinary jurisdiction against all misde-
meanours ("wandivoiren ") committed by the officers and
men serving both in busses and convoying ships. This
competence was officially confirmed in their hands, and
probably much extended, by a Resolution of the States of

* I have no positive clue to this v. d. Lely's social position. His
title of " Mr." shows him to have been a graduate-at-law. The
Recueil under his name frequently quotes the record-books of the
Fishery College, and its author appears to have been otherwise
possessed of extensive information on the fishery subject. It is by no
means improbable that v. d. Lely may have been secretary to the
College, a post of considerable importance in the republic's later
years. At any rate, such information as his Recueil imparts may,
if not contradicted by other evidence, be accounted conclusive.
Unfortunately the Recueil is drawn up in a very succinct style, so as
often to leave some doubt about the meaning of the words and
abbreviations. It has evidently been composed as a private register
to aid the memory of the author as deeply concerned in fishery
matters, and has never been published. The original record-books of
the Fishery College appear unfortunately to have been lost ; and
without them no very precise idea of that body's constitution and
attributions can be formed. There is extant another " Recueil van de
Groote Visscherye? also manuscript, owned, or written, by Mr. J. van
der Craght, and now in Mr. NyhofFs private collection. I have, upon
inspection, found both manuscripts to be literally of the same tenor,
and have therefore quoted the one bearing the latest date. V. d.
Craght's is dated 1745. Both look like copies of some original bearing
a still earlier date.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 355

Holland dated December 2Oth, 1625*, which indeed
constitutes the College a supreme court of justice in
fishery matters, with very extensive attributions. All mis-
demeanours of the seamen and officers in the convoying
vessels, who it will be remembered were in the country's
service and under oath to the States, were by this Act
attributed to the College of the Fisheries' Deputies and
expressly withdrawn from the ordinary military courts for
naval matters, i.e., the Admiralty Boards. Proceedings
against convoying commanders guilty of "shameful
running away out of the sea," and " omitting all devoir
against the enemy," as well as common breach of discipline
cases, were at the time now treated of committed to the
college's jurisdiction. Their sentences were decisive and
without appeal. Like all other fishing laws, the statute in
question was enacted upon the college's own presentation,
or rather was enacted by them and ratified by the States
of Holland.

" Devoir " was indeed required from both convoying
men-of-war and fishing vessels at the time when the college
was thus qualified to enforce it ; for in no period of the
republic's naval history did the Dunkirkers cause as much
prejudice to the fishing interest. In 1625 the town of
Enkhuizen alone is reported to have lost a hundred busses
to them.t Naval battles in forma were fought between
them and the herring fleet and conveyers ; and numerous
instances of busses being taken by ten together, and
convoying ships overcome by "the enemy," are balanced
by accounts of the latter having lost both ships and men.t

* Res. Holland, 1625, p. 604. Recueilv. d. Lelv, p. 8.
t Gevers Deynoot de magno sive halecum piscatu Belgico, p. 41.
\ Res. Holland, 1627, pp. 240, 248, 252, and many others in the next
years.

2 A 2

356 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

This irregular warfare was not carried on without consider-
able outlays of money. Sums averaging up to thirty
thousand florins were annually granted to the Fishery
College for the warlike armament of the busses ; and
subsidies very much larger were granted to the Admiralty
Boards to provide the necessary convoying ships. In 1627
the latter subsidy was carried to one million,* to be fur-
nished by the several provinces, each for a part proportioned
to its interest in the business, and twenty-four men-of-war
were sent to protect the busses in the said year. Indeed,
during a series of years the main part of the States of
Holland's Acts relative to the herring fishery consists of
money grants to the College and the Admiralties, and
exhortations to the latter boards to be prompt in equipping
the necessary vessels. The difficulties with England about
the herring fishery in the North Sea, and the insecurity
arising from the British Sovereign's manifestly hostile
intention to Dutchmen fishing on his shores, of course
made matters still worse for the trade. It is indeed a
marvel that it should, in spite of so many difficulties, have
attained a high degree of development. Yet such was the
case, as appears from Meynert Semeyns' curious little book
already quoted, and which, written in 1639,! gives a very
high idea of the state of the business at the time, even if
due allowance is made for a tendency to exaggeration
natural in the author as a citizen of Enkhuizen, then one
of the most important among the herring-fishing towns.

With Semeyns it is a point beyond dispute that Provi-
dence has specially destined the Netherlands to be the
centre of the world's herring fishery. " The Dutch," he

* Res. Holland, pp. 164, 166, 247.

f Meynert Semeyns, Corte beschryvinge over de Raring visscherye
in Hollandt.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 357

says, " catch more herrings, and prepare them better, than
any other nation ever will ; and the Lord has, through the
instrument of the herring, made Holland an exchange and
staple-market for the whole of Europe. The herring keeps
Dutch trade going, and Dutch trade sets the world's
afloat," whence the author states Dutch herrings to be
the mainspring of the world's trade and traffic. No other
nation, he says, ever tried this industry but to their detri-
ment ; and as an instance of this, he relates the fact that
herring caught by Englishmen at the same time and place
with Dutch fishermen had been found bad and corrupt at
the market of " Danswyck " (Dantzig ?), while the Dutch
produce was eagerly bought there. Besides such general
statements, which at any rate are additional proof that
herring was at the time a considerable article of exportation,
the author gives some valuable details about the way in
which the fishery was carried on in his days. The first
cast of the nets is made at St. John's (June 24th) about the
Shetlands, Fairhill and Buchan-Ness,* and the fishing
continued in those waters till St. James', or the 2$th of
July. From St. James' to Elevation Day (September I4th)
Buchan-Ness or "Sevenjof't was still the herring-fishers
place of resort ; while in the autumn they sought more
southerly seas, and fished in the so-called " deep water " off
Yarmouth till St. Catherine's Day (September 25th). But
these were general rules ; precise sailing orders to the fleet
were yearly agreed upon by the college of the herring

* "Hitland, Phayril, ende Boekenes." The name of the latter
locality seems to correspond with that of Buchan-Ness.

t As to the place designated by " Sevenjot," I do not wish to hazard
a guess. Luzac (Holl. Rijkdom //., p. 261) spells " Jeveniot," and the
name is given as " Sevenaths " in the periodical called Neder lands che
Hermes for Dec. 1826, p. 14.

358 THE HISTO'RY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

fishery at their annual meeting at Delft, some time before
the opening of the season. This often-mentioned cor-
poration, denominated by Semeyns, " the Lords of the
Grand Fishery," is stated by him to be composed of two
delegates from the magistrates "of such towns as are
notably concerned in the business." But this is inexact ;
for several towns and villages owning herring-ships were
more than once refused a seat in the college, whose
members appear to have had a full share of the exclusive
spirit common to all who held power of any kind in the
Republic. The college's power over all concerned in the
herring trade was very large, especially as the licenses
without which no buss could sail were delivered under the
Grand Fishery's seal, although by the intervention of the
local fishery boards ; whereby the college were possessed
of the means to enforce their rules upon the ships of towns
not represented. It is therefore a matter of easy compre-
hension that a vote in the college was strongly desired by
every fishing town, whereas the towns already represented
there used to resist intruders with equal perseverance.
Amsterdam and Hoorn, for instance, demanded admission
of their delegates to the college in 1628,* but were repelled,
and not admitted even when the States had appointed a
special committee to bring the rival parties to an agree-
ment ; although it appears from a very obscure entry on
page 2 of v. d. Lely's ' Recueil/ that Amsterdam would, in
order to obtain a seat in the college, have consented to
bear her share in the common charges, but have none in
the subsidies, which were to be divided as before among the
other towns. In 1636, Dordrecht in her turn sued for
a seat in the college, but also met with systematic opposi-
tion. Monnikendam was likewise rejected in 1701, but
* Res. Holland, 1628, p. 556 ; 1629, pp. 665, 757.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 359

Enkhuizen generously consented to deliver licenses to
fishing captains from this town, which was thereby enabled
to send herring busses to sea on its own account Besides
the fishing towns of the Maas, Enkhuizen appears for a
long time to have been an influential member of the
college, in which the preponderance of each town was,
according to Semeyns, determined by the number of
vessels hailing from it. Still, as the author avers, the
greater member has no right " to introduce any novelties
into the trade," and especially to permit the sailing of
" sale-hunters," without the lesser's consent. It has been
shown above that, if such a bye-law or tradition ever
existed in the bosom of the college, it was often trans-
gressed, and that Delft and Enkhuizen were overruled by
the other three towns, as regards the admission of sale-
hunters. Still, as a general rule, Semeyns' statement may
be true enough ; for a reluctance to admit " novelties " of
any description has always been the college's prevailing
disposition, much to the prejudice of the trade they were
called upon to promote.

As regards the herring fishery's extension at this period,
no precise statement can be made out with any degree of
credit ; but it certainly was very considerable. Walter
Raleigh has certainly committed exaggeration by averring
in his ' Observations ' touching trade and commerce,* that
3000 ships and 50,000 people from Holland were yearly
employed in the herring fishery upon the British coast ;
and other English writers of the period have given lower
estimates. De la Court, in his famous essay, 'Heilzame
Politique Gronden en Maximen,' evaluates the fleet at
looo busses ; but he wrote at a period when the Grand
Fishery's halcyon days were avowedly over. A writer in
* Muller, Mare clausum, pp. 72, sqq.

360 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

"den Koopman " (vol. i. p. 235) states 1500 busses to have
sailed in 1610 and 2000 in 1620, and doubtingly adds
that 3000 are said to have sailed a few years later.
According to Semeyns, Enkhuizen alone had 700 afloat in
1639 or thereabouts ; and this certainly was not under-
valuing the resources of a city whose glory and renown are
the author's continuous boast The towns on the Maas
were then and afterwards ahead of Enkhuizen as regards
the development of their herring shipping. Taking all
together, I should be inclined to tax any one with exagger-
ration who values the number of Dutch salt-herring busses
above 2000 at the time of the fishery's greatest expansion.
Holland and Zealand are the only provinces which under
the Republic owned herring-busses ; and Zealand's share
in them was very small. Considering that foreign trade,
agriculture, and several manufacturing industries have
always occupied the majority of the population of Holland,
and that some eight or ten towns at most were more
or less concerned in the fishery, two thousand herring
ships would appear to be a maximum which can scarcely
have been exceeded ; and it certainly is a matter of
wonder that such a number should ever have been attained.
A herring buss in Semeyns' time cost {1.3150, hull and
standing rigging ; and the " equipment," by which name
the author designs tackle, nets, salt, barrels, and crew's
hire and food, in the course of a season came to fl.438o
more. Each buss commonly made three voyages between
St. John's and December, at the end of which the whole
inventory was used up, and nothing remained but the
vessel's hull, and that generally in a very deteriorated con-
dition. The sum annually invested in the herring-fishery
during its greatest expansion must, by the above consider-
ations, have amounted to something like fl. 15,000,000,

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 361

an immense outlay indeed, considering the value of money
at the time. The expenses of the trade appear to have
augmented fast, notwithstanding the prohibition against
exporting fishing materials. In 1669 a herring ship was
estimated at 6*4550, and its equipment at fl.55oo.* In
1768 the hull was calculated at fl.pooo, and the equipment
at fl.6ooo for two voyages, and fl.Sooo for three.t As for
the trade's returns, each buss is stated in Semeyns' time to
have brought ashore on an average forty last of herring in
a season. The herring-prices at the time are not known ;
but such sums as 37 and 43 millions, stated to have been
the fishery's annual revenue by several foreign authors, {
are certainly strong exaggerations.

It is not certain how long this golden period of the
Grand Fishery lasted. Statistics were not then in use,
and, as regards the herring fishery, did not begin to be
published till the trade's decay had very decidedly set in.
The College, whose business it was to swear in every herring-
skipper and appose their seal to the license without which
none were allowed to sail, will probably have kept some
record of the number who sailed in each year. But their
books and accounts, if any, are no longer extant ; nor do
any of the authors on the subject give any chronological
details as to the duration of the trade's greatest prosperity.
As for legislation, some slight additions to the placards
before spoken of, and many resolutions of both the States-
General and those of Holland, about convoying-ships to be
sent out and subsidies to be granted, compose the whole
of it on record during the subsequent years ; but these give
no clue to the fishery's annual condition or progress.

* P. de la Court, Heilzame Politique Maximen.
f Den Koopman, i. p. 354.
\ Ibid. i. p. 235.

362 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

Such sums as fl. 100,000, borrowed by the Grand
Fishery College in 1647,* and fl. 187,95 8, exhibited by the
Admiralty of Rotterdam in 1641 as convoying expenses,!
do indeed show that, if the requirements for the herring
fishery's safety were heavy both on the hands of the State
and the parties concerned, the latter were able to meet,
and Government found it worth while to cover them. The
first serious check to the trade's expansion appears to have
been the first war between the Republic and England in
1652 ; and from that year downward, for more than 60 years.
War, Convoy and Prohibition are the words in which the
Grand Fishery's history might not improperly be resumed.
The Dutch fisherman's most redoubted foes under the
Republic were the English man-of-war and the French
privateer ; and during the greater part of the period
between 1652 and 1713 the Republic was at war either
with England or France, or both.

Some time before the war of 1652, complaints of Dutch
fishing vessels being taken or plundered by English were
frequent, and peculiar activity in the equipment of convoy-
ing ships was accordingly recommended by the States to
the Admiralty boards. Tromp's encounter with Blake off
Dover, in May, 1652, having determined the formal opening
of hostilities, the herring-fleet were the first sufferers, and a
considerable number of busses, together with eleven con-
voyers, were taken by Blake in July. The States of Holland
at first seriously considered the advisability of calling home
the rest of the fleet, and stopping the fishery till better
times ; but the measure was ultimately rejected, and
twenty-four fishing vessels were armed as convoying ships

* Res. Holland, 1647, p. 164.
f Ibid. 1641, p. 146.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 363

instead, besides six regular men-of-war.* Some English
herring-boats having been taken by the Dutch, Holland at
first tried to move the States-General to release them, and
issue further orders for respecting the British fishermen, in
the hope of meeting with similar forbearance on the
enemy's hands. But as the English on the contrary made
a thorough use of the rights of war, orders to do their
fishermen the utmost possible damage were issued, and
several more of their boats were accordingly taken in 1652
by Dutch armed fishing vessels.! But the grand tourna-
ment of naval skill and daring, of which the North Sea
was the theatre during the war of 1652-4, left no room
for much casting of nets. Though in the year 1653 the
Herring College applied for protection with even more than
usual persistency, the States, then obliged to strain their
utmost means towards the equipment of the squadrons
which fought under Tromp, Evertsen, de Witt, and
de Ruyter, could afford no men-of-war for convoy through-
out the season, and were obliged to grant " commissions "
to some fishing skippers, which documents, although
ostensibly delivered to promote the fishery's protection,
appear indeed to have been nothing short of lettres de
marque.\ Such covering could, of course, be of no avail
against the British fleets, and it is accordingly averred that
in 1653, the herring fleet, then still consisting of some two
thousand vessels, was kept at home,§ not indeed by Govern-
ment order such as was in the said year issued to the
whaling fleet, but by the ship-owners' prudence, who saw
the impossibility of fishing in anything like safety.

* Res. Holland, 1652, pp. 343, 387.

t Res. Holl. pp. 364, sqq. Ho II. Mercurius, 1652, p. 86.

\ Res. Holl. 1653, pp. 462, 538.

§ Aitzema, Zaken v. Staat en O or log, v. iii. p. 810.

364 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

The Treaty of Westminster, in April 1654, put a term
to the misery inflicted upon the United Provinces by this
disastrous war ; and in the same year the fishing was
recommenced, but still under difficulties, as appears from
several complaints of violence, suffered from English men-
of-war in the next years.* A general renovation, in 1656,
by the States of Holland of the placards of 1582 on the
Grand Fishery is the principal event on record during the
short interval of comparative quiet which succeeded the Peace
of Westminster. Nearly the whole of this placard of 1656!
is a literal reproduction of the existing laws ; but a few
additions, now enacted for the first time, point out in some
degree the fishery's already altered condition. The fact
of convoying ships equipped by the Herrjng College being
always with the fleet is now, for the first time, officially
apparent from a clause which enjoins the " captains of the
Grand Fishery" (i.e. the commanders of the above-men-
tioned direction-ships) to arrest any fishing skipper guilty
of either selling herring to foreigners or attempting to
carry it directly abroad, and send him home to be tried.
Besides this precaution against trespassers, a general
aggravation of the penalties, consecrated by the placard of
1656, may be considered as an indication of the pressure
exercised by the law upon the trade at large, and the
consequent frequency of infraction. A custom of selling
herrings unassayed and unbranded, or, as termed in the
new placard, " as it lies, or upon trial " % is made the object

* Res. Holland, 1656, p. 990 and others.

f Groot Placaetboek, vol. viii. p. 1242.

\ '' Aen 't hoepje te tasten, of zoo die leyd." The former words are
obscure, and may perhaps be relative to some peculiar mode of sale
of unassayed herrings, Viz., by touching the hoops of the barrel as a
sign of agreement followed by immediate transfer. But as " tasten "
in the Dutch of the period was, I believe, bometimes used for " to

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 365

of a special prohibition, no other sale than "op Pak en
Keur", (i.e. after the prescribed packing and assay, and
upon the quality determined by the brand) being per-
mitted. Another clause, prohibiting to pack salt, spices,
or other goods in herring barrels under cover of the brand,
is indicative of fraudulent habits among fishermen and
herring dealers ; and this supposition derives additional
strength from the official fixation, as appendices to the
law of 1656, of a series of very detailed forms of the
several oaths to be taken by herring skippers and sale-
hunters both on sailing and returning, which oaths provide
for every variety of infraction of the law which a person of
either description might have committed or might be
tempted to commit. Even these stringent measures did not
prevent frequent breaches of the law, which, as soon as May
1658, determined a special re-enactment of the prohibition
to sell herring caught before St. John's.* Another reno-
vation of the clauses against selling herrings at sea was
thought necessary in 1663.! It is more than probable,
from such indications as these, that the wrong effects of
several of the laws in vigour, and the prejudice they did
to the trade, had by this time been realised by most of
those immediately concerned. A very far-sighted and
able writer, P. de la Court, has delivered an opinion to the
same effect in his " Heilzame Politique Gronden ' en
Maximen" (edit 1669). "Several placards on the herring
fishery," he says, " have been made ere now ; the which

taste," it is probable that a trial of the ware by the buyer was
substituted for the official brand. The custom is already referred to
in a resolution of the States of Holland of the year 1651 (Res. Holland,
p. 255).

* Res. Holt. 1658, p. 178. Groot Plac-aetboek ii. 2501.

t Ibid. 1663, p. 172 ; 1664, p. 1 10. Groot Plb. ii. 2898.

366 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

tend greatly to the advantage of the foreign Fishermen,
who are not constrained to obey them."

Being unable efficiently to enforce their self-made rules
at sea, the Herring College resorted to the greater stringency
in the execution of such part of them as lay within the
control of their officers ashore ; and the towns whose
delegates were excluded from the college were of course
the first sufferers by this severity. The laws were not
only executed with great severity, but actually overstepped
by the college. Thus, in 1659, Hoorn, which it will be
remembered had no seat in the college, complained of her
ship's masters being obliged, before sailing, to get a licence
(acte van consent) from the Grand Fishery, which docu-
ment was only delivered upon the applicant taking oath
not to fish before July 8th.* This date was posterior by a
fortnight to the lawful opening of the fishing season, and
it is not clear in virtue of what alleged competency of
their own the college established a " keure" or bye-law
derogating from the law of the realm in so vital a point.
The author of Van der Lely's Register, who certainly
wrote at a much later period, does not appear to have
been precisely informed about the matter, and simply
states that, " in 1659," the opening date was at one time
delayed till some day in July," f without adding whence
the college derived a title to such delay. At any rate,
Hoorn, being excluded from the college, alleged the
proceeding to be unlawful as applied to her own busses,
and laid the matter before the States of Holland. A
conference was called between delegates from the college
on one hand and Hoorn on the other ; and as a conse-

* Res. Holland, 1659, p. 199.

t " In 1659, wierd het eens vers (choven) tot in July, maar't Jaar
daaraan hersteld." — Recueil, p. 14.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 367

quence the lawful date of June 24th was restored in the
next year, and not thenceforward departed from.

In 1663 another difference occurred, still more strongly
illustrative of the efforts made by many to escape the
college's rule. One Francis Denick, a citizen of one of
the herring towns on the Maas, obtained the citizenship
of Veere, in Zealand, in order to avoid the statute of
Holland which prescribed all herring caught by Holland
fishermen to be brought to one of the markets of that
province. Though now a citizen of Zealand, Denick
continued to send his busses to sea from the Maas, and the
college therefore persisted in applying the law of Holland
to their skippers and cargoes. Upon the owner's petition
the States of Zealand instructed their delegates to the
States-General to remonstrate with those of Holland ; and
a debate on the Denick question accordingly took place
in the latter's assembly, -in which the Zealanders advocated
their new made citizen's rights, but without any success,
Holland maintaining the supremacy of the college and the
validity of the provincial statutes of 1582 and 1656 over
all ships sailing from any of the Holland ports, whatever
province the owner might belong to. " The question made
much noise, but led to no result," as Van der Lely mentions
in his ' Recueil.' *

The short period of peace with England, as said above,
brought the Grand Fishery only comparative quiet and

* Recueil v. d. Lely, p. 14. Res. Holl. 1663, pp. 336, 352, 609. It
will be remembered that the several Provinces were their own legis-
lators, and that only such statutes as were promulgated by the States-
General took effect in the whole of the republic. As there was no
codification, and laws were often laid down in very unprecise terms,
collisions between provinces on points of legislation were very frequent
throughout the Republic's existence.

368 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

security. The war with Sweden (1656-60) did not directly
affect the herring fishery, as hostilities were carried on in
the Baltic, far from the herring seas. It appears, however,
that English privateers, sailing in English vessels under
Swedish commission, in the summer of 1659, to°k occasion
from this war to annoy the Dutch herring fleet ; and the
Republic's ambassador was ordered to intercede with the
British Government to obtain the cessation of this abuse.*
Fresh complaints of violence suffered from the English
occurred in October 1660, and Charles the Second's dis-
pleasure being soon after aroused by negotiations between
the Republic and France, by which the States aimed at a
reciprocal guarantee of free fishery all over the sea, the
Dutch ambassador to the British Court was not successful
in his endeavours to obtain redress of his country's fishing
grievances.! The conclusion of the eventful alliance with
France on April 2/th, 1662, by 'which the fishery were
promised the desired reciprocal protection, and the short-
lived treaty between the States and England, of September
14 of the same year, could not long shield the Dutch
herring trade against the inevitable consequences of the
profound divergence between Charles the Second's political

notions and de Witt's government by an aristocracy. In

•

the course of 1664 both rival countries captured several
of each other's vessels ; and on January 26th, 1665, even
before England had openly declared that war which already
existed de facto, the States-General for the first time
prohibited all ships from sailing from the United Provinces,
whether for trade or fishery.J England at the time
proffered passports or " actes de suretf to the Dutch

* Res. Holl. 1659, ?• 261.

f Ibid. 1660, p. 749 ; 1661, p. 181.

J Groot Placaetboek. iii. 291.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 369

fishermen against payment of safeguard-money, but the
States of Holland, " considering that this might be of very
dangerous consequence, as making the inhabitants of these
countries indirectly tributary to the King of England,"
prohibited the taking out of such passports, and on February
3rd insisted afresh on a strict observation of the prohibition
to sail.* The treasurer of the Herring Fishery at Maassluis
even incurred the States' severe censure for having procured
British passports for the shipowners of his city ; he was
strictly enjoined not to make use of the documents bought
and paid for, and only escaped punishment upon considera-
tion of his having acted " more from inadvertency than
malice. "f Wishing, however, if possible, to divert the evils
of war from their fishermen on equal and honourable terms,
the States-General ordered one of their naval commanders
to offer England a safeguard for her fisheries on terms of
reciprocity.; and a letter to that effect was accordingly
sent from the Dutch flagship to the magistrate of Yarmouth.^
No answer being received, the herring fishery remained
forbidden in the years 1665 and 1666, in the course of
which the prohibition was re-enacted more than once, and
prohibitions against importing foreign herring and salt-fish
were enacted to prevent the enemy's profiting by the
stand-still of the trade in Holland. § A proposition to

* Res. Holl. 1665, PP- 59> 78-

f Ibid. p. 78. It will be remembered that every town where
herring busses were owned, even though not represented in the
College, at this time and afterwards had a local fishery board of
its own, and a " Penningmeester? or treasurer, appointed to manage
the local fishing interests. The Treasurers of Enkhuizen, Rotterdam,
Schiedam, Brielle, and Delft, were usually the delegates of those towns
to the College.

\ Hollandsche Mercurius, 1665, p. 143.

§ Groot Plac. Boek. iii. 293, 295. Res. Holl., 1666, pp. 101, 310.

VOL. IX. — E. 8. 2 B

370 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

re-open the fisheries was not made in the States of Holland,
till July 1st, 1667, some days after de Ruyter's splendid
success up the Thames ; and when peace had been con-
cluded at Breda on July ult, and the herring fleet could
sail in safety, the best part of the herring season, being
the third during the war, was over and lost.

There is no evidence to show on what scale and with what
success herring fishery was exercised in the years 1667-1672.
But even admitting these years to have been favourable, the
trade can scarcely have had time to repair the immense losses
undergone during the foregoing war, from ships taken or
kept inactive during the sailing prohibition, and able sailors
turned out of the business and killed in the country's service.
The only indication of the altered state of the business is a
debate which occurred in the States of Holland * in March,
1669, on the expediency of re-enacting the penalties against
selling fishing-vessels and gear to foreigners, and taking
service on foreign herring vessels ; which debate, however,
does not appear to have led to any definite result. The
formidable war of 1672, which eventually brought the
Republic to the verge of destruction, occasioned a fresh
prohibition from sailing on mercantile or fishing expeditions,
which again preceded the war's actual outbreak by some
days, being first proclaimed on March iQth, 1672. It was
indeed repealed on September I5th of the same year, but
re-enacted in the next, towards the opening of the fishing
season ; and it lasted even after peace had been concluded
with England in February, 1674, as the continuation of war
with France still left little chance of fishing in safety.
Mutual grants of free fishing were indeed conceded by
France and the States on September i5th, 1675, and June
22nd, 1677, but on both occasions repealed soon after-
* Res. Holl. 1669, pp. 63, 102.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 371

wards ; * and the liberties taken by French and Zealand
privateers with the reciprocal enemies' fishing vessels for
some time proved an impediment to the protracted negoti-
ations carried on at Nijmegen for the conclusion of peace
with France. Warfare between fishermen and Dunkirk
privateers lasted till late in 1678, and not till the conclu-
sion of the peace of Nijmegen, in August of the said year,
could the herring fishery be recommenced in safety. For six
consecutive seasons the trade had been either interdicted or
virtually impossible except on a small scale. No indica-
tions have unfortunately been preserved as to the extent
to which it was carried on in 1678 and the next years, but
even without precise knowledge of the facts there can be
no doubt that a twenty-five years' period of nearly constant
naval warfare must have occasioned a lasting decline. The
very considerable amount of capital which, as shown above,
was invested in the trade before 1652, cannot but have
been partly withdrawn from it in consequence of the long
and repeated periods of entire inactivity brought over the
fishery by the several wars.

It is apparent from many circumstances on record that
the trade's inward organization has suffered considerably
from the consequences of the war. Although sustained by
annual subsidies, generally to the amount of fl. 30,000,
and in some years more, besides the annual consideration
of fl.6,ooo paid to the Grand Fishery as redemption-
money for the exemption from duties on salt, the
treasury of the Grand Fishery College was in constant
distress from 1670 downwards, and their administration
appears to have been often in a disordered condition.

* Groot Plac. Boek. iii. 292, 298, 305 ; Holl. Mercurius, 1677, p.
230 sqq. ; Resol. St. Gen. Sept. 2, 1675, June 3rd and 22, 1677 ; Res.
Holl. 1677, p. 381.

2 B 2

372 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

From a very succinct list of the college's annual balances,
to be found on p. 45 of v. d. Lely's ' Recueil,' it is
evident that yearly arrears, ranging from fl. 21,000 to
fl. 30,000, occurred between 1670 and 1679, and that in
1672-75 and 1677-78, no proper accounts have been kept.
The quality of the fisheries' produce appears at the same
time to have been in decline, as a proof that even by the
most vigorous control and detailed legislation it is impossible
to warrant the excellence of any article against the effect
of the dealer's cupidity. In July, 1683, Dantzig merchants
complained that the Dutch brand-herring brought to staple
in their market was frequently either found unsaleable or
sent back to the seller from the inland German towns in
consequence of the fish being bad, the barrels half filled
with salt, &c. Complaints of a similar nature were sent to
Dutch herring dealers by their correspondents at Stettin ;
and the States of Holland, besides admonishing the college
to better enforce the statutes, resolved to write to the
magistrates of the said German towns and beg them, in
case of any further complaints, to note the marks on the
barrels returned, and communicate them to the States, in
order to facilitate the detection and punishment of the
culprit fishing steersman, cooper, or brander.* Again, in
November, 1687, complaints on the quality of herring
exported to Sweden were laid before the States by the
Dutch Ambassador at Stockholm, who represented that, if
such dealings continued, Dutch herring was in danger of
losing the Swedish markets to the Scotch produce.f

A short return of relative prosperity appears to have
dawned upon the herring fishery after the peace of
Nijmegen. At least, no other statistics being extant, such

* Res. Ho II. 1683, pp. 256, 260, 309.
f Ibid, 25 Nov. 1687.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 373

a conclusion may be drawn from v. d. Lely's * Recueil,' in
which (p. 45) it is recorded that from 1679 to 1689 the
deficits on the Herring College's accounts were replaced by
surpluses. The subsidies granted to them by the States
in these years uniformly amounted to 30,000 florins ; and
as their income besides these subsidies was mainly derived
from last-money, the revenue from which was proportioned
to the quantities of herring caught, the condition of the
College's treasury must in some measure have reflected the
trade's prosperity and adversity. Deficits on the books
accordingly recommenced in 1690, a short time after the
beginning of the war against France. This war was indeed
chiefly carried on ashore and in the Mediterranean ; but
for Dutch fishermen war against France meant destruction
by Dunkirk privateers. To keep these at bay was ac-
cordingly one of the principal aims of the English and
Dutch fleets in the course of the war ; but the impossibility
of sheltering the fisheries from them was once more proved,
though liberal grants of convoying ships were made to the
Fishery College by the States of Holland. These, as of
old, proved insufficient against the omnipresent Dunkirkers,
and a prohibition to sail was therefore once more resorted
to in 1691. Having been promulgated in the first days of
the year, the prohibition was indeed withdrawn, at the
College's request, on June 23rd, being the day before the
opening of the herring season ; * but on November 6th,
before the season's end, the fishery was again prohibited
and only permitted in the next years on condition of the
busses' steersmen delivering one-fifth of their crews to the
Admiralty Boards under which they resorted, to be
employed on the Republic's squadrons. Holland at the
same time interdicted the ransoming of busses captured by
* Res. Holl. 1691, p. 347. Gr. Plac. Boek. iv. 235, 237.

374 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

the Dunkirkers,* in order, if possible, to discourage them
by withholding the price of their exploits ; and it may be
assumed that in these circumstances the Grand Fishery
fared veiy miserably even during the short periods of the
war when it was not subject to an actual prohibition. A
declaration proclaiming the mutual freedom of the fisheries
was agreed upon between the Dutch and French delegates
towards the close of the negotiations which in September,
1697, led to the peace of Rijswijk ; but the results of a six
years' war, in the course of which neither the efforts of the
allied English and Dutch fleets, nor Jean Bart's taking
regular service under the French colours, could quell the
Dunkirkers' audacious invasions, told heavily upon the
herring fishery at the end of the seventeenth century. The
" extraordinary " subsidy of 30,000 florins, which during
the war had been withdrawn and replaced by Government
convoy, was granted again on November $th, 1701, upon
the Grand Fishery's representation to the States of Holland,
to the effect that they had got deeply indebted during the
war, in consequence of many busses and several of the
College's own conveyers having been taken by the enemy, f
Nor was the end of their trials then at hand. The war
for the Spanish succession again brought the Republic and
France into the field as foes in 1702 ; and even before war
was declared by the States (May 8th) they once more, on
March 3Oth, laid an interdiction on all sea fishery.^ Now,
as in 1691, the interdiction was withdrawn on June 23rd,
the day before the opening of the herring season ; and this
time the Grand Fishery was, in consideration of its supreme
importance for the country's most vital interest, exempted

* Res. Holl. June 22, Aug. 22, 25.
f Groot Placaetboek) v. p. 1 562.
\ Ibid. v. p. 376.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 375

from the obligation to send one-fifth of the crews to serve
under the Republic's colours,* to which all other branches
of fishery were indiscriminately subjected. In the course
of the war, frequent deliberations on convoy by men-of-war
to be granted to the fisheries, at their urgent and repeated
request, again form the main part of the States' records
concerning them. An idea of the conveyers' efficiency may
be formed from an account of an engagement between four
of them and four heavy French men-of-war, in which, on
June 26th, 1703, the Dutch conveyers were either sunk or
taken, and part of the herring fleet burnt by the French in
the Shetland seas.f A fresh renovation in 1707 of the
existing laws against exporting herring barrels or nets,J and
a " warning," proclaimed in August, 1708, against herring
fishers taking passports from the enemy " whereby the foe
is much strengthened and our other subjects are exposed
to serious prejudice," § are further sinister testimonies to
the Grand Fishery's sufferings by this war, which were only
terminated by the peace of Utrecht in April, 1713.

An era of peace now dawned upon the Republic. But
her herring fishery was broken down by the series of wars
and disasters, of which the last pages contain a very rapid
account. It is in the nature of sea fishery as a trade to
require an uninterrupted rotation of capital ; for, besides
the stock sunk in ships being subject to deterioration, the
considerable floating capital annually expended in equip-
ment cannot of course lie idle, and must be withdrawn from
the trade if an interruption of any length occurs. To keep
a fishing vessel idle for • a season is to incur a clear loss ;

* Groot Placaetboek, v. p. 377.

t Europische Mercuriits, 1703, ii. p. 107.

t Groot Placaetboek, v. 1 566.

§ Ibid. v. 1573.

376 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

and the only way in which to avoid this loss is, if possible,
to sell her, and buy a new ship when better times are come.
Wherefore, a fishery which during sixty years was scarcely
ever exercised without danger, which was several times
prohibited for years together, and from which it was con-
stantly forbidden to sell out, may by a safe deduction be
assumed to have been brought down to a low level at the
end of such a period, not to speak of losses of ships to the
enemy. I have not found any statistics or positive records
as to the Grand Fishery's condition immediately after the
peace of Utrecht ; but it may be safely assumed to have
at the time presented but a shadow of its former greatness.
And now the full weight of the legislative restrictions
imposed upon it contributed to keep it down. Being
intricated in a net of regulations intended to warrant the
quality of its produce, it could not compete with foreigners,
who managed under a more liberal system to produce an
article equally marketable, if not equally good. Being tied
to one first-hand staple market, viz. the Dutch emporiums,
it could not regain in the foreign markets that privileged
position which it had of course lost during the years of its
actual stoppage and stand-still. The fishing laws have
perhaps contributed to the herring trade's greatness, but
they have certainly prevented it from rising when prostrated
by the force of events. As a very convincing proof of this
the herring negotiations with Hamburg may be cited, which
are the principal centre of the present narrative's interest,
in the period to which it has now advanced.

It will be remembered that a treaty had been concluded
in 1609 between the Republic and Hamburg, in virtue of
which either party was to exclude herring of whatever
origin from its markets if not certified to have been caught
after St. John's, or June 24th, and cured on board.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 377

Holland had obtained this agreement as a shelter against
competition by Scotch fishermen, whose laws left them at
liberty to fish at an earlier date, and whose coasts lay so near
the herring seas as to enable them to cure their fish ashore.
As " new " or first herring was sometimes paid tenfold
prices, it was of great consequence to be first in the market ;
and this privilege Holland hoped to secure by binding
Hamburg over to apply the Dutch law to foreign herring.

In the course of the seventeenth century, however,
Hamburg's execution of the treaty seems to have been
such as from time to time to occasion recrimination on the
Dutch side. In 1668, a plan formed by some citizens of
Hamburg to fish for herring very early in the season and
pack the fish in Dutch barrels was detected by the Fishery
College and protested against by the States of Holland.*
In the first years of the eighteenth century, the British
herring fisheries having meanwhile acquired considerable
development, Hamburg was eagerly sought as a market for
Scotch herring. Hamburg dealers were, on their side,
peculiarly anxious to have their market stocked early, and
often complained of having to put off their expeditions to
the inland of Germany, till herring caught on or after the
24th of June and cured at sea could be brought to their
market.f There were two ways of gratifying this eagerness
for early herring : firstly, to fish before June 24th, and
secondly, to sail to Hamburg straight from the fishery.
Dutch fishermen were of course precluded from the former
method, and as their law forbade them to carry their
herring elsewhere than to their own ports to be assayed and
branded, they were likewise obliged to refrain from the
latter, and thereby placed at a very great disadvantage.

* Res. Holl. 1668, p. 173.
t Ibid. 1715, p. 724.

378 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

Matters became still worse for them when Hamburg began
to take liberties with the treaty of 1609, and admit Scotch
herring without the certificate required by the treaty with
the Republic, which infraction seems to have been pretty
habitual in the first years of the eighteenth century. The
British Ambassador at Hamburg appears to have employed
himself in favour of these imports, and the Senate for some
time closed their eyes on them, whereby Holland was in
danger of losing the considerable advantage inherent to
having no early rivals in the Hamburg herring market.

The Republic's Ambassador at Hamburg in 1715 detected
what was going on. He straightway reported matters to
the States-General, and upon their instructions insisted
with the Hamburg Government upon the strict observation
of the treaty of 1609. England, he urged, in virtue of her
treaties with Hamburg, was not entitled to any more
favourable treatment than the Republic, or to have her
herring admitted under conditions refused to Dutch and
other herring upon the terms of the treaty. This was true
enough, and indeed made out a strong case for the Republic ;
but she spoilt it by adding another argument based upon
her adversary's interest as interpreted by herself. The
States instructed their diplomatic agent to represent that
the Dutch regulations imposed by treaty upon the Hamburg
market had been observed there for a century, and found
beneficial for that market as well as for the trade in
Holland. Being averse to let Dutchmen manage their
own interests in the herring concern, the States could not
see that Hamburgers were perhaps the best judges of theirs.
After some exchange of memorials, Hamburg on October
25th, 1715, pledged herself henceforward strictly to observe
the treaty. But even admitting this pledge to have been
quite sincere, it was impossible to fulfil it against the

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 379

combined interests of Hamburg dealers and English fisher-
men, the latter backed more or less openly by their Govern-
ment's ambassador ; and, in consequence, complaints about
Scotch herring being admitted without a certificate were
heard in 1716 even louder than in the preceding year.

Here, now, was a tangible indication of the Dutch
regulation system's wrongs and. of the danger of maintaining
it. Evidence had already been, and about this time was
still further obtained to the system's inadequacy always
and everywhere to warrant the excellence of the Dutch
brand-herring, and it was now clearly shown that, so far
from shielding the Dutch fisheries against foreign competi-
tion, it left them at the competitor's mercy by preventing
them from using the only expedient by which concurrency
could be upheld, viz. doing as the foreigners did. It is a
remarkable, instance of the force of habit and long convic-
tion, that no one among the Republic's legislators seems in
1715 and following years to have realized this most evident
truth. They were imbued with the notion so strongly
expressed by Semeyns of old, viz. that Providence intended
Holland to supply the world with herring ; and in virtue
of this notion they did their utmost to enforce the supremacy
of their laws, but neglected such measures as might have
actually maintained their superiority in the market. In
the long list of States' Resolutions registered on the
Hamburg question no mention is made, till it was too
late, of any proposal either to relinquish the system of
the herring laws or adapt it to circumstances. The Dutch
Ambassador's reports on the subject were invariably laid
before a Committee of the Herring Towns Delegates to the
States of Holland, who had been trained to a stalwart and
uncompromising belief in the herring laws' impeccability ;
and upon their constant advice the year 1716 was wasted

380 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

in futile representations to Hamburg, to the effect that
admitting early herring in the market was tantamount to
ruining Hamburg trade. Hamburg traders by their conduct
manifested a contrary opinion ; but to such evidence Dutch
legislators were blind, being accustomed since long years
to consider the trade's regulation as their exclusive business,
and their supreme wisdom as the only safe guide for all
parties concerned.

The course of events strikingly belied this policy of self-
' importance and obduracy. While the Dutch Ambassador
was memorialising the Government of Hamburg upon his
principals' instructions, his colleague of England succeeded
in concluding a convention relative to the importation of
British herring in Hamburg, which, when a copy of it had
after some fruitless efforts been obtained and sent to the
Hague, was there judged irreconcilable with the treaty of
1609, and gave rise to fresh protests on the Dutch side,
and high-toned rejoinders from the Hamburg senate, in
the course of the spring of 1719. As a conclusion the
States acquiesced in the convention between England and
Hamburg, "readily believing the latter city to have had
good reason for concluding it," but at the same time
instructed their ambassador to strictly supervise the
application of the treaty of 1609 to British herring as well
as to Dutch. It may be doubted whether this control
was exercised with adequate vigilance, or whether it was
possible so to exercise it. At any rate for the next ten
years the matter seems to have occasioned no further
difficulties.

In 1722, Dutch dealers indeed complained of their
herring being re-packed by their Hamburg correspondents,
and considered the expediency of transferring their staple
importations to Bremen, whereupon the governor of the

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 381

rival port of Altona tried to secure the staple market for
his place, and conferred with the Dutch Ambassador at
Copenhagen on the subject.* But there is no evidence of
this plan having led to any result, and Hamburg in the
next years retained the transit trade of Dutch herring
bound for the greater part of Germany.

In the course of the year 1731, the Republic's Embassy
at Hamburg being then held by J. J. Mauricius, a diplo-
matist of great vigilance and activity, a series of complaints
about Scotch early herring being sold there without a
certificate reached the States-General ; and it appeared
from the ambassador's despatches that the Dutch brands
were gradually disappearing from the market. Mauricius
at the same time sent over a copy of a new convention
between Great Britain and Bremen, dated October i/th,
1731, which opened the latter market for Scotch herring
without any restriction. With Bremen the Republic had
no treaty, so to prevent the loss of that city's market for
early herring there was nothing to be done but leave the
Dutch at liberty to concur on equal terms with the Scotch
fishermen ; but this measure was never thought of. Ham-
burg, on the contrary, was still bound by the treaty of
1 609, and with that city a fresh exchange of memorials and
remonstrances was opened, the result of which, in 1732,
was another promise from the Senate that the treaty of
1609 should be strictly adhered to. Similar difficulties
arose in 1737, and led to an identical result, viz. the receipt
by the Dutch Ambassador, for the third time, of an " ex-
tractus protocolli " to the effect that the Hamburg Senate
was disposed to observe the treaty of 1609. And while
transmitting this document to his patrons, Mauricius
ventured to express his opinion " that they of the Grand
* Res. Holl. 1722, pp. 398, 531 ; 1723, p. 29.

382 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

Fishery had better do their utmost to keep the Hamburgers
in their present favourable mood."

There was but one way of following this sensible advice,
viz., to take measures in order to stock the Hamburg market
in time, and not keep the dealers waiting for Dutch herring
till the time required- for lawful catching, packing and
branding of the fish had elapsed. But the college as yet
would not be brought to give up their habits of leisurely
observing the placards to the letter ; and of course the
Hamburgers, treaty or no treaty, went on dealing in early
Scotch herring, to the Dutch exporters' incalculable pre-
judice. In 1750, the then Dutch Ambassador Buys once
more reported considerable imports of Scotch herring with-
out a certificate, and in the course of the next two years,
upon the States-General's instructions, delivered several
remonstrances to the Senate and was answered by the
usual " extractus protocolli," containing promises, the ful-
filment of which never came. The Republic, time after
time, let herself be silenced by these stale promises, and
still kept up her worn-out belief that the treaty of 1609 was
for Hamburg's good, and could conveniently be observed
there. At last, in July, 1752, it appeared from one of Buys'
despatches that a cargo of English herring had been sold
at Hamburg without a certificate before Dutch herring had
been heard of by anybody upon the market. And now, after
some forty years' steady perseverance in a rotten system,
and fruitless and futile efforts to enforce that system upon
others whose interest was opposed to it, the College at last,
upon Buys' most pressing advice, made one single tardy
concession which, if made in time, might perhaps have
prevented all the difficulties just now related. They asked,
and of course obtained, the States' permission to send
herring to Hamburg direct from the North Sea. This was

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 383

a breach of some width in the system ; for it was a deroga-
tion from the laws made to uphold the herring markets of
Holland ; and besides, herring brought straight to Hamburg
was of course to go without the sacred brand of the Dutch
assayers. For these reasons there was much opposition to
the plan. The delegates from Enkhuizen foresaw " the
most ruinous consequences " if it were to be adopted ; and
by way of a transaction the exports of herring to Hamburg
direct from the fishery were restricted to three vessels'
cargoes in 1753 and the next year. The step was taken,
but the States hung back from taking it thoroughly, and
still did things by halves. Nor were these restrictions
abandoned when the measure, such as it was, proved a
brilliant financial success. In 1753 two Dutch sale-hunters
brought the first herring to Hamburg and sold it, although
unbranded, at £1.1562, and fl.8i4 a last severally, whereas
the first English herring-ship, having reached the same port
a few hours later, made only fl-543 for the same quantity.*
But even this could not convince the ultra-conservative
Dutch legislators of the expediency of trying the experi-
ment on a larger scale. Having so far belied the provisions
of the opposition in the Herring College, the experiment
was indeed repeated in the next years, but always with a
very few ships. Although of course involving a tacit ad-
mission of the existing legislation's noxiousness, these ex-
ceptional expeditions were to the very last treated as an
irregularity contrary to the law, and strictly limited in con-
sequence. If, having succeeded with three ships, Holland
had next sent thirty and aspired to send three hundred
from the North Sea to Hamburg, there is reason to believe
that great profits might, as of old, have been made in that
market ; for the eagerness for " new " Dutch herring was
* Ned. Jaarboeken, 1753, p. 1226.

384 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

now proved to be unabated. As it was, a few vessels only
were sent, a few shipowners made handsome profits, and
the trade's decline was not for a moment retarded by the
event of 1753. The market was not entirely lost ; in 1768
Hamburg and Bremen were still markets for Dutch brand-
herring.* But the shower of gold which used to be poured
down upon the Dutchmen who landed the first herring was
now, if not transferred to, at least shared by, others. Ham-
burg had grown accustomed to see British vessels first in
the market, and even when competition was brought on a
square footing in 1753, Holland could not regain what was
lost.

The herring fishery's general history now takes us forty
years back, after the above disgression relative to the
Hamburg affairs.

Some renovations and ampliations of the placards
against exporting herring barrels, staves, nets, and fishing
implements in general, which were enacted in 1719 and
1725,1 first show that even after the peace of Utrecht the
fishery's extension was not such as to open a sufficient
inland market for the industry of those who fabricated
fishing materials. No such renovations were required at
the time when Holland wanted all the barrels and nets she
could produce ; and if the supply now exceeded the
demand, the herring legislation certainly was one of the
causes. The trades of coopering and net-making might, in
virtue of the renown of Dutch barrels and nets, have
survived the fishery's greatness if the former's produce
had now been allowed to be exported. But such a
departure from the established rules was against the
legislators' views, and the prohibition once made in order to

* Den. Koopman, i. p. 237.

t Groot Placaetboek, v. 1580, and vi. 1433.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES, 385

prevent a scarcity of fishing materials, was maintained
at a time when its only possible effect was to make the
auxiliary trade share the decay of the principal one. It
certainly did at times prevent coopers from selling off
their stock, as is proved by the following facts. On
January 9th, 1722, a change was made in the lawful dimen-
sions of the herring barrels as established in 1582. As,
however, a considerable stock of staves, hoops, &c., made
under the old regulation was still upon the cooper's hands,
and unexportable under the placard of 1719, branders and
assayers were, by Resolution of the States of Holland,
empowered to brand such barrels until June 1st, 1722.
And to prevent the branding at a later date of barrels
made upon the old model, it was further enacted on June
2nd, 1723, that each brand apposed to a barrel should
henceforth mention the year of its branding.*

Despite these sundry provisions against the depreciation
of the Dutch brand, herring bearing that mark of excel-
lence was more than once, at this very period, shown to be
of inferior quality. In 1721, the magistrates of Stettin t
or " Old Stettin " (Oudstetijn) again remonstrated with the
States of Holland, about their brand-herring's quality and
packing, and were put off with assurances that the Dutch
laws on packing &c., were maintained with the utmost
possible severity. At the same time the Stettiners were
invited, as they and the Dantzigers had been before, to
co-operate towards the maintenance of the Dutch laws by
transmitting to the States the branded stave of each
herring barrel which should have occasioned complaints as
to the quality of its contents, in order to have the guilty
steersman or brander detected and punished. There is no

* Groot Placaetboek, vi. pp. 1431-2.
t Res. HolL 1721, pp. 578, 6 1 8.
VOL. IX. — E. 8. 2 C

386 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

instance on record of the Stettiners having acceded to
the invitation ; but in 1727 they again found reason to
complain of Dutch herring being bad.* It would
not be worth while to mention such incidents as these,
if they did not stand as curious samples of the Dutch
legislator's candid belief, against all evidence to the
contrary, that his work was perfect and could not but be
! admired and seconded by all who had dealings with the
Grand Fishery's produce.

While Holland tried, by such means as these, to
maintain some of her herring fishery's ancient splendour,
foreign competition rose and prospered in proportion to its
decline. It will be superfluous in this place to digress upon
the rise in the business in Great Britain at the time.|
Nor was Great Britain the only concurrent. In 1727, a
privileged fishing company was chartered at Nieuwpoort,
in the Austrian Netherlands, against whose competition
measures had accordingly to be taken. These measures
were once more based on the customary belief that the
existing system, if thoroughly enforced, sufficed to put
foreign competition down. Instead of taking steps to
place the Dutch on an equal footing with them, the Herring
College, fully convinced that without Dutch sailors a
foreign society could do nothing, sued for and obtained a
renovation, by the States General, of the prohibitions
against taking service on board a foreign fishing vessel, and
the penalties against breach of this law were aggravated by
the semi-barbarous enactment that the families of such
fishermen as should be abroad in foreign service should be
removed from their dwelling-places and be entitled to no

* Res. Holl. 1727, p. 5.
f Europische Mercurius, 1720, i. p. 279.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 387

succour from the public poor-houses.* But no laws, however
severe, could withhold the vital elements of the Dutch fishery
from taking refuge abroad in their present state of decline,
as is shown by an extensive correspondence carried on in
1727 and 1728 about a Dutch vessel arrested for smug-
gling nets, &c., to Nieuwpoortf The Nieuwpoort business
does not appear to have been prosperous, but Dutch com-
petition certainly was no party to the scantiness of its success ;
for, in 1736, its further encouragement was considered by
the Belgian authorities, mainly upon the plea that Dutch
herring was not imported into the Austrian Netherlands
in sufficient quantities to supply the fast-day requirements
of the Catholic population.! And this, again, is not a matter
of wonder, for the Grand Fishery was by this time reduced to
about one-tenth of what it was a century earlier. In a
Paper contributed to the often-mentioned periodical " den
Koopman," in I768,§ it is stated that only 219 herring-
ships and 31 sale-hunters sailed in 1736. This precise
statement, being the first instance of herring statistics
during the trade's decline, is sufficient proof of what it had
been brought to in the course of a century, by frequent
naval wars, and by its inability to compete with foreigners
at a time when peace allowed the fishing interests to be
actively pursued abroad.

The renewed war with France in 1743 does not appear
to have greatly affected the Dutch herring fishery. Be-
yond a renewal of the subsidy of fl. 30,000 formerly granted
for convoying purposes, || and which had not been sued for

* See Res. Holl. 1727, pp. 844,994, 1012, 1042.

t Ibid. 1727, pp. 1029, 1031 ; 1728, pp. 53, 281, 325.

\ Ibid. 1736, p. 666.

§ " Den Koopman? vol. i. p. 236.

|| Res. Holl. 1744, pp. 380, 391.

2 C 2

388 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

between 1715 and 1743,* and a further resolution of
July 7th, by which one ship of war was detached to
protect the herring fleet, no trace of the war's effects
upon the trade are visible in such documents as form
the basis of the present narrative. The institution of a
fishing company in Sweden, reported by the Dutch
ambassador in 1745, did not elicit any particular measure
from the States. Matters became different when, in
1750, Great Britain took steps for promoting her herring
fisheries on a very extensive scale, by chartering a company
with a capital of half a million sterling and the promise of
considerable premiums. Such protection as this could
not but reflect on the Dutch concurrents ; and from the
day on which Engl . nd definitely adopted the policy of
encouraging her fishery out of the public pocket, the
Dutch shipowners' cry was for having the same expedient
resorted to. In 1749, the Grand Fishery had spirit enough
left to decline a subsidy of fl. 50,000 in consideration of the
Treasury's exhausted state ;t but when England in the
next year set an example of paying fishermen out of the
public purse, no such generosity further occurred, and
Dutch fishers likewise began to look to the Exchequer for
the profits which the sea no longer yielded. Direct
premiums were not indeed resorted to at once. Protection
was first applied to the once Grand Fishery in the shape of
exemption from taxes. On the 6th of May, 1650, Holland
granted an immunity of the several provincial excise duties
for articles used in victualling herring-ships ; and as both
the number and the amount of these duties were consider-
able, the privilege was worthy of note. Three days
afterwards, the States-General allowed .an exemption of

* Receuil v. d. Lely p. 43.
t Res. Holl. 1749, p. 274.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 389

export duty on Dutch herring, which duty then amounted
to fl.2-io (i.e. two florins and a half) per last on St. James'
brand-herring, and to fl.4 on the Cologne (also called
St. Bartholomew's or Elevation Brand) and the great Rouen
brand.* Both exemptions were granted to last three
years, and were renewed every three years till the end of
the Republic. At the same time the placards against
exporting herring barrels and gear and taking service on
board foreign fishing-vessels were once more renewed,f
and this furbishing up of old and worn armour was believed
to be sufficient precaution against the now stimulated
concurrency of English fishermen. The trade fared ill in
1750, notwithstanding its new privileges. A paragraph by
a contemporaneous writer states the condition of the
Grand Fishery to have been such, that " most busses sailed
money overboard, some returned neither gain nor loss,t
and a very few brought a small clear profit." As for the
number of herring-ships sailed, it will be found in Ap-
pendix A to this work, for this and the following years, and
will show the quondam Grand Fishery's now reduced and
still further declining condition. The table is taken from
the Committee's Report of 1854, who compiled it from the
contemporary yearly statistics to be found in the "Ned.
Jaarboeken." The figures are certainly exact, or very
nearly so, and are the first regular herring statistics ever
compiled in the country.

Further encouragement was obtained by the salt-herring
fishery in 1758, when France, as a reward for the fidelity

* Groot Placaetboek, vii. p. 1592. A supplementary exemption from
a peculiar duty on salt, known as " round-measure duty," was granted
for herring-ships in 1754 (Gr. PL Boek, viii. p. 1077-1080).

f Groot Placaetboek, vii. pp. 1 593-4.

\ "Speelden Kamp? see Ned. Jaarboeken, 1750, p. 723.

390 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

with which the Republic kept neutral in the Seven Years'
War, opened her frontiers for Dutch herring, which had
long been forbidden the country. The neutrality did not
tend to the Republic's political glory, and its fruit did not
yield the fishery much profit ; for it will be seen from
Appendix A that the decrease in the number of herring-
ships was peculiarly rapid in the years following 1758.
Even the opening of such a market, from which English
herring was excluded, * did not act as a stimulus on the
once Grand Fishery, whose energy, as a natural result of
two centuries' paternal regulations, was now at as low an ebb
as the Republic's in general. The privilege was contemp-
tuously withdrawn by France in 1763, after the war's
termination ; and as a proof that it had not been taken
advantage of while it lasted, its withdrawal, instead of further
injuring the herring fishery, was actually followed by a
slight increase of it in the next two years (see Ap-
pendix A).

Fiscal immunities proving inefficient to restrain the
fisheries' decline, direct premiums were now resorted to.
Such a premium seems to have been first granted by the
city of Flushing in 1754, to the amount of £.30 for each
herring-ship sailing from the said port, and for a period of

* So strictly was this exclusion maintained that the French
ambassador at the Hague in the course of 1758 took steps to prevent
English herring being sent to France together with Dutch, or packed
in the same barrels. A placard dated July 24th and expressly pro-
hibiting to mix up foreign herring with Dutch (Gr. PL Boek viii. 1261)
was issued by the States merely to content France's apprehension,
which power does not seem to have placed much trust in the famous
Dutch fishing laws, which implicated a similar prohibition since two
centuries. This disgraceful moment in the fisheries' history is fully
described in Wagenaar's Vad. Hist. xxii. p. 456 ; xxiii. p. 77, and Ned.
Jaars. 1758, p. 1045. See Res. Holland, 1758, pp. 601, 874, 988.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 391

seven years.* A premium double the amount was allowed
to fishing boats from Burch in Zealand, in 1758, out of the
provincial treasury ; and some inhabitants of Veere having
applied for a similar bounty, the premium system was
extended to all Zealand fishermen in i/SQ.f Holland
adopted it some years afterwards.

Some fresh difficulties with Hamburg are on record in the
following years. English and Dutch herring at this time
were still concurrents in the Hamburg market, both under
certificate as to their having been caught after St. John's
Day ; and as a few Dutch sale-hunters were annually sent
to Hamburg straight from the fishery, competition between
them was now on a fair footing. But others began now
to obtain unlawful advantage. In 1769, England and the
Republic ordered their ambassadors jointly to remonstrate
against the proceedings of the Danes, who managed to
smuggle forbidden herring into Hamburg under certificates
mentioning not the date of their catching, but the one on
which the Danish trader had taken them on board.J
Worse enemies than these appeared in the Hamburg
market in 1773. A Prussian fishing company, incorporated
at Embden some time before, toward the opening of the
season of that year, boldly announced its intention to bring
herring to Hamburg a week before the lawful term ; and it
was the Prussian chargt d? affaires ' boast, that the ancient
city would not dare to refuse these cargoes, treaty or no
treaty. He was mistaken in the first instance ; for an
Embden vessel, having fished as early as June i8th, was
refused admittance by the Hamburg authorities, although
coming into the port a day after the first lawful Dutch
cargo. The King of Prussia in the next year, quite in the

* Ned. Jaarb. 1754, pp. 92, sqq.

t Notulcti Stateti v. Zccland, 13, 20, 21, 24, Sept.

J Res. Holl. 1769, p.j.oj. Res. Stat. Gcu., April.2ist

392 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

spirit of Frederick the Great's downright politics, ordered
the sovereign magistrate of the Free City of Hamburg to
admit early herring from Embden at whatever period such
herring might have been caught ; and when the order was
protested against, vouchsafed no answer. Hamburg
excused herself to the Republic " as being unable to with-
stand a powerful neighbour ; " and the States, who at this
period of their government were as a rule very anxious to
keep out of harm's way at any price, did not venture any
opposition. The herring treaty of 1609 being thus virtually
annulled, there was now, if ever, good reason for Holland
to allow her fishermen to fish as early as the Embdeners ;
the more so, as the Dutch ambassador Hop had recently,
in 1770, strongly impressed upon his Government the
stringent necessity of being early in the market at
whatever cost, since the first herring, whether good or bad,
English, Dutch or Danish, was sold there at fabulous
prices. But once more the States were deaf to the most
urgent expostulations, and though every shadow of observ-
ance of the treaty of 1609 was now withdrawn, still kept
their St. John's rule upright* It would indeed appear
from such facts as these, that some notion at the time
prevailed to the effect that it was better to catch herring
after St. John's and find no market for it, than to
catch it earlier and sell it at good prices. The system was
maintained with the more obduracy in proportion as its
powerlessness to do any good to the fishery became more
strikingly apparent on all sides.

The Grand Fishery was now' indeed beset on all sides.
Denmark, in 1767, chartered a herring fishery, and, in 1774,
prohibited all importation of foreign fish. Austria did her
utmost to promote the fisheries of Nieuwpoort and Ostend.

* Res. Holl. 1770, p. 1272 ; 1773, p. 485 ; 1774, p. 496; J775> PP- !55>
293. Res. St. Gen. 1775, p. 419.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 393

England persevered in encouraging hers by considerable
bounties. Prussia, besides making free with competitors
in the summary way described above, in 1775 prohibited
Dutch herring to be imported in July, August, and
September of each year.* The trade in Holland and
Zealand, as the often-quoted writer in "den Koopman"
picturesquely states, f had, " despite all unceasing offerings
up of sighing prayers and zealous heaven-solicitations,
aye, notwithstanding all public supplications in the
Reformed Churches of these countries by so many up-
lifted hands and hearts, come to diminish from year to
year, a matter of wonder as regards the one, and of sorrow
with respect to the other." Besides leaving the trade at
liberty and repealing the herring statutes, which measure
was never thought of by an enlightened and paternal
government, there was but one remedy as yet untried,
viz., direct bounties to fishermen out of the tax-payers'
pockets, besides the fiscal immunities they were already
possessed of. This last resource of all protective legisla-
tion, which as shown above had been adopted in Zealand
before, was accordingly sued for in Holland, in May 1775,
by " those interested in the herring fishery at Delfthaven,
Rotterdam, Schiedam, Vlaardingen, Maassluis, and in the
north quarter at Enkhuizen de Rijp and Noordend, being
the whole of those concerned in the trade in Holland and
West Vriesland." { No less a premium than fl. 600 for

* Res. Holl. 1775, p. 445 ; 1777, p. 326 ; Res. St. Gen. 1775, p. 277.

t " Den Koopman? i. p. 235.

% It is to be noted that, according to this enumeration, the herring
trade had before this been entirely abandoned at Hoorn and Brielle,
where it was formerly exercised to some extent. The towns named in
the text petitioned as severally concerned in the common interest, and
not as members of the College, in which several of them were not
incorporated.

394 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

each buss was asked for, besides a bounty on exportation
of herring at fl. I per ton, and a recommendation ex officio,
that the inhabitants of all poor-houses, and similar estab-
lishments, should be fed on herring at least twice a week.
The College of the Grand Fishery examined the request,
and of course seconded it, " because the business could not
be kept going without notable assistance." The College
besides reminded the States that, having in 1748 refused a
proffered subsidy when not required, they were entitled to
it now they could not do without it. They omitted to
state that the subsidy rejected in 1748, had been formerly
accepted readily enough whenever there was occasion for
it, and that the said subsidy was widely different from the
premium now sued for ; the former being a grant to the
central direction of the fisheries to meet convoying expenses,
and the latter a direct payment to each skipper out of the
provincial treasury, to be obtained in full peace, and upon
no other consideration than the fact of his having sailed for
herring. The States of Holland, however, granted the new
bounty by Placard of May iQth, 1775.* Upon mature
consideration, related in the intolerably tedious style
of the period, they allowed fl.5OO to the proprietor
of each herring ship which should sail in the course
of the next two years. The other measures sued for,
viz., the exportation bounty and the order to the poor-
house boards to feed their poor on herring, were both
declined.

It was expected that in the course of the two years for
which the bounty had been allowed, the herring trade, thus
encouraged, should beat foreign competition out of the field
and regain its former greatness. And as a fact, now they
were sure of a bounty, the number of busses increased

* * Res. Holl. 421, 464. Groot Ptacaetboek ix. 1303.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 395

from 158 in 1775, to 179 in 1776. But they were now
fishing more for the premium than for herring, and accord-
ingly, when after the lapse of two years the bounty was
reduced to fl. 400, in order to maintain equality with the
amount allowed to whaling vessels, the number of busses
sailing decreased faster than ever, as shown by Appendix
A. In 1780 it came down to 151, or about as low a figure
as had occurred before bounties were granted.

The war declared by England to the Republic on
December 2oth of that year inflicted another heavy visita-
tion upon the herring trade, although at the war's outset
the fleet, then not yet returned from the Deepwater,
escaped destruction by a hairbreadth. The moment the
declaration of war was known at the Hague, a fast-sailing
sloop was sent to warn the busses ; and though closely
chased by British cruisers, the vessels all got safe home,
where their return was commemorated by a day of public
prayer and thanksgiving, and the coining of a medal.*
But there was no durable occasion to rejoice. The Re-
public had' scarce men-of-war enough to cover her coasts ;
convoy was therefore out of the question, and on January
26th, 1781, a general sailing prohibition, improperly styled
"embargo," was laid on all Dutch merchant and fishing
vessels, and not repealed even upon the fisherman's most
urgent request. A negotiation which the Dutch ambas-
sador at Brussels was directed to open with his British
colleague, with a view to the parties' engaging to leave
each other's fishermen unmolested,! led to no result.
Herring was now, perhaps for the first time, actually
imported into the Republic from Denmark, and the Danish
Herring Company kept an agent at Amsterdam, who tried,

* Ned. Jaarb. 1781, p. 250.
t Res. St. Gen. 1781, p. 333.

396 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

though in vain, to obtain an immunity of import duty for
his principal's article.* No herring busses sailed during
the season of 1781, and this time, as a further derogation
from the herring laws, the States-General saw the expediency
of allowing shipowners to sell their vessels abroad, under
a promise of buying them back in better times, and subject
to the advice of the Admiralty Board on the Maas for each
special case.f

In 1782 it appears some Dutch busses went about their

trade, and fished unmolested under the British men-of-war's

guns,t but this was a mere act of toleration, as passports

were only exchanged in I783,§ pending the negotiations

which on August 28th of that year led to the signing of

peace preliminaries. No less than six hundred passports

were applied for at the time by the local fishery boards in

several Dutch fishing towns ; but only 120 busses, besides

a few trawls of the coast fishery, appear to have sailed.

The trade was recommenced on a somewhat larger scale,

but as yet without a premium, in 1784. In the next year,

" those concerned in the herring trade of Holland and West

Vriesland " once more sued for a bounty of fl. 700 or 800

for each buss, which was granted in 1786 to the amount of

fl. 700 for each ship that had sailed in the preceding year.

At the same time the Admiralty of the Maas having

reported that William Cunningham, Receiver-General in

Ireland, had tried to induce a skipper from Vlaardingen to

establish himself on the Irish Coast, the prohibition against

engaging in foreign fishing concerns was renewed once

* Res. St. Genl. 1781, pp. 647, 734 ; Res. Holl. 1781, p. 778.
f Res. Holl. 1 78 1, p. 1286 ; 1782, pp. 85, 121 ; Res. St. Gen. 1782, p.
1388.

\ Ned. Jaarb. 1782, pp. 566, 663 ; Vervolg op Wagenaar, pp. 4, 376.
§ Res. St. Gen. 546, 560.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 397

more by Placard of May 3rd, 1786.* In 1788 the bounty
system was regulated on a footing intended to be durable,
a premium of fl.5OO per herring buss being granted by a
States of Holland's Publication dated April I7th, to be
repeated annually for twelve years.t The measure once
more called forth a slight increase of the trade towards the
Republic's end, although the number of 200 busses was
never reached. Fishing laws were maintained to the end.
A renovation of the edict against sending herring to the
Weser and Elbe unless cured, packed, and branded accord-
ing to the law,t which law had been last re-enacted in 1715,
at the outset of the difficulties with Hamburg, is the last
act of legislation on herring fisheries under the Republic.

CHAPTER II.
WHALE FISHING.

THE engines of both Dutch and English whaling coincide
with the beginning of the second decade of the seventeenth
century.

Spitzbergen having been discovered by Van Heemskerk
in 1596, and by British mariners the next year, reports
about the seas off this island being very full of whales,
soon began to spread, and set ship-owners' imagination and
spirit of enterprise working in both countries. Still, in
Holland, some time yet elapsed before any one ventured in
a trade so entirely new. One Captain Huygen van Lin-
schoten, in 1601, published an account of his voyage to the
Arctic seas, accomplished in the years 1 594-5 ; and he

* Res. Holl. 1786, p. 2952. Gr. Plac. Boek. ix. p. 1310.
t Groot Plac. Boek. ix., p. 1313.
\ Ibid. ix. p. 1315.

398 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

described the whales, their tameness and multitude, and
added, "A goodly fishery might be made upon these
animals, if people would turn their thoughts that way.*
But in the next years nobody did. The novelty and risk
of the thing probably deterred single-handed enterprise ;
and subscriptions towards a whaling company are not
reported to have been collected until the year 1611. The
two first D.utch whalers sailed to Spitzbergen in 1612, but
failed utterly : firstly, in consequence of outrages committed
upon the ships by English concurrents, and, secondly, from
lack of experience how to manage the business. Having
sailed in quest of the whale, the Dutch found securing and
killing him a very different sport from their accustomed
business of netting the herring and hooking the cod, and
were unsuccessful till the fashion of hiring harpooners from
the Bay of Biscay came into use, when the trade at once
proved a promising business. Frenchmen from Biscay,
and from St. Jean de Luz especially, had practised whaling
at a more remote period, when a peculiar kind of whale
was found off their own coasts. They seem to have
afterwards followed the animals to Greenland and acquired
a degree of training which fitted them to teach the Dutch
the art of whaling, in which the latter soon became such
adepts as to find plenty of skilful harpooners in their own
country.

The command of a whaling expedition was at first
divided. The navigation department belonged to the ship's
master ; but when in sight of the fish he abdicated, and the
harpooner took the direction of the further proceedings
upon himself. By his orders boats were manned, fish
attacked or left alone, and when killed towed alongside
and left in the water till they " rose," so as to enable the

* P. 7.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 399

men to stand on them, which period was the fit one for
slicing or " flensing " the blubber. As the harpooning and
blubber-carving business was the most important in the
eyes of the ship-owners, the harpooner of course was a
great personage on board, and his authority seems at first
to have exceeded that of the skipper or " commandeur."*

Spitzbergen, as said before, was the cradle of the whaling
industry. Its seas were then alive with whales ; and,
moreover, its geographical position and the nature of its
coasts afforded the trade peculiar advantages.! In con-
sequence the shores of the newly-discovered island were
soon the theatre of contentions between British and Dutch
whalers, as both nations claimed to be its first discoverers.
A collision between the rivals in 1612 (see Chap. V.) led
to the chartering of the Dutch Arctic Company (Noordsche
Compagnie}.

This company appears at first to have borne a merely
private character. Subscriptions towards it, as said above,
were raised as early as 1611. In 1612 they made their
first and unlucky whaling attempt, after which the States
made it their business to succour them. This was first done
in 1613, by a prohibition to all Dutchmen fit for whaling
service to take such service abroad,J in order to prevent
a scarcity of men trained to the business. In the same

* Zorgdrager, Bloeyende Opkomst der aloude en hedendaagsche
Groenlandsche Visschery, p. 99. The author speaks of but one
harpooner, but of course the vessels carrying five or six whaling boats
had several men to perform this part of the service. The personage
mentioned by Zorgdrager is probably the chief harpooner, who in the
first years of the trade was always a " Biscayer." Several harpooners
are mentioned in the lists of some whaling crews which have been
preserved.

t Zorgdrager, Bloeyende Opkomst, etc., p. 160.

\ Res. St. Gen., March 23rd, 1613.

400 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

year the company sued for a charter from the States,
which was granted them on January 27th, 1614, and in
virtue of which they set up as monopolists, after the
manner of the East India Company, then already extant.

Their charter of monopoly, though applied for to last
ten years, was at first granted for three only.* It con-
ferred on them the exclusive right " to trade and fish from
these United Netherlands, on or to the coasts of the lands
between Nova Zembla and Fretum Davidis," including
Spitzbergen, Beeren-Eiland, Greenland, etc. Partners in
the company were to be entitled " not only to the profits of
their money in proportion to the sums they shall have
ventured, but also to all such further advantages as shall
arise to the company within the aforesaid time, whether
pertaining to the administration of the said company and
equipage, or otherwise." On April 4th, 1614, towards the
beginning of the whaling season, the States-General
decreed that the company's ships should sail under convoy,
and pay last-money ; and in the next years one or more
of the States' men-of-war generally sailed with the whaling
fleet. The object of these warlike expeditions, and of
the company's own armaments, was twofold. Besides
catching whales, they meant to discover new countries, and
as a fact, made several discoveries of islands in the Arctic
seas. Their charter, as shown above, included such islands
in their fishing monopoly, which circumstance of course
stimulated their exploring ardour. The principle that the
discoverer had a right to profit by his discovery, was
applied by the Republic with remarkable fairness. In
1618 the States of Holland granted their worst enemies,

* Groot Plac. Boek. i. 670. The document is also to be found in
Aitzema, Saecken van Staat en Oorlogh, vol. ii., p. 356 ; Zorgdrager
//., p. 173 ; Wagenaar Vad. Hist. vol. x. p. 68.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 401

the Dimkirkers, the right to fish off a small island dis-
covered by some of them, provided they should sail thither
under Dutch colours, and contribute towards the expenses
of the common defence, i.e. pay last-money.* The foreign
discoverer's rights were thus respected at the price of a
breach of the company's monopoly.

The ardour for discoveries on the company's side was
great. They even seriously attempted the north-east
passage, and towards the opening of the whaling season of
1615 resolved to send some ships to China, or "Cathay,"
by that route, and applied to the States-General for
permission, if obliged to return by the Indian seas, to
water and victual their ships in the colonies then comprised
in the East India Company's monopoly.! The whaling
ships and their convoyers seem from the very first to have
sailed in a sort of squadron ; for it is registered that on
April 29th, 1614, the States-General drew up an instruc-
tion for "the commander of the ships, both of war and
others, destined to the Northern islands whether for the
purpose of whaling or making discoveries." Their occasion
for convoy and armament was constant and pressing ; for
besides repeated difficulties and conflicts with British
whalers, they in 1616 had to provide against apprehended
violence from the King of Denmark, who in the said year
set up a claim to the exclusive right of fishing on the
shores of Greenland. Both these matters will be treated
of in another chapter. The States-General in the course
of the year 1616 granted the Arctic Company no less than
five convoying men-of-war, and, moreover, lent them
artillery to arm their own whaling vessels. J

* Res. Holl. 9th April, 1618, p. 591.
f Res. St. Gen., 2nd April, 1615.

\ Ibid. April 13, 28 ; May 11, 12 ; June 2, 1616. See ch. v.
VOL. IX. — E. 8. 2 D

402 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

Fishing operations were in the meantime commenced on
a large scale, and a permanent establishment was set on
foot on Amsterdam Island, near Spitzbergen, including
warehouses and accommodation for boiling blubber and
making barrels. This factory, called Smeermburg (or Oil-
city), in course of time formed a village, which in 1636
was fortified and provided with guns and ammunition.
Smeerenburg of course decayed with the Arctic Company,
but its remains were still to be found in 1768,* long after
the first prosperous days of the trade had ceased.

A very thriving business was at first done by the
company, notwithstanding frequent collisions with foreign,
and especially with British, concurrents. In the very year
of their chartering they sent out eighteen whalers, and the
number increased greatly in following years. The Spitz-
bergen shore waters in these times were extremely redundant
with whales ; the shores were accordingly in a few years
covered with blubber boilers and warehouses, and swarmed
with whalers from several countries. The company's charter
was prolonged in 1617 for the space of four years, the area
monopolised this time including the island of Mauritius or
Jan Mayen, discovered since 1614; and such was the
number of fish caught by their skippers, that the whaling
vessels did not suffice to carry home the blubber, oil, and
whalebone, and several ships were chartered year after
year solely for this end,f sometimes bringing to Amsterdam
in one summer two freights of a thousand quarters of train
oil each.

In spite of this extraordinary prosperity of the trade,
discord arose between the Arctic Company's partners in
1621, towards the expiration of their charter. There were

* Den Koopman, i. p. 239 ; cf. Zorgdrager, p. 191.
f Zorgdrager, p. 180.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 403

several chambers, or separate boards, in the company, viz.
one at Amsterdam, one in the towns on the Maas, one in
North Holland (or the "North Quarter"), and one in
Zealand ; and these had agreed to a repartition of
convoying, and other general expenses between them. In

1621, the charter being about to expire, a change in this
repartition was desired by some, and opposed by others ;
and as very high disputes arose on the subject, a
simple renovation of the charter under these circumstances
was impossible. The rival parties laid their differences
before the States of Holland, who. on January I4th, 1622,
appointed a committee to inquire into the matter and
effect a reconciliation. These umpires proposed to leave
the repartition as it was, viz., a quarter of the common
expenses for each chamber. But to this the parties did
not agree ; the " small company," by which name the
chamber for Zealand, though not then a separate body,
seems to have been designated, pretending to pay less.
There were, moreover, differences about the right to
establish blubber boilers, &c., on some parts of the available
coasts, to which rights both Holland and Zealand pre-
tended. The upshot of the matter was the separation
of the Zealand chamber from the company, and their
establishment as a separate corporation. On May 28th,

1622, the States-General issued a placard assuring the
Zealand company the right of whaling on the coasts of
Mauritius or Jan Mayen's Land, and enjoining both parties
not to trouble each other's establishments there, as the
island was large enough for both. Upon this provisional
charter the fishery was carried on in the course of the year,
but the contending parties in the same year came to a
definite agreement, in virtue of which, on December 22nd,
the charter of 1617 was renewed for twelve years, for the

2 D 2

404 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

benefit of both the companies of Holland and Zealand,
whose rights to the whole available whaling area, Jan
Mayen included, were by this Act made equal*

It may be mentioned here that in the early days of the
whaling trade a rival concern sought to obstruct its
progress. When in 1621, the Arctic Company applied for
their usual convoy, their request met with some opposition
in the States, on the plea "that it had as yet to be
established whether the public at large should profit by
the whaling business, whereas any measure taken for their
protection was sure to hasten the ultimate ruin of the
ancient and respectable industries of manufacturing and
dealing in rape-seed oil."f

But such arguments as this prevented neither the
granting of the demanded convoy nor the trade's general
prosperity. A very tempting account of the latter, about
and after the time now spoken of, has been handed down
to posterity by an author before quoted, Zorgdrager, who,
however, wrote about 1720, and was then a retired whaling
commander, and may, both as an old man and an old
sailor, have been inclined to magnify the splendours of
yore and the exploits of his predecessors on the deep.

Dutch vessels, he says,J used in the whaling season to
lie alongside of each other in Smeerenburg Bay, so close
together that boats could barely pass between them, and
tow aboard the oil barrels manufactured and filled ashore.
The vessels were moored safely, three or four miles from
the high sea, in an excellent roadstead, having an anchor

* Groot Plac. Boek. i. p. 674 ; Res. Holl. 1622, pp. 627, 641 ;
Zorgdrager, p. 181 sqq.

t Res. Holl. 1621, p. 403; Res. St. Gen. April 28th and 3oth, and
May 1 5th, 1621.

\ Pp. 174, 191.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 405

seaward, and fastened by ropes to large whale's ribs set up
on shore as mooring stocks.* From this station the fishing
business was done at ease, without unmooring the vessels,
by boats cruising in the bay, which was uncommonly full of
fish. The ships were manned double, one half of the crews
being constantly employed in killing whales and towing
them ashore, and the other in cutting the blubber, preparing
the train oil, and rolling the full barrels into the water,
whence they were floated to the ships and hauled on board.
A fleet of merchant vessels from Amsterdam, Rotterdam,
Hoorn and other ports was constantly to be found along-
shore, the vessels from each town lying close to their own
blubber-boiling establishments to ship cargo ; and a vast
stock of blubber, oil, whalebone and whaling implements
was constantly to be found in the Smeerenburg warehouses,
to which dealers in all the commodities of life had begun
to repair, making existence in the Arctic Sea a tolerably
comfortable one. Rolls, hot from the baker's, were even to
be had every morning in the height of the whaling season.

The company's halcyon days did not, however, last
many years. In 1633, the expiration of their charter
being again at hand, they, in spite of their monopoly, com-
plained of ill-usage by foreign competitors and the back-
ward state of the business, and further protectory measures
were taken in their behalf. It had been shown to the
States that, " By the act of certain unquiet persons, envious
of the welfare of these United Countries," sailors were
frequently tempted forth from the company's service, and got
to exercise their abilities abroad. Wherefore in the true
spirit of the times, when Governments were always ready

* Such posts have been brought home as curiosities, and may still
be seen here and there in the Dutch pasture grounds, where they are
used as scratching poles for cattle.

406 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

for the interest of a privileged few to prevent the people at
large from seeking their gain where they best might, it was
enacted that "No man living in the United Provinces
should navigate to Greenland, &c., in the whaling trade,
or after any sea-monsters, either from this or other
countries, except it be in the Arctic or Greenland Company's
service ; " and heavy penalties were at the same time
edicted against hiring out vessels or sailors to foreign
whalers and participating in foreign whaling concerns.
Dutch whaling vessels and implements were then indeed
in some demand abroad. A month after the date of the
placard just mentioned, the King of Denmark applied to
the States-General for an exception in favour of one of
his subjects, who used to procure whaling sloops and gear
from Holland. The Royal letter was submitted to the
Arctic Company, and I have not found whether the request
was granted or not*

The Arctic Company's charter being now once more
about to expire, some enterprising inhabitants of the
province of Friesland determined to try competition ; and
the delegates of Friesland to the States-General sought, in
June, 1633, to prevent another prorogation of the Company's
monopoly. But the delegates of Holland contrived to have
this instance put off, and the Prisons found themselves
excluded as before. Far from acquiescing, the whaling
season being meanwhile advanced, they sent three ships
north, and the states of Friesland, as sovereigns in the
province, in the next year granted their subjects a license
to exercise the whaling trade for twenty years, provided
they should be entered as shareholders in a Prison whaling
company chartered by the same Act (dated November 22nd,
1634). This charter was based upon the consideration that
* Res. Holl. 1633, P- 47 *•

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 407

it was " unlawful and contrary to the Union for one province
to preclude another from traffic in the free sea," and the
Arctic Company's monopoly had therefore no title to be
respected. But the participators in the Prison Company
nevertheless found it expedient to apply for the States-
General's approbation on their charter, to prevent "mis-
understandings and actual collisions " (dadelijkheden)
between the whalers of both provinces. The Holland Arctic
Company's Charter had meantime been prolonged for
eight years, by a fresh privilege dated October 25th, 1633 ;
but in spite of the monopoly thus maintained the States-
General issued orders for Hollands whalers not to molest
the Prisons. The latter accordingly fished, in virtue of
their own charter, and, as it were, on sufferance from the
States-General ; while at the same time the Arctic
Company averred the Prison charter to be void, as in
collision with their monopoly. This ambiguous state of
things, a result of the very ill-defined rights of sovereignty
in the Republic of the United Provinces, of course gave
rise to frequent disputes between the rival parties, to
terminate the which the States of Holland once more
offered their mediation, and had a series of meetings held
between delegates from the Zealand, Holland, and Prison
whaling companies before a committee of the States, in the
course of the years 1635 and 1636. As the result of these
deliberations, an accord was agreed upon on July 25th of
the latter year. To this agreement or " treaty" (which
was simply a private contract concluded before a notary)
the companies of Holland and Zealand combined were one
party, and that of Friesland was the other, and the latter
was allowed to share the whaling monopoly.*

A repartition of common profits and expenses was
* Zorgdrager, p. 188 ; Aitzema,\\. p. 359 ; Gr. Plac. Boek, ii. 3018.

4o8 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

agreed to in proportion as three for Friesland to twenty-
four for Holland and Zealand combined ; and Friesland
was secured the range of the other companies' whaling
area, provided they should not place their establishments
nearer to each other than was reasonable. A general
assembly of shareholders was to be held thrice a year, in
which Holland was to have six votes, Zealand two, and
Friesland one, and all parties agreed to trade only to and
from the United Provinces, and keep secret, and exploit
for the common advantage any new discoveries or inven-
tions to be made by any of them. The Frisons soon
afterwards established a blubber-boilery of their own at
Smeerenburg, from the ruins of which part of the shore
was called the " Harlinger* Traankokery " till late in the
eighteenth century.

.Notwithstanding this, extension both of their capital and
working power, matters went backward with the Arctic (or
Greenland) Companies after the renewal of their monopoly
in 1633. Several very unfavourable seasons, in which the
state of the ice occasioned the loss of many vessels, con-
tributed to their decline ; but Zorgdrager, who certainly
was a competent judge of the matter, mainly attributed it
to their improvident way of fishing. When the great
whaling establishments near Spitzbergen were first con-
structed, the company seems to have counted on a per-
petual affluence of whales to the same spots. But as this
animal procreates slowly, and has, moreover, a propensity
to migrate when much chased and annoyed, sport became
rare after a few years of abundance and reckless destruction
of them. The train-oil and whalebone mine had been

* Harlingen is a town in the province of Friesland, and one of its
burgomasters, named Hilbrand Dirksz, was one of the first partici-
pators in the Frison whaling concern.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 409

much overworked, and consequently became exhausted ;*
and the Spitzbergen whales, formerly described as
"innocent creatures," who unsuspectingly came and dis-
ported within a short distance from the ships lying off
Smeerenburg, in time became cunning enough to avoid
them, and retreat into the more northerly ice regions.
They were, indeed, pursued from place to place, but the
greater distance from Smeerenburg made the landing of the
prey more and more difficult Whalers were at last obliged
to " flens " or carve the- blubber and whalebone while
out at sea, and carry home blubber instead of oil, whereby
the extensive Smeerenburg boiling establishments and the
thriving trade of the oil-ships had to be gradually aban-
doned, involving, of course, considerable loss of capital.
This caused the ardour for whaling to slacken, and thereby
prevented the foynding of new establishments on other
places, which was, besides, made very difficult by the fact
of other nations having by this time taken possession of
most of the available whaling area, and each excluding others
from the shores of his own domain, to which, as stated by
Zorgdrager, no foreign boat was admitted unless the harpoon
were previously taken out of the " mik " or stand used in
shooting or throwing it. The pretensions of Denmark
relative to the exclusive right to some parts of the whaling
sea will be spoken of in another chapter.

The company's charter once more expiring in 1641, the
state of their affairs was such as to prevent their suing for
another renewal of it. Still, whaling experiments in parts
till then unvisited seemed full of promise, and the trade was
accordingly commenced at once by men from several pro-
vinces and towns, as soon as the discontinuance of the

* Wagenaar, Voder 1. Hist. x. p. 68.

410 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

monopoly left competition free.* Not being bound to any
particular place or establishment, nor burdened with a con-
siderable capital sunk in buildings, boilers, forts, &c., whalers
from Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Zaandam, Rijp and many
other towns began to sail after the whales wherever they
could be found, and generally brought home sufficient cargoes
of blubber and whalebone. The killing of walrus and seals
was likewise practised with some success after the Arctic
or Greenland Company's dissolution, which took place in
1645 ; and the trade, which had at first been fostered by the
company's monopoly, thus acquired renewed vigour after its
extinction.! It should, however, be added, that quarrels
and even actual deeds of violence between Dutch whalers
occurred frequently in the first years after the expiration of
the monopoly.^

A trade so very dependent on climatic circumstances
could scarcely yield anything like constant profit ; and it
is accordingly described as being " more of a lottery than
a trade," by most of the authors who have written about it.
A series of accounts of ships wrecked and crews miracu-
lously saved from death by cold and starvation sufficiently
corroborate this statement, and are corroborated in their
turn by several placards issued at different periods by the
States of Holland to secure the owner's rights to vessels
abandoned in the ice in various parts of the Arctic Sea.
These accidents gradually became more frequent as the
whales retreated into or under the more northern ice ; a
period of their migrations which coincides with a consider-
able change in the method of fishing. During the prosperity
of the Arctic Company, when whales, as related above,

* Zorgdrager, p. 195.

f Den Koopman, vol. i. p. 239.

t Res. Holl. 1644, pp. 576-578 ; 1645, P- l°8 ; 1651, p. 279.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 411

flocked round the coasts of Spitzbergen, whaling was a
harmless and easy, though very profitable, summer sport,
and such danger as it involved was amply recompensed
by pleasant life at Smeerenburg. As the fish retreated
seaward, things became less pleasant both for the ship-
owner and the whaling crew; but the real hardships of
the trade, as writers of the period express it, did not com-
mence for either till the whales began to hide away in the
ice, and " sea fishery " was forcibly superseded by " ice
fishery." Worn-out merchant-vessels were at first used,
or " risked," in this perilous trade ; but the number of
casualties increasing, shipowners gradually found it worth
their while to provide new and very strongly built vessels,*
and this circumstance caused fresh capital to be invested
in the trade. In a word, as a writer in the commercial
review ' Den Koopman 'f shows, the whaling trade revived
when it became a less easy one, and ceased to be in the
hands of a few monopolists.

Another circumstance must have contributed to this
phenomenon. Whereas the herring fishery was from the
very beginning regulated by law down to minute details,
whalers were always left at liberty to fish where and how
they judged best. They were, indeed, no less than the
herring trade an object of Government solicitude, as appears,
besides frequent grants of convoy, from the above-mentioned
prohibitions to export whaling ships and implements and
take service in foreign whaling ships. They were, op the
other hand, occasionally ordered to stop their trade in
times of war, and were not exempt from the financial
burdens imposed upon the fisheries in general. The latter
were indeed the chief cause of the only restrictive measure

* Zorgdrager, p. 204.
t He wrote in 1768.

412 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

ever put upon their trade, viz. a placard of May 25th, 1652,
by which whalers were enjoined to carry the whole of their
blubber, oil, and whalebone home and sell them in the
Dutch markets " for the conservation of the custom-house
duties and the market tax."* Besides this edict, which
probably was never enforced with much vigilance, no
working regulations were ever applied to them. There was
no fishing season determined for them by law, and no rules
for branding their produce. Government, however pater-
nally minded towards them as well as others, never under-
took to teach them their business. They were protected,
not directed ; guarded, not led. They accordingly managed
to mind their own business with generally satisfactory
results, and keep their trade going when others, fettered
down by a multitude of working rules, saw theirs go to
ruin.

This important difference in the Government policy
towards the two fisheries Is fully explained by the different
nature of the trades. One of the leading features of herring
legislation under the Republic was to prevent unripe, or too
early herring being caught ; and as the whale's existence
is not limited to one season, no such measures were required
for the Arctic fishery. Next, train-oil and whalebone are
not subject to amelioration by any peculiar process, such as
the curage of herring ; whence Dutch train never excelled,
or was fancied to excel, that of other nations, and there was
no occasion for branding it, or for any of the several
obstructions to trade which result from such a process.
Thirdly, the annual migrations of the herring shoals have
always taken place at a date recurring with a considerable
degree of regularity every year, and their progress through
the North Sea is traced upon a constant route, whence
* Groot Placaetboek, i. p. 683.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 413
herring- fishermen could be told when and where to sail

o

without exposing them to utter discomfiture ; whereas the
whaler, by reason of the shifting ways of his sport, could
never have done well without entire liberty of action.
Thus, until the era of Bounties set in, whalers never looked
for gain but to their own enterprise, spirit, and labour;
while herrinor-fishers were forbidden to seek it elsewhere

o

than in the observation of laws. The latter were regulated
over, and by degrees lost their energy ; whalers were free,
and preserved theirs long after the herring trade's decay.
These are the reasons why there never was a whaling
legislation properly speaking ; and certainly the principal
reasons why the prosperity of the whaling trade survived
that of the Grand Fishery, although the produce of the
former obtained no Government warrant as to its excellence,
and whalers were by the nature of their trade exposed to
far greater risks of accident. On the other hand, as regards
risks by war, the Grand Fishery were worse off, being
obliged to exercise their trade in seas constantly swept
by the enemy's squadrons, and in the centre of warlike
operations. Moreover, Dunkirk privateers seldom roved as
far as Greenland or Spitzbergen, and the whaling fleets
were only exposed to their depredations while sailing north
or returning home. The latter circumstance, besides
legislation, accounts for the fact of the Grand Fishery
having decayed long before the Arctic, or as it was generally
called in the i/th century, the Greenland business.

The war with England of 1652—1654, which occasioned
the beginning of the Grand Fishery's decay, was also
prejudicial to the Greenland trade. In April of the
former year, before hostilities had actually begun, Holland
resolved not only to permit the said trade for the next
season, but even, if possible, to prevent its being thwarted

4H THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

by lack of able seamen.* In July, the advisability of
calling the whaling fleet home to prevent the vessels being
taken was strongly considered, but for the moment the
States of Holland only warned them to keep together
" in form of Admiralties " (or squadrons) for their safety, f
In December, a request of some whaling shipowners for
restitution of the expense of a vessel of war equipped by
them to protect their other ships, was favourably advised
on by Holland,J from which fact it is evident that the
trade was actually kept going during the summer of 1652.
On March 2 5th of the next year, however, the States-
General prohibited it,§ not only in order to keep the
vessels safe in port, but mainly because Government
wanted the sailors, and perhaps some of the ships, for
warlike ends. Seamen who have learned their business
under the Northern lights have always been found very
valuable for any service ; and the prohibition to sail was
therefore enhanced by a reinforcement of the former
edict against hiring out seamen into foreign service, and
especially into the whaling business abroad. I]

For* the same reason, while the States' fleet operated in
Sweden in 1659, the whaling prohibition was repeated by
placard dated April 4th. It was indeed repealed soon
afterwards (May 2nd) ; but " navigation to Greenland "
was then permitted only on condition that the shipowners
and captains concerned in the trade should put fifteen
hundred able sailors at the disposal of the Boards of
Admiralty or buy them off for fl.i5 per head.lf

* Res. Holland, 1652, p. 172.

f Ibid. 1652, pp. 343, 387.

% Ibid. 1652, p. 659.

§ Groot Placaetboek, ii. p. 505.

|| Ibid. p. 302.

^ Ibid. pp. 507-510.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 415

The repeated wars of course took some effect upon the
Greenland trade's prosperity ; and it appears that about
this time whaling ships were sometimes sold to foreigners,
or freighted to sail under their flags. The prohibition
against this proceeding issued in 1633, for the Arctic
Company's benefit had of course become void upon that
body's dissolution ; and a fresh prohibition against letting
Dutch vessels go into foreign whaling service was therefore
enacted on March roth, 1661, and renewed on De-
cember 1 4th, 1663.* Both this edict and the penalties
against Dutchmen taking whaling sen-ice abroad were
strictly maintained. In 1662, the magistrates of Emden
interceded in favour of one Klaas Dirks Meunsz of Edam,
who had served as commander in a whaling vessel from
Emden ; but instead of acceding to their wish, Holland
ordered the prosecution against the culprit to be main-
tained without any consideration, and on March 2oth of
the next year re-enacted the placard, adding expressly
that Emden should be considered as a foreign town.f

The war against England in 1665 brought a fresh
prohibition over the whaling business,! when as a conse-
quence " certain gain-seeking persons " once more sold
their vessels abroad, to the effect that the laws against
such sales, and against exporting whaling implements,
were re-enacted in the course of the spring of the said
year.§ Still the danger to the trade did not appear to be
very imminent, as the English naval force was at this
period required on other service than that of pursuing
whalers to Greenland. Several Dutch shipowners there-

* Gr. PI. B. ii. pp. 2639,

f Res. HolL 1662, p. 523 ; 1663, p. 114.

% Placard dated Jan. 24th, 1665 ; Gr. PL B. iii. p. 291.

§ Gr. PL B. iii. 292-293.

4i 6 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

fore prepared to try their luck in the Polar Seas as soon as
the Republic's naval preparations had come to a close,
" deeming the prohibition might as well be withdrawn
after the country's fleet had sailed ; " but they were re-
minded of the placard of January by another dated March,
1665, besides which, on the 25th of April, the States went
the length of cancelling all contracts between sailors and
shipmasters or shipowners for the Greenland trade. The
whaling prohibition was moreover renewed in December,
1665, and February, 1666 ; and there was no whaling, as
far as can be traced, during the whole of the war. No
sooner had peace been concluded (July ult. 1667) than
Dutch Whalers set about their business with renewed
energy, to stimulate which an amnesty was granted in
1669 to all whaling commanders and sailors who had,
against the placard, taken service abroad during the late
war. Moreover, Holland in 1670 decreed differential
duties against the importation of foreign whalebone and
blubber,* while the prohibitions against selling whaling
implements to foreigners were re-enacted more than once.
Zorgdrager's statistics of the trade, which begin at the
year 1670, mention 148 vessels to have sailed in that year
and mastered 792 whales (see Appendix B).

The disastrous war of 1672 soon put another forcible
stop to the proceedings. All whaling expeditions were
expressly prohibited as early as February, 1672 ;f and
while the other fisheries were at one time re-opened during
the war, the prohibition against whaling lasted for three
years without an interruption. But the suspense does not
appear to have done much prejudice, as the trade was
recommenced in 1675, with a number of vessels scarcely

* Res. HolL 1669, p. 120 ; 1670, pp. 434, 534, 552.
f Gr. PL B. iii. p. 298.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 417

inferior to what it was before the war. And now a
vestige of working regulations was for the first time
imposed upon the trade, but for reasons widely different
from those prevailing with the herring fishery. In order
to ensure their sailing together, i.e., in squadron or " Ad-
miralty," Holland decreed that no whaling vessels should
sail before April 28th, and the order was repeated in
several subsequent years.*

The only object of this measure was of course to
promote the safety of the Greenland fleet. It was taken
at the request of a body representative of the whalers'
common interest, which now appears for the first time as a
duly organised corporation.

A representation of the whaling interest did, indeed,
exist some years earlier. In 1665, two whaling ship-owners
named William Bastiaansz and A. den Hertog, sued for an
exemption from taxes for all whaling vessels, and in return
offered to supply the Republic's fleet with 1 200 sailors ;
and the offer was made in the name of, and upon authori-
sation by, "the community of those concerned in the
Greenland trade." f Request and offer were both declined,
but the event appears to have occasioned a closer organisa-
tion of those concerned in the whaling trade, and the
appointment of a definitive Committee, analogous to the
College of the Grand Fishery. In 1675 this Committee
was already invested with defined powers, and qualified to
act on behalf of all without especially naming its consti-
tuents, as appears from the fixation of a sailing date by the
States in the said year, upon the request of the community
of those interested in the whaling business at and about
Greenland," and not of one or more individuals as repre-

* Res. Holl. 1675, April 4th ; 1677, March 27th.
f Ibid. 1665, May 6th and I2th.
VOL. IX. — E. 8. 2 E

4i8 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

senting that community. This variance in the denomina-
tion, and the fact that no such requests made by some in
behalf of all are on record in earlier years, justify the
supposition that an organisation of the trade had not taken
place since the downfall of the Arctic Company, and that
such an organisation, and the appointment 'of a perpetual
representative body, was effected between 1665 and 1675.
At any rate, the Committee, or central representative body
of whaling shipowners, never had anything like the attri-
butions of the Herring College, and they never seem to
have acted in any other capacity than as the spokesmen of
their constituents presenting requests to the States, and the
draftsmen of such bye-laws as seemed advisable for the
common weal. The vast power with which the Herring
Deputies were invested was a result of the herring legisla-
tion ; and no such power was held by the Whaling Com-
mittee, who had no laws to enforce, no licences to deliver,
and no skippers to swear in. In their quality as draftsmen
of bye-laws, the " Commissioners of the Greenland trade "
in 1677 issued an order, or regulation concerning the
salvage of ships wrecked, and goods lost in the northern
seas. They sued for the States of Holland's approbation
upon the document, which, however, was not granted till
January 22nd, 1695.* The order was, however, printed in
1677, and although as yet unapproved by the proper legis-
lator, was observed not only by whalers from the United
Provinces, but also by those of Hamburg, Bremen, and
Emden.f The above-named William Bastiaansz was again

* Res. Holl. 1677, p. 87 ; Gr. PL Bock, iv. p. 1355.

f The approbation was granted in 1695, because applied for anew
by the Committee who had in the course of eighteen years " on some
few occasions (soo nu en dan} experienced difficulties in the execution,"
whence their authority appears as a rule to have been unquestioned.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 419

the first signer of this bye-law, and thence appears at the
time to have been President of the Board of Whaling
Commissioners. The principal dispositions of the order
are as follows : When a vessel is wrecked, and her crew
leave her, the first ship they meet is obliged to take them
on board, and is entitled in her turn to transmit half of the
men saved to the next vessel she hails. Such victuals as
may be brought on board by the wrecked crew shall be
consumed by themselves ; if they have none, they shall be
fed out of Christian charity, and be obliged in return to do
a common sailor's work.

If the crew do not leave the wrecked vessel, her com-
mander shall be free either to accept or refuse salvage by
others, as long as he remains in or near his ship. Whoso-
ever finds a ship abandoned, shall be free to take her cargo
and whaling gear on board, and on coming home be
entitled to one half of the goods saved, the other half to be
given up to the owner, without any further claim upon him
for salvage-money, freight, &c.

Sailors, whether serving on monthly-wage or share in the
returns (Maentgelders of Parteniers) shall be entitled to
nothing out of the value or cargo of a whaling vessel
abandoned by them. If they have remained near her and
aided in the salvage, they shall be entitled to their wages,
&c., to the amount of one-fourth of the value of the goods
saved, and have no pretension whatever on the other three
parts.

A vessel's crew having killed a whale and been prevented
from appropriating it, remains entitled to the fish as long

Hamburg, Bremen, and Emden, were accustomed, as regards whaling,
to sail in the Republic's wake ; i.e. join their fleets to hers and sail
under a common convoy, cf. Zorgdrager p. 178.

2 E 2

420 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

as any of her crew shall have remained near the body.
If abandoned, the fish becomes the property of the first
occupant, unless it should have been killed near shore, and
made fast to an anchor or buoy bearing some mark of the
vessel by whose crew the fish was caught, in which case the
finder has no right to the body.

The period between the years 1675 an<^ 1685 was one °f
considerable prosperity for the Greenland trade, as appears
from the statistics contained in Appendix B,* which also
shows the extreme vicissitude of whaling luck. It will be
remarked in consulting this table, that years of very
prosperous fishery were usually followed by a considerable
increase in the number of vessels sailed, as a proof of the
unabated energy and interest with which this trade was
carried on. Being no longer a monopoly, and being,
besides, free from legislative working rules, there was a
" considerable ardour for Greenland," as stated by a writer
in ' den Koopman/ f The trade was indeed a lottery ;
but many tried their chance in it, often with favourable
results. Five or six fish caught in a season were then
considered a fair success, as stated by Zorgdrager ; and the

* As this table is now given for the first time in its present shape,
I feel bound to state the origin of its contents. The entries from 1670
down to 1719 are taken from Zorgdrager's book, quoted above.
Between 1719 and 1738, the decennial totals are taken from Mr. Brand-
ligt's ' Geschiedkundige Beschouwing van de Walvisch-msscherij?
The annual returns between 1737 and 1750 are collected from
the periodical called ' Europische Mercuur] and the rest is drawn
from the table printed as Appendix XVI. to the report of the
Commission on Sea Fisheries, 1854, which table appears to have been
compiled out of the ' Nederlandsche Jaarboeken? The figures now
given are tolerably reliable, for whenever statements as to one and
the same year are found in more than one of the works quoted, they
always coincide, or very nearly so.
f Vol. iv. p. 222.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 421

number was often considerably exceeded. So great was
the ardour for whaling, that when a fresh prohibition to
sail was issued by the States-General in 1691 * on account
of the French war, a couple of ships belonging to Dutch-
men were sent to Greenland from Hamburg and Bremen,
and the experiment was repeated in the next years on a
scale very much larger, although the prohibition was
maintained during the next six years, and the States-
General had expressly stipulated all contracts between
master and sailors for whaling expeditions to be void,
"setting all such sailors and seafaring persons, none
excepted, on their free feet, to pass into the country's
service."! The -trade was not lawfully re-opened till
April ist, 1697, under provision that the vessels should sail
in squadron, and under a sufficient convoy, the expense of
which was to be repartitioned among those concerned in
the business.^

The war for the Spanish succession once more occasioned
a considerable demand for able sailors in the Republic's
squadrons, wherefore all navigation from Dutch ports was
once more prohibited on March 3ist, 1702, and re-opened
on June 23rd on condition that each ship should give up
one fifth of her crew or pay 1 5 florins per head of them to
the Admiralty officers. § The Grand Fishery was exempted
from the latter charge, but the Greenland trade was not,
the difference being made on account of the superior skill
of the sailors trained to the latter business. The trade rose
to a high pitch in the same year, notwithstanding the crews'

* Gr. PL Boek, iv. p. 236.
f Ibid. p. 240 (Nov. 1691).

t Res. St. GenL, April ist, 1697 ; Gr. PL B. v. p. 376-7. Res. Holl.
March 29th, 1697.
§ Res. Holl. 1702, p. 441.

422 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

decimation,* and though the expense of convoy equipped
by themselves appears to have burdened them considerably.
On August 1 8th, 1702, the States of Holland considered
the request of "certain persons styling themselves the
Commissioners of the Greenland Fishery," who having
procured conveyers and demanded of the shipowners a
retribution of 300 florins per whaling vessel to cover the
costs, had met with opposition at the hands of several
shipowners, who wanted the contribution for each ship to
be proportioned to the quantity of train-oil brought home
in her.f The contribution was either paid very irregularly,
or denied outright, whence in 1704 it was two years in
arrear, and part of it irrecoverable, so as -to necessitate the
intervention of the regular legislative authorities. On
July 1 7th of the said year the States of Holland declared
the Commissioners entitled to recover the arrears by
execution.^ As a fact, the Committee's authority, having
not been hitherto expressly sanctioned by law, was at the
time very ill obeyed ; and this led to a Resolution of the
States-General dated March 24th, 1706, § by which the
Commissioners of the Greenland Fishery were authorized
and qualified " to issue the necessary orders for the Green-
land fleet, for the next season, and especially to establish
a convenient Admiralship, determine a sailing day and
rendezvous, and enact such secret orders as shall be found
advisable for the conservation and well-being of the fleet ; "

* It appears that whaling vessels were frequently manned with
foreigners. On March 3rd, 1713, the States-General granted a re-
quest made by the Greenland Fishery Committee to be allowed as
usual to draw sailors from Jutland for their crews, although a
contagious disease was then prevalent there (Gr PL B. v. 1579).

t Res. Holl. 1702, p. 441.

% Ibid. 1704, p. 419.

§ Gr. PI. B. iv. p. 1564.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 423

which orders all whaling commanders were enjoined to
obey strictly, under a penalty of 300 florins, to be recovered
out of their pay and available goods and chattels. This
power, though at first granted to the Committee for one
season only, was continued in the next years.*

A change of some importance was introduced into the
whalers' proceedings about this time. They had, from the
exhaustion of the Spitzbergen seas down to the season now
spoken of, fished chiefly about Greenland, and restrained
their operations to the seas once included in the Arctic
Company's monopoly, of which " Fretum Davidis " was the
western limit. It now became customary to look for
whales in Davis' Straits also. It is not certain when this
part of the northern seas was first visited by Dutch whalers.
Zorgdrager, who was quite at home in the details of the
business, does not particularly mention the Straits fishery in
his valuable work, of which the first edition was published
in 1720. Still, in the said year whaling in the Straits had
already acquired some extension ; for an immunity from
last-money granted to the Greenland fishery in 1687, was
then expressly extended to those who navigated to the
Straits " whither a considerable part of the ships are now
bound." f The same fact is evident from a States-General
Resolution dated November i8th, 1720,^ by which penalties
are enacted against offering violence to the natives of the
Straits shores. It appears from this edict that the first
exploits of Dutchmen in the Straits were anything but
glorious, and that robbery and ill-treatment of Esquimaux

* Res. Holl. March 23rd, 1707 ; Feb. i8th, 1708, &c. The subject
was generally re-considered by the States in the course of February of
each year.

f Res. Holl. 1720, p. 197, 306 ; Res. St. Gen. ibid. p. 786.

\ Gr. Plac. Boek, v. p. 1581.

424 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

by them were matters of daily occurrence. Their
behaviour, in a word, was that of pirates, and as such
accordingly, the above-quoted Resolution prescribes those
guilty of further acts of this nature to be proceeded against.

A writer in ' den Koopman ' * states the Straits fishery
to have become considerable after the year 1714, and a
separate statistical table relative to that branch of the
trade, added by Mr. Brandligt to his above-quoted pamph-
let, begins at the year 1719. Zorgdrager's not especially
mentioning the Straits fishery is not contradictory to these
statements, for his book was written some years before it
was published. The period when Dutch whalers first began
to visit the Straits may, upon these several authorities, be
stated to be not much anterior to the year 1720.

In the next years, besides statistics, no facts of any
importance relative to the whale fishery are on record. In
1724 a whaling company was chartered in England ; | but
their competition does not appear to have severely
prejudiced the Dutch, as the years 1719-1728 were, accord-
ing to Brandligt's statistics, a period of very considerable
prosperity for the Straits trade especially. In 1731, the
Dutch Ambassador to England reported on a contrivance
to shoot harpoons out of a musquetoon, or portable cannon,
by which the instrument was thrown fifty feet, or thrice the
distance the best harpooner could cast it, and without
setting the line on fire ; but though the Dutch diplomatist
had seen the instrument alluded to in a London wharf, and
spoke of it in highly commendatory terms, there is no
evidence of its having been adopted.^ In 1739 and the
next years, Denmark's pretensions to exclusive fishing

* Vol. i., p. 239.

f * Europische Mercuur] 1724, vol. ii. p. 32.

\ Res. Holl. 1731, p. 172.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 425

rights in the Northern seas, which will be treated of in
another chapter, caused the Dutch whalers some uneasiness.
A few of their vessels were actually taken by the Danes,
and they had for some years to sail under convoy by
Government men-of-war. Still these events did not
materially affect the trade; for the number of ships
sailed to Greenland, which were especially the object of
Denmark's animosity, was much greater in the years
1739-1748 than .in the preceding decade. In 1747, the
Republic's war with France having necessitated extra-
ordinary measures to get crews for the squadrons, a general
obligation to give up one third of the crews to the Admi-
ralties, or redeem them at the price of 40 florins per head,
was once more laid upon merchant vessels in general ; but
the Greenland and Davis' Straits fisheries were expressly
exempted from either charge, by a Resolution of the States-
General, dated December ist*. The favour was partly
cancelled on February iQth of the next year, when the
States-General resolved to allow the trade two men-of-war
as conveyers without the retribution they had hitherto paid
for them to the Admiralties, provided each whaling vessel
should furnish five able seamen, or the whole fleet together
should furnish five hundred such seamen to the Admiralties
of the Maas and Amsterdamf. In other words, the
whalers were to have convoying vessels without paying for
them, but on condition that they should man them out of
their own crews ; for the men-of-war offered by the States
were to carry forty guns and two hundred and fifty men
each.

Besides these measures in their behalf, whaling ships were
in 1750, upon the request of the Commission of Greenland

* Gr. PL Boek,\\\. 515.
t Ibid. p. 1591.

426 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

Fishery, allowed exemption from excise duties on victuals,
wine, spirits, &c., consumed on board.* The measure was
indeed taken on a very liberal scale, for it was extended
not only to the victuals actually consumed, but, as regards
bread, to the whole quantity taken on board, even though
some parts of it should be brought home again.
Immunities of a similar nature were at the same time
allowed to other branches of fishery ; but there is reason to
believe that whalers derived peculiar profit from theirs, as
they were in the habit of dealing in divers commodities
with the natives of the northern countries whither they
were bound. It will be seen in another chapter that this
propensity to do spurious business was one of the principal
causes of the difficulties with Denmark; and it may be
assumed that Dutch whalers upon occasion were not only
petty tradesmen, but did by no means disdain smuggling
on foreign coasts, towards which they were of course
peculiarly benefitted by having some of the articles most
heavily taxed in all countries at their disposal duty-free, by
the States-General's express licence. Considerable light is
thrown on this feature of the Greenland trade by a curious
controversy kept up in the often-named periodical, ' Den
Koopman,' in the course of the years 1772 and 1773/f A
free-spoken letter-writer styling himself " Lubertus
Piscator " is especially communicative on the subject. The
results of whaling in itself, he says, now amount to
average losses ; and the trade is kept going by the
profits of a fraudulent commerce in goods exported free of
duty and smuggled ashore on the coasts of Norway and
Scotland. These irregular profits are mostly pocketed by
the manager (boekhouder) of the ship and a few of the

* Res. Holl. 1750-52, passim, Gr. PL &., viii. 1253.
f Vol. iv. p. 33, 90, 194, 199, &c.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 427

chief partners, and dissimulated in such a manner as not to
let the others have any share in them ; and most of the
ships now engaged in whaling are kept afloat merely because
a majority of votes in the partnership are in this manner
interested against their being sold or broken up, although
the returns of the whaling business proper are generally
very unfavourable. Lubertus' indiscreet statements were
indeed contradicted by other correspondents ; but the
fact that much irregular business was done at the time by
Dutch whalers is not positively denied by any of them
Some of these writers, who have all made a secret of their
names, account for the continuation of the trade, in despite
of unfavourable results, by the fact that the whaling vessels'
purveyors were at the time generally part-owners, and
recovered on the price of the stores what was lost on the
business itself. And this state of things they approve,
in virtue of a course of reasoning strongly and curiously
illustrative of the economical notions of the period. The
money lost on the voyage's balance, says an apologist of
the trade in 1773, goes to the ship's victuallers, com-
mander, and crew ; it remains in the country ', and therefore
is not lost to the nation ; and the value of every whale
caught, however small their number, is to be accounted
as a clear profit, though the sums made by the trade do
not cover the expense !

If the above controversy sets one point beyond doubt, it
is the fact that towards the end of the eighteenth century
there was a rottenness in Dutch whaling. Its rapid
decrease in the same^period, shown by Appendix B, proves
that even illegal proceedings could not cover losses as a
rule ; and the demonstration is wound up by the fact that
in 1775 the Commissioners of the Greenland and Davis
Straits fisheries applied for a bounty, and were not behind-

428 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

hand in the race for premiums which at this period charac-
terises the whole of the sea-fishing concerns. The pre-
mium applied for was limited to 40 florins per head of the
crews, besides exemption from export duty on train-oil, &c.
Some objection was at first made to the plan. A Committee
of the States of Holland, before whom the request was laid,
considered premiums as a rule to be very useful in bringing
a new trade to prosperity, but doubted their efficacy in
upholding a business the decay of which was attributable
to causes beyond the legislator's control, such as the
development of whaling abroad, and the closing of some
foreign markets. Still, the Committee were not averse to
grant the trade some succour, and advised a bounty of 30
florins per head of the crew, for such vessels only as should
return clean, i.e. empty. The matter was treated with the
prolixity and slowness characteristic of the later years of
the Republic's existence, and Holland did not take a deci-
sion till January i8th, 1777, when a premium of 30 florins
was granted for all whaling vessels indiscriminately, and
the immunity from export duty declined.* The premium
was granted again in the next years.

The result of the application of the bounty system was
as negative upon the whaling trade as on the herring
fishery ; and the table contained in Appendix B shows an
actual decrease of the number of vessels sailed after bounties
had been first allowed in 1777. The Whaling Commis-
sioners accordingly in 1779 sued for an increase of the
bounty to 80 florins per head of the crews ; but the demand
was declined. The war against England in 1781 next put

t Res. Holl. 1775, p. 607, 793, 990 ; 1776, p. 38 ; 1777, p. 73. The
collection of printed documents emanated from and received by the
States in these years, moreover contains a series of long memorials
exchanged between them and the Greenland Committee.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 429

a stop to all whaling expeditions for two seasons, in the
course of which many vessels were sold out of the trade. A
special permission was necessary for this, as the ancient
laws against selling whaling ships to foreigners were still
in vigour ; and this permission was granted by the States of
Holland in 1782, provided that each person inclined to sell
a vessel abroad should procure a licence from the
Admiralty Board under which he resorted, and moreover
that if the ship were sold to be used as a merchantman, the
whaling implements should not be destroyed, but kept for
better times. At the same time, the Admiralty Boards were
empowered to grant permissions to hire out whaling sailors
to foreigners, English excepted, under caution for their being
sent back to the Republic after the war.* As a conse-
quence, of the vessels formerly employed in the Straits
fishery only nine were left in 1783, when whaling was
recommenced ; and the business never recovered its losses.
Premiums were granted till the end of the Republic, and were
even determined for twelve years at their former amount of
30 florins per head, by one of the several Resolutions taken
on April I7th, 1788, by the States-General for the fisheries'
preservation from utter ruin.f Another, and a very peculiar
form of encouragement was resorted to by a Resolution of
the States of Holland dated October 3rd, 1788 ; viz., an
" indemnisation " bounty of 50 florins for every quarter of
train wanting to a hundred in a vessel's cargo. In order to
prevent mock whaling trips, by which the said bounty might
have been secured very easily indeed, certain conditions
were added as to burden and equipment of ships, strength
of crew and duration, and latitude where to fish. Even

* Res. Holl. 1782, p. 138, 174 ; Res. St. Generaal 1782, p. 175, 232,
273, 289.
t Groot Placaetboek, ix. p. 1313.

430 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

this thorough application of the premium system was of no
effect. As the institution of bounties had been followed
by a decrease in the trade, so their continuation and
extension proved unable to prevent its ruin ; and at the
close of the Republic's existence the Straits fishery, as will
be seen from Appendix B, was nearly extinct, and the
Greenland business reduced to utter insignificance.

CHAPTER III.

COD FISHERY.

THIS branch of the fisheries never was of paramount im-
portance under the Republic. The name of " small fishery"
(kleine visscherye) * which is commonly applied to it, as
an antithesis to the denomination constantly given to the
herring-fishery, sufficiently points out the fact. One part
of the business, the cod-fishery off Iceland, was indeed an
extensive concern requiring separate capital ; and as the
produce of this fishery was either salted or dried, it com-
manded an extensive foreign market. Cod-fishery in the
North Sea, and on the Dogger bank especially, was a minor
branch of the trade, and indeed more or less an appendage
of the herring-fisheries, inasmuch as most of the vessels

* There has been some controversy about this denomination.
Some state it to have been commonly used to designate the whaling
trade ; others the Iceland fishery, and the cod and fresh-fish business
in the North Sea. As a fact, it has been applied to all three, but very
seldom to the whale fishery, which by reason of its importance had no
title to the name. In the States' official publications, " kleijne vis-
scherije " is used for cod-fishery and for " the trade of the fresh "
(de neeringhe van den versche). A Placard of 1665 expressly mentions
*' the Great and Small fishery, by which we mean the herring trade
and the fishery on Doggersbank."

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 431

used in the latter after St. John's Day were in winter and
spring sent to the Dogger bank for haddock and cod-fish.
The method in which the trade was carried on by Dutchmen
has always been the same as when, under the Bavarian
Counts, political parties derived their names from it ; viz.
by lines to which were attached hooks baited with small
fish of different kinds, or very early herrings. A Placard
of the year 1612 expressly allowed cod-fishers to catch
herring for bait before the 24th of June, provided they
should not cure or salt such herrings, nor lay them in
barrels, nor carry them ashore or sell them at sea.*

Keelless boats from the North Sea coast villages from
early times downward combined cod-fishery on the Dogger
bank with " the trade of the fresh," as shown by a Resolu-
tion of the States of Holland dated 1585, and mentioning
" all fish caught by fishermen of the Side, except cod and
haddock" Keeled vessels from the fishing towns on the
Maas likewise fished for cod in the North Sea out of the
herring season ; and besides, the Iceland cod fishery, which
could not be combined with herring fishery, centred in some
of those towns, and Vlaardingen and Maassluis were pro-
minent in the Iceland business long before they became
" herring towns" of importance. The vessels sent to Iceland
were called " hookers," from the fishing gear they carried ;
although by their build they were fit for the herring trade
also, and were used in the latter in some years when the
state of the several markets, or other circumstances made a
voyage to Iceland unadvisable. Still a mixing up of both
trades could not occur, as the seasons for both were the
same ; whence Iceland fishery was a separate business, and
had an organization of its own. Its object was to cure the

* Art. 2 of the herring regulations, 1604-1632 ; Gr. PL Boek, i.
P- 733-

432 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

fish either by salting it as " Zoutevisch " " labberdaan " (also
called abberdaan} or drying it as stock-fish, in both of
which conditions it was a considerable article of exporta-
tion. In the fresh state the two varieties of cod-fish most
caught bear the Dutch names of kabeljauw (also called
bakkeljauw or baccalauw *) and " Schelvisch " (the latter
appearing to correspond exactly to the English denomina-
tion of haddock}.

There is no literature to my knowledge on this peculiar
branch of Dutch sea-fishery, and very few legislative acts
are on record relative to it ; whence its history must
necessarily be very incomplete and succinct. North-sea
cod-fishery had some importance as early as the establish-
ment of the Republic, as appears from the fact that two
men-of-war were sent " ter Dogge," i.e. to the Dogger bank,
for the cod-fishers' convoy, in 1589 ; \ and as the place, of

* The latter word was also used now and then for cod salted and
dried. Bacallao is Spanish, Baccala is Italian, and Bacalhdo is
Portuguese, for dried cod. The assonance between these words and the
(now obsolete) Dutch term baccalauw is so striking that the question
can only be whether the word was derived by the Dutch from the
Roman languages, or the reverse. Holland in the iyth and i8th
centuries exported great quantities of salt and dried cod to Spain, and
never, so far as can be traced, imported any from that country ;
whence it would seem natural that the name should have been
exported together with the article. On the other hand, I am not
aware of the Dutch etymological derivation for " baccalauw," and I have
heard it said, upon authority which I can neither back nor question,
that in Spanish and Portuguese the word has something to do,
etymologically, with stick (Lat. Baculum). In the latter case, Bacalhao
&c., might be literal translations of the Dutch term Stokvisch, and
Holland, having first exported the article, might have re-imported its
Romanized name. I beg to refer the question to professional linguists.
Such dictionaries as I have at command do not show any close
relation between the Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese words, for a
cod-fish and a stick.

f Res. Holl. 1589, p. 14, 836, 840.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 433

all the North Sea, was perhaps the one most exposed to
eveYy naval foe, orders for ships to convoy the " Doggers "
are numerous throughout the Republic's history. There is,
however, another circumstance to account for the extra-
ordinary liberality with which they had convoy doled out
to them, viz. the fact that fishery on the Dogger bank took
place at a season when both herring and whale fishery stood
still ; whence it was possible for Holland, on Jan. 3Oth, 1597,
to order the Admiralty Board of Rotterdam to send out
t/ie whole of their available vessels for the " Doggervaarders "
convoy.

In spite of Government protection, cod-fishery seems to
have been subject to severe losses by war, for a contract
for their mutual insurance against damage by sea or foemen
was passed in 1622 between the shipowners of the towns
on the Maas concerned in the business, and ratified by the
States of Holland in 1623, under their charter or "octroy."
I have not found any positive information as to the contents
of this document, which appears somehow to have been
prejudicial to 1,he steersmen's real or presumed private
interest. The latter in the autumn of 1623 twice interfered
with the publication of the Octroy (which took place, as
usual, by cry, and by the posting of handbills), and got up
a serious riot at Maassluis, whither soldiers had to be sent
in order to maintain the peace. The matter was even of
sufficient importance for a deputation from the Court of
Holland to be sent to Maassluis with instructions to pacify
the mutinous seamen, and the men of the law effected this
object by putting a new interpretation upon the charter, in
virtue of which " the pennies of the second word were to be
left among the steersmen to the end of the fishing season,
and then to be restored to the partners, if no damage had
VOL. IX. — E. 8. 2 F

434 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

been incurred." * The true sense of these words can only
be found out by detailed investigation ; but even though
not quite understood they make it evident that the terms
between shipowners and skippers in the cod-fishery were
then commonly regulated by some intricate contract, full
of antiquated words of doubtful meaning, such as are still
in use in the Dutch sea-fisheries, and are frequently the
cause of protracted, and by the nature of the men concerned,
violent disputes between employers and employed.

The Dunkirkers in the next years did not spare the cod
fishery any more than the other branches. Cod fishers
accordingly used to sail in squadron to the Dogger bank,
under cover of two or more men-of-war supplied by
Government, which convoy having been destroyed by
seven Dunkirk privateers in April 1628, the whole fleet of
the " small-fishery," reported to have, at the moment, been
1 80 vessels strong, retreated into port before the end of
the season.f Three years afterwards, six men-of-war were
allowed to " de groote Abberdaan visscherije op de Maase"
at the request of their Committee of Shipowners and
Steersmen.^ These words of " great salt cod-fishery " were
commonly used to designate the Iceland business, which
accordingly must have had some organization, and a re-
presentative board, early in the seventeenth century. The
mutual insurance contract just now mentioned may have
been the beginning of a farther organization of the
trade. An association called " de Schelvis visscherije"
of Maassluis is mentioned as having in 1636 applied for

* " De Penningen van het tweede woord gelaten zouden worden
onder de stuurlieden tot het einde der teelt, en dan te restitueren aan
de Vennots, indien geen schade en viele." Cf. Res. Holl. 1622, p. 751 ;
1623 p. 94, 206, 214.

t Res. Holl. 1628, p. 444.

\ Ibid. 1631, p. 171.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 435

convoy by the organ of its commissioners,* and as Maassluis
(then not yet a " herring town ") was likewise the seat
of the above-mentioned board, both names are perhaps
indicative of one corporation. At any rate, the body
representative of the several cod-fisheries was, like the
Herring College, invested with more extensive powers in
the course of time. In July 1678, during the protracted
negotiations with France at Nijmegen, we find them
engaged in negotiations with the States of Holland to
obtain French passports ; and when these were not
obtained fast enough by diplomatic correspondence, the
Committee offered to apply for the documents themselves.t
On Sept. 5th, 1695, the treasurer and commissioners of the
fishery at Maassluis were empowered by the States of
Holland to levy, collect, or farm a tax of one penny per
barrel of salt fish, including several kinds of cod-fish,
plaice, and in general " everything that is salted be-
tween two bottoms," cured-herring of course excepted,
which never was called " fish " in any publication of
the period, and was moreover already subject to last-
money under the herring laws. The contribution was to
be due upon the fish being unshipped at Maassluis, and so
bore the character of a local staple-duty. Annex to it, the
Commissioners were entitled to levy the 4Oth penny
on all fresh fish brought to market at Maassluis, whether
alive or dead, and moreover to collect " ship-money " to the
amount of fl. 12, upon each herring buss, and fl. 8 upon
each hooker sailing either for herring or to Iceland. The
privilege was granted anew for twelve years on Dec. i/th,
17064 I should incline to conclude from these facts,

* Res. Holl. 1636, p. 394, 413.
t Ibid. July 8, 1678.
\ Gr. Plb. v. p. 730.

2 F 2

436 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

that herring-fishery first began to develop at Maassluis
towards the end of the seventeenth century, and that it was
from the beginning under the superintendence of the same
corporation who represented the cod-fishery. If the
Commissioners here alluded to had been the delegates of
one fishery only, the States would never have allowed them
to levy a tax upon the other. A similar unity of interests
and business probably existed in the other towns where
both herring and cod-fishery were exercised.

These very scanty and incoherent indications are
indeed quite insufficient to establish a notion as to the
importance of Dutch cod-fishery in the seventeenth
century. Besides the convoy usually granted them by
the States, some testimony to the extension of the trade
may be found in the fact that their salt or dried produce
was constantly exported on a considerable scale. In 1657
a dispute arose about four Dutch vessels laden with
" baccalauw " which had arrived at Cadiz, but were de-
clined admission by the Spanish authorities on the plea
that their papers where insufficient ;* and it is apparent
from the terms in which the matter was reported upon
that Spain was a market of importance for Dutch salt cod-
fish. So were many other Catholic countries, whose fast-
day requirements were in part supplied by Dutch
fish. The Catholic provinces now forming the Kingdom
of Belgium were, in this respect, of particular importance,
for their situation allowed Dutch haddock and cod, as well
as plaice, sole, &c., to be imported there fresh, as a Friday
delicacy ; whence the protective measures applied to the
Flemish fisheries by their Austrian Government, in the
shape of elevated custom-house duties upon foreign fish,
were particularly prejudicial to the Dutch Cod-fishery

* Res. Holl. 1657, p. 1 80.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 437

and fresh fish business. Extensive correspondence was
carried on between the Dutch Ambassadors at Brussels
and their principals at the Hague, in the earlier years of
the 1 8th century, on the subject of duties on salt-cod, and
fresh fish of several descriptions ; but all efforts to obtain
the removal of these duties were in vain, and the decay of
the Iceland cod-fishery in Holland appears to have taken
its origin from protective duties in the Austrian Nether-
lands and France. Difficulties with Denmark, the nature of
which I shall expose in another chapter,* were also particu-
larly prejudicial to the Iceland cod-fishery in 1740 and the
next years ; and the first Dutch vessels confiscated by
Denmark were not whalers, but cod-hookers from the^Maas.
The actual effect of the differences with Denmark upon
the Iceland cod-fishery cannot be traced, as no statistics
of the trade are extant earlier than 1751, from which
year they have been annually noted down in the ' Neder-
landsche Jaarboeken," and collected into a table by the
Committee on Sea-fisheries, 1854, from whose Report
Appendix C to these pages has been derived. The striking
ups and downs of the trade, as shown by this table, may
frequently be accounted for by vessels being transferred
from the herring fishery to the Iceland business, and vice
versa, as the state of the cured-herring and cod markets
made such shiftings desirable. I should be at a loss, for
instance, to find another reason why the number of vessels
sailed to Iceland was 9$ in 1756, and 1 1 1 in the next year,
although the fishing returns of the former were miserable.
A knowledge of fish-prices throughout the Republic's
existence would be necessary to acquire a full understanding
of this, as of other phenomena in the fisheries' history ; and
* Sec Chapter v.

438 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

as statistics, if kept at all, were at the time incomplete and
unwarranted, to obtain such a knowledge would alone be
the work of years.

Besides " hookers " transferable from one business to
another, there were under the Republic vessels fit for no
other service than the capture of fresh fish, cod and
haddock especially, and provided with wells to keep the
fish alive. Such well-boats must have been in use from
early times downward ; for without them it would scarcely
have been feasible to carry fish caught on the Dogger bank
to the Friday-markets of the Catholic provinces unsalted.
No mention, however, is made of well-boats till 1777, when,
one Jongeneel of Rotterdam having built such a vessel
to meet a foreign order, a petition to prohibit its export-
ation was preferred to the States of Holland by the
Commissioners of the Cod-fishery of Vlaardingen and
Maassluis. The States instantly appointed Rotterdam to
take provisional steps to baulk the said Jongeneel's
purpose ; but as in point of fact there was no law against
it, they at the same time applied to the States-General for
a special prohibition to export well-boats (vishoekers met
bunnen\ which was accordingly enacted on January 5th,
1778, notwithstanding Jongeneel's remonstrances, who by
reason of the depression then prevailing in the trade could
hope for no chance of selling his vessel at home. The
Placard of January 5th, 1778, contains prohibitions for
the Republic's subjects not only to sell or hire vessels of
the above description out to foreigners, or build them upon
orders from abroad, but also to take service on foreign
wharves towards the building of such vessels, or put wells
into foreign vessels while staying in Dutch ports. All
steersmen in the cod-fishery are, moreover, enjoined by

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 439

this Act to take oath to observe the new law.* From
these several enactments it may perhaps be assumed that
the Dutch had then a reputation as well-boat builders
abroad. It would not be safe, however, to give this law
the credit of the considerable increase in the Dutch cod-
fishery in 1779 (see Appendix C) ; for the latter fact is
amply accounted for by the very favourable fishing returns
of the two preceding years.

The "embargo" laid upon all Dutch shipping by the
States in January 1781 brought cod-fishery to a full stop as
well as its sister-trades ; and several requests of the
Commissioners of the Cod-fishery of Vlaardingen and
Maassluis, to have their trade permitted in the North Sea
and off Iceland, were declined in the course of that year
and the next. The scarcity of fish resulting from this
" embargo " took effect upon the cod-fish as well as upon
the herring market. While, as shown in a former chapter,
herring was now actually imported into the Republic,
certain dealers in salt cod-fish applied for leave to import
that article and re-pack and re-export it ; which permission,
however, was strongly opposed by the Commissioners of
Maassluis. It would appear from these proceedings that
some particular fashion of packing and arranging cod was
then in use in Holland, and Dutch salt-fish and stock-fish
were in some way distinguished from foreign produce of a
similar nature. The request having been declined, the
Commissioners in 1781 obtained from the States-General a
permission to sail, by way of experiment.! It does not
appear that the experiment was attended with any success ;
for several shipowners preferred to sell their vessels abroad.

* Res. Holl. 1777, pp. 1229, 1414, 1443 ; Res. St. Gen. Ibid. p. 866.
Gr. PI. Bock, ix. p. 1309.
f Res. St. Gen. 1781, pp. 105;, 1182.

440 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

As this, however, was contrary to the law of 1778, it was
necessary to obtain the States-General's permission for it,
who accordingly, upon the request of the Commissioners of
Maassluis, empowered the Admiralty of the Maas to allow
vessels to be sold out of the Dutch cod-fishery to foreigners,
under the sole condition that they should be bought back
at the end of the war. The condition probably was not
very faithfully observed ; for 63 hookers sailed in 1780, and
only 49 in 1784. The next years were very unfavourable,
and the trade had come to nought in 1787, when only two
vessels are stated to have been employed in it. The
bounty system was then 'applied to the Iceland as well as
to the other fisheries. The Commissioners of Maassluis
applied fora premium in June 1788, and were by Resolution
of April Qth, 1789,* allowed fl. 500 per hooker, being
the same sum promised to the herring busses the year
before. But premiums failed in the cod-fishery, even more
utterly than they had failed in other branches. Not one
hooker sailed to Iceland in the next years ; and the cod-
fishery had virtually come to a close before the final over-
throw of the Republic.

CHAPTER IV.

COAST FISHING.

In using this title, which is a common denomination of
several distinct branches of the Dutch sea-fisheries, a
previous elucidation is necessary to prevent misunder-
standings. " Coast-fishery " is thus named because carried
on, not off on: under the Dutch coast exclusively, but from
that coast ; i.e. by flat-bottomed vessels owned there.

* Groot Placactb. C. vol. ix. p. 1314.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 441

These vessels until recent years have been principally
employed in two distinct trades, viz., catching herring to
be smoked, and catching fish to be sold fresh, cod and
haddock included. The former fishery was generally
exercised off Yarmouth, in the so-called " Deepwater,"
and the latter all over the North Sea, on the Dogger bank
especially. The name of " neeringhe van den Verscfie" or
" trade of the fresh," is generally applied to the latter
fishery only, although herring salted preparatory to smoking
is frequently, though improperly, styled "fresh herring"
Both the trades now alluded to were under the Republic
exercised only in flat and square smacks called pinken or
bomsckuiten (bum-boats) the model of which can have
undergone no considerable variations, as they were and
are bound from villages having no ports, and therefore
must be built so as to bear going ashore and remaining
on dry land at low tide, without prejudice to their soundness.
The Zuider Zee fisheries, which have a history of their own,
may also be comprised under the general term of coast
fishery. This chapter will therefore treat of three subjects
essentially different, viz., the fisheries for smoke-herring
and fresh fish in the North Sea, and Zuiderzee fishery.

Bum-boats were, in the Republican period, owned at the
North Sea coast villages of ter Heide, Scheveningen,
Katwijk, Noordwijk, Zandvoort, Wijk op Zee, and Egmond.
Vessels of the kind never went as far north as the coast of
Scotland in those times, and consequently had no share
in the earlier herring fishery. They went for herring only
to " Deepwater," off Yarmouth, in autumn and in the latter
weeks of summer ; and although herring caught then and
there was successfully cured in keeled vessels, and bum-boat
fisheries were at first not prohibited from curing it likewise,
they have long abstained from the practice, probably on

442 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

account of the small size of their vessels. Herring caught
in bum-boats was summarily salted, or strewn with salt, on
board, and carried home in baskets to be smoked in the
coast villages, and sold as " bucking." The salting process
destined to preserve such herring until brought to the
smokeries was, and is now, called steuren ; whence smoke-
herring is generally styled stcurharing.

" Bucking," although an article of extensive home con-
sumption, never fetched anything like the prices of cured
herring ; but smoke-herring fishermen found a compensa-
tion for this inferiority in the nearly complete liberty of
their business. They were at liberty to carry their fish
abroad, and it appears from an entry in v. d. Lely's Recueil
(p. 1 3) that they used, " from early times downward," to
sell " fresh " herring at Yarmouth. As their produce never
was held to be of a particularly fine quality, they were of
course not subject to any of the laws on packing and
branding. They were, indeed, subject to the St. John's
rule ; for by the Placard of 1607, quoted in Chapter I.,* it
was prohibited, in the most general terms, to wet any nets
fit to catch herring before St. John's in midsummer, and
the only exception to the rule was in favour of the cod-
fishers, who were allowed at any time to catch unripe
herring as bait for their hooks. Fishing steersmen from
the coast were moreover obliged annually to take out a
licence from the College of the Grand Fishery, which was
only delivered upon their taking oath not to use foreign
nets or buy herring from others at sea. As this obligation
is first mentioned in the Herring Act of 1656,! it is probable
that they sailed without a licence before, and were not
brought under the College's rule till the said year. But

* Gr. Plb., i. p. 733.

f Ibid. viii. p. 1242, art. 3.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 443

the College's yoke was easy upon them so long as they
abstained from curing herring, and therefore were not
competitors of the Grand Fishery. In 1663, according to
v. d. Lely, they were " suspected " of curing herring ; whence,
in the said year, the college inserted a clause against such
curing into the oath to be taken by steersmen from the
coast previous to receiving their licence. The proceeding
was clearly an encroachment, as the law did not prohibit the
coast fishermen from curing their herring. But it has been
shown in Chapter I. that the College did not usually shrink
from extending the law to their competitors' prejudice. In
this instance they actually conferred on themselves a very
important monopoly, which was afterwards the object
of much controversy and one of the main features of
herring legislation ; but which, when first claimed, was not
based on any law.

It appears that this monopoly was not always observed
to the letter. In 1735 and 1736, coast fishermen from
Katwijk were found to cure herring caught by them in the
Deep water, on the plea that a very warm season made it
impossible for them to preserve their herring uncured till
they should have reached the coast and brought the fish to
the smokery. The proceeding, as they argued, was for the
benefit of the smoked-herring industry ; for if they had not
cured the earlier part of their catch they would have been
obliged to smoke it some time after capture, whereas no
herring above two days old was now carried to the smoke-
house, and Dutch " deepwater " bucking thereby maintained
its excellence over the Yarmouth bloater.* But the grand
Fishery would not hear of admitting competitors into the
cured-herring business upon a plea based on the smoked-
herring interest ; and once more prohibited the coast
* Ned. Jaarboekcn, 1751, p. 1043, sqq.

444 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

fishermen to cure, which prohibition their competency to
grant or refuse licences to all herring fishermen enabled
them to enforce.

The prohibition appears to have been generally observed
till 1751, in which year the Stadtholder Prince William IV.
paid a visit to the coast village of Katwijk, and the fisher-
men of the locality availed themselves of the occasion to
petition His Highness for re-instalment in their ancient
right to cure herring. The Grand Fishery's self-made
curing monopoly being thus menaced, petitions in a
contrary sense were immediately sent in from some of the
towns concerned in the cured-herring business, and a con-
troversy ensued, of which a full account is to be found in
the periodical called ' Nederlandsche Jaarboeken.'* The
College of the Grand Fishery, before whom- the petition
from Katwijk was laid, of course advised against it ; and
although the coast fishermen (or parlevinkers as they are
called in a contemporaneous Act of the States of Holland)!
presented another memorial to the Princess Governess^
after the Stadtholder's demise, the question at issue was
ultimately decided against them, and the College rule
maintained.

The logic in this dispute was all on the side of the coast
fishermen, and their opponents indeed contradicted their
own arguments by using too many. First, said they of
the Grand Fishery, the herring caught in bum-boats is of
inferior quality and unfit to be cured. Secondly, fishing
boats from the coast are equipped at less risk and expense
than herring busses, and the former's owners are already

* Ned. Jaarboeken, 1751, p. 1043, n8i ; 1752, p. 481.
t Res. Holl. 1751, p. 318.

$ Princess Anne, as guardian of her son William V., then three
years old.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 445

privileged, inasmuch as they are allowed to sell herring at
sea and abroad ; and it would be the Grand Fishery's ruin
to expose them to competition on such unequal terms as
these. Thirdly, the smoked-herring business will be upset
if coast fishermen take to curing, and English " bucking "
will gradually supersede the Dutch. To the first of these
arguments it was objected that there could scarcely be any
difference in quality between the herring caught by either
party, as busses and bum-boats, or " pinken " fished side by
side, in the same sea and season. Besides, if the herring
caught by the latter were unfit for curage, how could the
Grand Fishery fear their competition, or the extinction of
the smoked-herring business ? The argument based upon
the Grand Fishery's greater risks and charges was met by
the query " whether it was more expedient for the country's
interest that much should be risked for little gain, or that
considerable profit should be made with little or no ex-
posure ? " As for the liberty to sell herring abroad, any coast
fishermen would of course have had to give up that
privilege if he had taken to curing. As a last and conclu-
sive argument, the petitioners from the coast showed that
the Grand Fishery, in prohibiting them from curing herring,
acted as judges in their own case. So they undoubtedly did ;
but their judgment does not appear to have been further
appealed from at the time, and their monopoly of curing
remained in force long after the end of the Republic.

The coast fishery might indeed have proved serious
competitors to the Grand Fishery if they had been given a
chance. It is stated that in 1751 one hundred and twenty
boats sailed from Scheveningen alone* and the whole
number of busses in that year was not quite double the
figure. The smoked-herring business appears in the next
* Europische Mercurius, 1754, vol. i. p. 62.

446 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

years to have declined rapidly, chiefly on account of
measures taken to prevent the importation of Dutch fish
into the Austrian Netherlands, of which the fresh and
smoked fish concerns were equally the victims. In 1777,
the Grand Fishery having obtained a premium two years
before, the owners of herring boats of Katwijk and
Noordwijk in their turn petitioned the States of Holland
for " such a bounty (douceur) as it shall please their Noble
and Grand Mightinesses to grant " and they likewise sued for
a prohibition to the busses to bring home uncured herring,*
whence it may be inferred that they of the Grand Fishery,
although anxious enough to shelter their own trade from
competition by those of the coast, did not disdain occa-
sionally to meddle with theirs. No resolution was taken as
to the latter part of the petition, and the former was at the
time declined. The application for bounties was renewed
in November 1786,! and kept under consideration for more
than a year. A premium of fl. 200 was awarded, on
April 1 7th, I788,t to the owners or managers of all such
herring boats equipped in any of the villages on the
North Sea coast as shall be used in the fishery, for " salt-
herring or bucking " between Elevation day, or Sept. medio,
and Dec. medio, " or thereabouts." The premium was
granted for three years only, but the grant was renewed in
1791 and 1794. The fact of the coast fishermen being still

* Steur-en Korf-haring. Such herring was kept in baskets
(korven) and strewed with salt (steuren) till brought home to be
smoked, whence fish thus treated was called either steurharing or
korfharing. The name of zoutharing (salt herring) is also occasion-
ally applied to it, but this " salt herring " should be carefully dis-
tinguished from "cured herring." See Res. Holl. 1777, p. 928, and
1778, p. 880.

t Res. Holl. 1786, p. 4413.

\ Gr. PL Boek, ix. p. 1314.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 447

at the time under obligation to take licences from the
College of the Grand Fishery is evident from a clause of
this Resolution, by which the said College is ordered to
yearly state the number of boats sailed from the coast under
their supervision.

The differences about the right to cure herring are, as
has been shown, the main subject of the smoked-herring
trade's history under the Republic. A very different point
of working legislation has been contested between those
concerned in the " fresh-fishery ; " viz., the nature of the
nets to be used by them.

It would appear to be still a point at issue between
technical writers on sea-fishery, whether the sea can be
exhausted. Whatever views may at present prevail upon
this question among experts, the provincial legislators of
Holland under the Dutch Republic held it possible to
extinguish fish-life under their shores ; and they ac-
cordingly at one time took steps to prevent its destruc-
tion by enacting penalties against the use of such nets as
either sweep the bottom of the sea, and thereby are said to
extirpate spawn and fry of certain fish residing on the
ground, or destroy fry of fish by their undersized meshes.

Fresh-fishery of the North Sea coast, commonly called
" the side " in former times, appears at an early period to
have been of some importance, as a Resolution of the States
of Holland dated December /th, 1585,* proves that fresh
fish from Scheveningen was at the time sold in the London
market. Still the profits of the trade were small, and
fishermen " of the fresh " are throughout the Republic's
time styled " the poor, or miserable (schamele) fishers of the
side." In 1595 they were allowed, on account of their
* Res.Holl. 1585, p. 808.

448 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

poverty, to fish on public prayer-days, " provided it should
be done with good discretion."* Measures for their safety
were frequently taken by the States of Holland, and they
had generally one or two small ships of war for their
special protection in time of war. Agreements to leave
each other's coast fishery unmolested were concluded with
Dunkirk, or their conclusion proposed, in 1606, 1644, 1674,
1703, and 1707 ; but as to the effect of these measures I
have not found any evidence. The circumstance of Dutch
coast fishery being mostly exercised at a short distance
from shore, and by flat and shallow boats, liable to be
stranded whenever a foeman hove in sight, may have
induced the Dunkirkers to show forbearance fo prey so apt
to escape them, when the reciprocal safety of their coast
fishery from Dutch privateers and men-of-war was to be
gained by it. For the same reason " fresh-fishery " was
sometimes permitted when the other sea-fisheries were
prohibited on account of the wars.t

Measures to prevent the exhaustion of the coast waters
are not on record before the year 1676, when at the request
of the coast fishermen themselves, viz., those of ter
Heide, Scheveningen, Katwijk, Noordwijk, Zantvoort, Wijk
op Zee and Egmond, a Placard of the States of Holland,
dated September ioth,J prohibited all such proceedings as
were reputed obnoxious to the preservation of certain
species of fish. " It has always been customary," says this
Act, "that nobody should fish with narrower gear than
plaice nets, being drift nets made upon a chip of the size of
a full eight-and-twenty " ( whatever that measure may have
been). " Some time before this, however, certain gain-seek-

* Res. Holl. 1595, p. 531, 586.

f Ibid. 1666, p. 49, 621 ; 1667, p. 101, and others.

\ Ibid. 1676, p. 385 ; Gr. PL B., iii. p. 1366.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 449

ing persons have begun to fish with nets composed of
narrower meshes, and even with trawl-nets (schrobnetten) " ;
and as by the former proceeding fry offish are killed, while the
latter destroys the spawn, and even the bait on which fish
live, both are prohibited by the placard just quoted. An
exception to this law was made on January 22nd, 1677,* in
favour of those who should fish for shrimps within the
sand-bars, with a light ground-net (ligte sayingh of corde].
Bars of movable sand do indeed exist to this day close
under the whole of the North Sea coast. " Sayingh " (now
spelt saayem\ is the name still used for the shrimp-net,
which is indeed a kind of trawl. The sense of the word
corde is explained in the first legislative act in which the
implement is mentioned, viz., a placard dated April ipth,
1 583,t by which it is forbidden to fish with this net in the
river estuaries, and in which it is described as a net kept open
by a beam and burdened with stones or lead, which is
dragged along the bottom of the water behind a fishing
vessel. , " Corde," in short, is an equivalent for the now
common word " schrobnet," and a general term for any
trawling apparatus.

The permission to use the shrimp trawl was not the
only mitigation grafted in 1677 upon the law of the
preceding year. It was likewise permitted to use "sole-
nets " (tongewanf] the meshes of which measured " a two-
and-thirty " being apparently a smaller dimension than
the " eight-and-twenty " adopted as a minimum size in
16764 But the use of all trawl-nets other than the

* Gr. PL Boek, iii. p. 1367.

f Ibid. i. p. 1274.

J It appears from these denominations that the dimensions of the
meshes were indicated by the number of them which went to some
standard measure. And it may therefore be supposed, although 1

VOL. IX. — E. 8. 2 G

450 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES

"sayingh," just mentioned was again prohibited in 1677,
and a special clause was enacted against the sinking even
of lawful " eight-and-twenty " nets by ballasting them with
weights whereby they might be used as trawls.

The prohibition against trawling, although enacted at
the fishermen's own request, was very ill observed. On
March 29th, 1678, the States of Holland instructed their
officers to strictly execute the law against all those who
should fish with trawls (corden of schrobnetteri) ; but never-
theless in the summer of that year the delegates from
Haarlem to the States reported about grievous disturbances
occasioned by trawlers at Wijk op Zee. Among the fisher-
men of this village one party stuck to trawling and there-
fore went by the name of " schrobbers," while another
observed the law and were styled " scholders," by reason
of their adhering to the lawful " scholnet," or plaice
net. The trawlers acted upon a principle frequently
followed by trespassers of every kind ; they annoyed
those who kept within the law by carving and destroying
their gear, and occasionally laying violent hands upon
their persons ; and the local magistrates, stated to be
- " friends of the trawlers," made matters still worse by
sequestering the " scholders' " nets under a pretence of their
being sized contrary to the statute, and keeping them
under arrest so long as to occasion their owners a serious
prejudice, although the nets had to be ultimately released,
being found in accordance with the law.* Fishermen of

have found no positive evidence to the fact, that the "eight-and-
twenty " size here alluded to was the same which was in 1683 declared
lawful for seines used in the Zuider Zee, viz. fourteen to half a yard. In
the first quarter of the present century, the "eight-and-twenty"
measure was three Netherland inches and nine-tenths (see the Laws
of 1820 and 1825, in Part iii. of this essay).
* Res. Holl. 1678, p. 391.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 451

other coast villages were not much better observers of the
statute, and the placards of 1676 and 1677 had to be
re-issued several times in 1679 and following years. On
March i6th, 1680, a petition by the Side fishermen, to be
allowed the use of " cordens "or trawls either of the twenty-
eight or thirty-two size was declined by the States, and a
strict application of the laws against such fishing once more
recommended to all officers concerned.* On September
1 7th, 1687, the placard was once more renewed,! and the
penalties extended to any in whose boats forbidden nets
should have been found, even though they should not have
sailed with them. But even this did not put a stop to the
coast fishers' habit of trawling, and the prohibition had
ultimately to be given up, chiefly because of the impossi-
bility of enforcing it. In March 1689, the " Corders" of
Wijk op Zee represented to the States that trawling went on
in the other villages in spite of the law, as it was not
possible to procure fresh fish by any other process during
war time, when fishermen " of the Fresh," were obliged to
keep within view of the coast. Whereupon the States
ordered their officers on the coast to stop the execution of
the laws against trawling, { and there is no evidence of
their having been renewed under the Republic.

It is stated in some of the above-quoted laws against
trawling, that at the time the fresh fishery " was already
ruined for the greater part." Nothing precise is known as
to its extent in still earlier times ; but its decline certainly
did not stop at the end of the seventeenth century. The
Catholic provinces of the Austrian Netherlands were one
of the principal markets for fresh fish from the Side, which

* Gr. Plac. Boek, iii. 1368.

f Ibid. iv. p. 1363.

t Res. Holl. 1689, p. 230 ; Gr. PI. B. iv. 1365.

2 G 2

452 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

of course could never be carried far inland in those days of
slow locomotion ; and accordingly, when protective duties
against foreign fish were resorted to in the Austrian
provinces about 1725, the Dutch " neeringe van den versche"
were the principal sufferers. Remonstrances against the
Austrian tariffs were tried several times, but found un-
availing ; and although under the Republic statistical
accounts of the fresh fishery do not appear to have been
kept, the gradual closing of the Southern market may be
safely assumed to have occasioned its lasting decline in the
course of the eighteenth century. The " embargo " of
1781 of course contributed to hasten the downward move-
ment ; and when the sea was reopened in 1783, only ten
bum-boats or " pinken" are stated to have sailed from
Scheveningen for fresh fish. The trade's utter insignificance
towards the end of the Republic may also be deduced from
the fact that, of all the several branches of North Sea
fishery, it is the only one which never was encouraged by a
bounty. The phenomenon might indeed be accounted for
by a very flourishing state of the Fresh trade in the year
1788, when premiums were lavishly dispensed to all other
fisheries, and all of them were in a prostrate condition.
But if the " verschvaart " had made such a favourable
exception, there is not a doubt but the fact would have
been mentioned on all hands ; whereas the history of this
trade is simply a blank at the period when sea-fisheries in
general were distinguished by an ardent competition for
bounties. Fresh fishery from the " side " might even be
believed to have come to a complete stand-still at the close of
the republican period, if some mention of it were not made a
few years later, as will be shown in another part of this work.

The fisheries of the Zuider Zee have, as has been said

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 453

above, a history of their own, and one widely different
from that of the several trades of which the North Sea is
the area. As the Zuider Zee is an inlet, separated from the
North Sea by a boundary of isles and shallows, no enemies
used to disturb its fishermen, and the Republic's many wars
never affected them. As regards the nature of their trade and
of the gear and vessels used, they were entirely at variance
with their brethren of the open sea. The most striking
point of resemblance between the fisheries in the two waters
is perhaps the jealousy respecting them between the
inhabitants of the surrounding land. In the case of the
North Sea, this jealousy raged between nations ; in that of
the Zuider Zee, between inhabitants of the Republic's several
provinces. In both cases it led to repeated conflicts,
accords, and treaties. While reading the Zuider Zee history,
of which, as it can be of no very stringent interest
to the foreign reader, I shall give but a very succinct
account, it should be borne in mind that the shore of this
inland sea belongs to several provinces, which under the
Republic were distinct States, having sovereignty rights
of their own, and in this case anxious to use them so as to
ensure the greatest possible part of the Zuider Zee fishing
returns for their own subjects. Something like the " Dom-
inium Maris " question, on a reduced scale, is at the bottom
of the history of Zuider Zee fishery under the Republic of
the United Provinces, the gaps of whose union were
peculiarly apparent in this very matter.

Salmon and sturgeon appear in old times to have been
abundant along the Zuider Zee shore and about the mouths
of the rivers descending into it ; * where, however, they have

* Several towns on the Zuider Zee still carry salmon in their
scutcheons. A present of salmon from one of them to Duke Albert of
Bavaria is recorded as early as 1389.

454 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

been now for a long time extinct, or very nearly so. Flounder
and turbot were always, as they are to this day, prominent
among the produce of the Zuider Zee, and gave their name
to the vessels most in use there (botters, from bot, i.e.,
flounder). Herring fishery was also exercised in the said
water from time immemorial ; but Zuider Zee herring never
was branded, nor its fishery subjected to working rules,
whereas the main object of legislation on Zuider Zee fisheries
has for centuries been to prevent the destruction of salmon,
sturgeon, and flounder, by regulations as to the width of the
nets to be used. This object was pursued some time before
the Republic was born. On January 8th, 1546, the Emperor
Charles the Fifth, by a publication, fixed the minimum size
of the meshes, at " five common seamen's thumbs." The
towns of Holland, whose fishermen had from early times
used to fish in the Zuider Zee with narrow nets, obtained the
repeal of this edict on November I2th, 1547, when there
was substituted for it a prohibition against dragging nets
through the water, by which proceeding, according to the
said law, fish are smothered ere they be full grown. It was
likewise forbidden by this edict to land smothered unripe
fish and sell them as food for cattle or pigs ; and all fish
not quite full-grown were prescribed to be thrown over-
board as soon as caught. Fishermen from Holland con-
tinued to assert their rights to unlimited fishery in spite of
the law, whereas those of Gelderland and Overyssel insisted
on its observation, and moreover claimed for themselves the
exclusive right to fish within a certain distance from their
shore ; and both subjects became a matter of protracted
disputes between the several provinces.* A provisional edict
of the year 1555, fixed the minimum width of the nets to be

* A paper on the subject has been contributed to Nyhoff's Bydra-
gen voor VaderL Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde> 1864, p. 309.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 455

used at two common seamen's thumbs, and some limits were
measured out in the next year, within which fishermen
from Holland should not be allowed to approach the
Gelderland and Overyssel shores. But they of Holland
continued to overstep both boundaries of lawful fishing, and
their fishing vessels of a peculiar description call " water-
schepen"* in which they used to carry arms and ammuni-
tion, and commit acts of violence and piracy upon the fishers
of the other provinces, were the terror of the Zuider Zee.
Nor did they amend their conduct when a sentence, or
arrest, by the Grand Council of Malines, dated April 29th,
1559, definitively determined both the fishery limits of
each province, and the minimum width of the nets to be
used.

The Union of Utrecht by no means put an end to the
protracted disputes and petty warfare between fishermen
from the several provinces which acceded to it. Reciprocal
complaints about fishing with unlawful nets, and within the
established limits, were frequently laid before the States of
those provinces. Gelderland and Overyssel having been
occupied by the enemy in 1672, it was seriously considered
in the States of Holland to exact from them, as a condition
for their re-admission into the Union, a promise never to
trouble Holland fishermen in the unrestricted fishery in
the Zuider Zee in future.f The disputes ran so high in the
next years, that Holland and Gelderland imprisoned several
of each other's fishermen for unlawful fishing, and a conven-

* I have not been able to ascertain to what peculiarity these vessels,
of which no mention is made in after years, owe their rather singular
name of " water ships." None of the authors nor any of the laws
upon the subject explain their nature. I suppose them to have been
well-boats.

f Secret Res. Holl. February 65, March 24, 1674.

456 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

tion was at last agreed to between delegates from both
provinces, on December I7th, 1682, in virtue of which the
men detained were released on either side, and a set of
rules for Zuider Zee fishery was established on March 2ist,
1683, to be enforced as a law in both provinces.*

The principal contents of this regulation were as follows : —

No silken nets whatever to be used, and the nets of yarn
not to be of a less depth than three feet measured between
the floats at the top and the lead used to steady them ; the
nets' meshes not to be narrower than twelve to the yard.f

All setting of nets (a practice very common especially
along the Zuider Zee shores, by reason of their extreme
shallowness), to be prohibited in the first three months of
the year ; and all set nets to be placed seaward perpendi-
cular to the shore line, and not parallel to the shore, and
their ends marked by poles driven into the bottom, for
sailing vessels to avoid damaging them ; the maximum
length of these nets to be two hundred fathoms.

Fishers using either set nets of the above description, or
fykes and weirs, to keep a convenient berth and not place
their contrivances closer to each other than at intervals of
one hundred fathoms at the least.

All fish caught unripe and unfit for consumption to be
thrown overboard, whether dead or alive, and on no pre-
tence carried ashore and sold, bartered or otherwise turned
to account as food for pigs, ducks, or other animals.

The use of seines (zegens) to be prohibited in the months
of April and May, and the meshes of such nets at all times
to be of the size of fourteen to half a yard.

This regulation by treaty, issued as a law for Hollands
fishermen by the States of Holland on April loth, 1683, by
* Gr. Plac. Boek iv. p. 1358-9.
f " dan van twaelf overgangen in een elle"

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 457

no means set the fishermen's minds at rest. On September
24th of the same year the prohibition to use silken nets
was repealed as regarded set-nets fixed to poles, and used
on the coasts of Holland only,* at the urgent request
of the fishermen of Monnickendam and some neigh-
bouring localities. Petitions to be allowed to fish with
narrower nets than the sizes prescribed were examined by
the States in 1685 ;f and Holland took upon herself to
supersede till June 1st, 1688, the enforcement of the general
prohibition against nets narrower than twelve meshes to
the yard.J In 1698, conditions of a similar nature of those
of 1683 were agreed between Holland and Overyssel ; and
it is recorded that on January 2ist, 1699, forty fishermen
from Amsterdam, being ready to sail on the Zuider Zee in
" water ships " were sworn by the Burgomasters of their
city to observe the above regulations. In the next year,
however, the State of Overyssel remonstrated with those
of Holland about unlawful fishing by Hollands subjects,§
and in 1707, Holland in her turn complained of violence
committed upon fishermen from Hoorn, by others
from Vollenhoven in Overyssel. In 1728, Friesland,
having likewise an interest in the Zuider Zee fishery,
remonstrated with Holland about inhabitants of the latter
province fishing for plaice before the fifteenth of April,
against a law of Friesland which never was binding for
Hollands subjects. || Though only now and then mentioned
in the States' registers, such disputes as these may be
presumed to have occurred as long as the Republic existed ;

* Gr. Place. Boek, iv. 1361.
f Res. Holl. 1685, p. 88.
% Ibid. 1688, p. 265.
§ Ibid. 1700, p. 386.
|| Ibid. 1728, p. 430.

458 THE HISTORY -OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

for it was impossible to prevent them so long as every one
of the provinces surrounding the Zuider Zee was entitled to
legislate on fishery on its own hand, and the statutes of one
were not binding for the others, except in so far as they
had been agreed upon by treaty, as in the case between
Holland and Gelderland.

The last legislative act on record relating to Zuider Zee
fishery other than for herring, was not conventional, but
issued by Holland at the request of her own subjects. The
set-net fishermen of Marken (a small island close under the
Hollands shore) in 1785 petitioned the States for protection
against destruction of their weirs, traps, &c., by nets
dragged through the water at a reckless speed, either
between two vessels or behind one.* The matter was con-
sidered with the slowness and pedantic verbosity habitual
in the later years of the Republic, and ended in a prohibi-
tion dated December 1 5th, 1786, "against the most
pernicious drag-fishery between two vessels (or betters)
coupled together," and against drag-fishery at night, even if
only one vessel were used. It was also prohibited by this
Act, to tow a grapnel behind fishing vessels ; and from the
latter clause, as well as from the deliberations relative to
the law, it appears that drag-fishery was sometimes carried
on with a view not only to catch fish, but also to destroy
the set-gear of concurrents.!

Herring fishery appears to have been in the Zuider Zee
as ancient a trade as that of plaice and sturgeon ; but very

* These nets, by the description given of them, are evidently the
very narrow anchovy nets (wonderkuil) against the use of which
measures have recently been taken (see Part iii., ch. iv.). I have not
however, found any distinct mention made of anchovy fishery in
Zuider Zee under the Republic.

t Res. Holl. 1785, p. 5119 ; 1786, p. 2406 ; Gr. Plb, ix. 1312.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 459

little is known about the former, except that its produce,

being herring of a small size and often lean (yele har'ing)

was never cured, but either sold fresh as "pan-herring" or.

smoked, the latter being the more habitual method. The

only legislative act relative to the Zuider Zee herring fishery

is a placard of Holland dated May 3ist, 1752,* by which

the Zuider Zee fishermen of the province were enjoined to

bring all their herring to market in one of the fortified

towns of Holland and West Friesland, and not to sell, or

otherwise transfer any herring at sea. The object of this

enactment (which appears to have been but a renovation of

old laws fallen into disuse) was to uphold the smoking

establishments of Holland, and prevent herring caught by

inhabitants of that province from being landed in one of the

ports of Gelderland and Overyssel. The law was mitigated

by another dated May pth, I755,t by which it was declared

lawful for two or three fishers to sail in company, and have

their fish brought ashore by one of them ; and they were

moreover during the week preceding Easter dispensed

from the prohibition to sell herring at sea. The former

clause is indicative of something like " sale-hunting " on a

scale reduced in proportion to the small distances between

the ports and the fishing area. Zuider Zee vessels indeed did

not lose much time in sailing home to their ports of Edam,

Monnickendam, &c. ; but their time was often peculiarly

precious, as the Zuider Zee has at all times been subject to

fitful invasions by herring shoals so dense as almost to fill

up the sea. It is stated that in 1549 herrings were caught

off Enkhuizen by simply scooping them out of the water

* Gr. Plb. viii., 1255.

f Ibidv\\\., 1259. An interpretation of this Act was issued in 1765,
(Gr. PI. B. ix., 1301).

460 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

in basketfuls, and that in 1665, some skippers of the same
town landed eight hundred lasts, or eight millions of
herrings in one month.*

CHAPTER V.

"DOMINIUM MARLS."

THE right to fish all over the open sea has always been
to the Dutch Republic a matter of importance proportioned
to that of her sea-fisheries. This right is now universally
acknowledged to belong to all and sundry ; but notions on
international law were different some centuries ago, when
the Sovereignty of the seas, or of some portion of them,
was claimed by more nations than one. The Netherlands
never set up any such claim, and by the number of their
merchant and fishing shipping were always very closely
interested in debating it, and maintaining the " Mare Libe-
rum," theory, the very name of which reminds of its immor-
tal Dutch exposer and defender, Hugo Grotius. As all
pretensions to " Dominium Maris," were of a nature in the
very first place to affect the sea-fisheries' most vital interest,
this history, or that period of it which coincides with the
international debate on the question, would not be complete
without a brief account of the several phases of the quarrel,
as carried on between the Netherlands and their two rivals
in fishery, Great Britain and Denmark. The disputes with
the former power are by far the more important, and have
been made the subject of a profound historical investigation
by Mr. J. Muller, Fzn., in his important work 'Mare
Clausum.'t The compass of these pages of course affords

* See p. 20 of the Report by the Committee on Sea-fisheries, 1854.
f Edited by Fr. Muller, Amsterdam, 1872.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 461

no space for any but a short survey of the question, and
forbids entering upon its merits properly said, or treating
its scientific side as a point of history and international
law. The following is a very concise account of its actual
bearings upon the Dutch sea-fisheries, i.e. of the effect
taken upon them, at some periods, by such acts of .foreign
Governments as were based upon pretensions to a fishing
monopoly in some portions of the sea.

It has been stated in Part I of this work, that as early
as the year 1295, King Edward the First forbade his subjects
to molest the Dutch, Zealanders and Prisons, while fishing
off Yarmouth ; a fact peculiarly significant, as Edward the
First was the first British monarch who styled himself
sovereign of the sea. In 1439 a treaty concerning the
rights of fishermen was agreed to between King Henry the
Sixth and Isabel of Portugal as representing her husband,
Philip Duke of Burgundy, then reigning Count of Holland.
This treaty, stipulating that the fishermen of both parties
should be free to " paisiblement aler par tout sur Mer, pour
Peschier et Gaignier leur vivre, sans Empeschement ou Des-
tourber de Fune Partie ne de VAultre" originally covered
only the natives of Brabant and Flanders on this side of the
Channel. Having been renewed more than once, it was
finally extended on the 24th of November, 1467, to the
natives of " toutz leraultres Palis et seigneuries" of the then
reigning Duke of Burgundy, thereby including the Dutch
and Zealand fishermen, and for the first time consecrating
by international compact their right to fish all over the sea.
"sans qu'il leur soit Besoigne sur ceo requirer ne opteiner
ascune Licence Congie ou Sauf conducted The treaty was
again renewed at Lille, on July I2th, 1478, in the same
terms as regards fisheries ; and was finally superseded by
the " Grand Intercourse," or treaty concluded at London

462 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

on the 24th of February 1496, which likewise stipulated,
in Latin bad but explicit, the entire freedom of fisheries on
either side. " Conventum, concordatum et conclusum est"
says the document, "quod Piscatores utriusque Partis
Partium praedictarum (cujuscunque conditions existanf)
poterunt ubique Tre, Navigare per Mare, secure Piscari
absque aliquo Impedimenta Licentia seu salvo Conductu"
This treaty continued in force for more than a century and
a half.

The protection of the Sovereigns of Scotland was from
very early times no less valuable than that of England
to the Dutch fishermen, who as far back as the earliest
stage of their history appear to have worked the more
northerly parts of the North Sea and the Scottish coasts.
A privilege granted to them by the King of Scotland is
mentioned in the year 1341 ; and a treaty concluded at
Binche on February I9th, 1540, between the Emperor
Charles the Fifth (then Sovereign of the Low Countries) and
James the Fifth of Scotland, stipulates that the fishermen of
both nations shall be reciprocally protected against pirates
and indemnified for damage received in time of peace at
the hands of subjects of either state.

The second treaty of Binche, dated December I5th, 1550,
explicitly stated " circa Piscationem ac liberum usum Maris,
ea quae per Tractatum anno 1 540 . . . inita conchtsa ac conventa
fuerint debite ac sincere observari debebunt" In virtue of this
treaty, which was once more confirmed in 1594, and of the
London treaty of 1496, the freedom and reciprocal protec-
tion of sea-fisheries was a settled point of international
law between Great Britain and Holland, towards the close
of the 1 6th century.

But at this period the Low Countries, hitherto an obscure
province of a continental Empire, not only astonished the

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 463

world by their declaration of independence of the
Spanish dominion (1581), but entered upon a career of
matchless prosperity, in spite at first of the most disastrous
circumstances. Even while involved in the long and
destructive war, which long before its end brought about the
avowal and consecration of their independence by their
late sovereign, their unfettered energies, spurred by self-
given freedom, were strenuously directed towards economi-
cal progress, and their fisheries began to increase rapidly.
A new State had sprung up in Europe, and was at once
counted with and envied. Such rivalry as had from times
immemorial existed between the British and Dutch fisher-
men, grew with the young Republic, and from the very
beginning of its existence took the shape of an animosity
between it and the British Empire, which centred in long-
rankling disputes about the freedom or dominion of the
North Sea.

Robert Hitchcock's extremely curious plan for the
organization of British fisheries, which appeared in 1580,*
is the first document in which this rivalry is tacitly avowed.
Th» author proposes British herring-boats to be rigged on
the pattern of " Flemishe Busses " and the fish caught by
them to be cured in the Flemish manner (Beukelstfs).
The competition of the Dutch herring fleet, then evaluated
by Selden at four or five hundred sails, was considered by

* A Pollitique Platt for the honour of the Prince, the great Profit of the
Publique State, relief of the poore, preservation of the riche, reformation
of the Roges and Idle persones, and the wealthe of thousandes that
knowes not how to live. Written for a New Yeres gifte to Englande
and the inhabitantes thereof." It appears that there is now but one
copy extant of this pamphlet, preserved in the British Museum. The
author of these pages quotes it from Mr. Muller, who in his above-
quoted work, * Mare ClausumJ quotes it from extracts transmitted by
a friend.

464 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

Hitchcock to be the chief obstacle to his plan, but he did
not consider it insurmountable, the fishing area being
situated "within the Queene's Majesties Seas " and much
closer to the British than the Dutch coast, thereby putting
the Dutch at a considerable disadvantage on the markets
of England and Scotland. Sir Thomas Overbury's
'Observations in his Travels' (written 1609, printed 1626)
likewise contain a warning against the Dutch, and
represent them as being England's natural rivals on the
sea.

Still, under Queen Elizabeth's reign Dutch fishermen
were not molested. Measures tending to alienate so
desirable an ally against Spain were inconsistent with the
politics of this far-sighted monarch. Things took a very
different turn soon after James the First's advent to the
throne. Besides considering himself personally affronted
by Grotius' treatise on Mare Liberum, the contents of
which agreed very ill with the King's passion for his
prerogative, His Majesty felt sorely aggrieved, and by no
means without reason, by the manner in which the Dutch
exercised and overstepped their fishing rights ; not only
ousting the* English from the trade by lawful competition
in overwhelming numbers, but occasionally offering them
such violence as has for centuries been usual with such of
the rival fishermen as chanced to be the stronger in a
collision.* Fishery and piracy were then, as indeed they
have been since, concerns closely connected together on all
hands. English subjects were loud in complaining, and the
result was the king's " Proclamation touching Fishing "
(May 1 6th, 1609) by which in consideration of the injury
done to English by foreign fishermen, and in virtue of the
Royal prerogative, foreigners were prohibited from fishing on
* For instances of this see Milller^ p. 47.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 465

British coasts and in British seas, unless licensed thereto
by the king's officers, upon payment of the duties in-
cumbent on such license. The great " Mare clausum "
question was by this measure openly started.

It was at first discussed on amicable terms. The Dutch
Ambassador, sent to London avowedly to thank the king
for his good offices in the concluding of the twelve years'
truce with Spain, had a debate upon the point against the
king's counsel learned in the law, on the i6th of May, 1610
They based their remonstrance chiefly upon the liberties
anciently granted to the Dutch, and upon their being the
first in right to the herring fishery by reason of the best
method of herring curage having been invented in the
Netherlands, but were met by the assertion of the king's
dominion over the seas, and would very probably have
been unsuccessful had not the murder of Henry IV. of
France suddenly turned the king's most earnest attention
to the expedience of conciliatory proceedings towards all
those in whom allies were to be found against Spain.
Although fully maintaining his exclusive sovereignty in
the British seas, the king consented to supersede the
Proclamation, and the infliction menacing Dutch fishermen
was for the time averted.

A conflict, however, could not long be averted between
two seafaring nations, both anxious to promote their
fisheries in the same seas, Spitzbergen, discovered in 1596
by the Dutch Admiral Jacob van Heemskerk, while in
search of the North-West Passage, and by him appro-
priated in the name of his Sovereigns the States-General,
next became the theatre of private naval war. English and
Dutch fishermen set about working this new shaft at the
same time ; but as stated in chapter II., the first attempts
of the latter were unfruitful, owing mainly to the plunder-

VOL. IX.— E. 8. 2 H

466 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

ing of two whalers from Amsterdam off Spitzbergen, in the
summer of 1612, by a fleet of English whalers well equipped
for warlike proceedings. The small Dutch fleet sailed home
despoiled both of fish caught and oil made, and of the
instruments to catch and make more. The " Mare clau-
sum " controversy, just quieted in the British seas, sprung
up in a fresh and very critical shape beyond the
Arctic circle ; for the whaling seas were included in the
alleged " Dominium Maris " of Great Britain. And this
time the king was not to be moved, though Winwood, late
ambassador of England at the Hague, and just then called
to the Secretaryship of State, interceded for the Dutch
claims on behalf of the States, who on their part addressed
to the king a memorandum, " Replicques fondees a
1'encontre des propositions et pretentions des Anglais,
d'avoir le commandment sur la Pescherie de File Spits-
berge ou Terre Neufve," composed by the renowned Dutch
cosmographer Plancius. There was nothing for it but to
oppose violence to violence. A Dutch company was
formed in 1614 (see chapter II.), and sent eighteen vessels
north, under cover of three men-of-war. A truce was the
consequence, and for the year 1614 the waters of Spitzbergen
were divided between the parties who had come north
ready to fight for them. The same armed peace again
prevailed in 1615 and 1616, when the whaling fleets of both
States came out under convoy, and seem to have fished
in peace, keeping each other in respect. Diplomatic inter-
ference, in which the celebrated Grotius acted as a com-
missioner on the part of the States-General, and extensive
memorializing on both sides, meanwhile led to no solution
of the difference, as James I. inflexibly maintained his
claim to Dominium Maris, and vouchsafed no answer to
the Dutch Ambassador's remonstrances. Although peace

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 467

was maintained between the two Courts, war between the
British and Dutch whalers under the northern lights was,
of course, inevitable under these circumstances. In 1617,
the States having granted an insufficient convoy to their
whaling fleet, the establishment built by them at Spitzbergen
was destroyed by the English. Forcible retaliation was
taken by the Dutch in the next year, when open warfare
seems to have prevailed in the north all the summer,
occasioning, on the 3rd of October, 1618, a sharp and
menacing remonstrance to the States-General from the
British Ambassador, Sir Dudley Carleton, whose " Lettres
Memoires et Negociations " (edited in English and trans-
lated into French) are a source of much information upon
the fishery differences between the two nations in the years
1616-20.

Nor, in the meantime, did peace reign in the North Sea.
The works of Sir Walter Raleigh* and " Gentleman " t
strongly contributed to keep the spirit of rivalry awake, by
giving the British public highly exaggerated notions of the
profits and prosperity derived by the Dutch from the her-
ring fishery, and stimulating England to try and evict those
competitors, whether by free competition or by legislatory
checks. Welwood's books of juridical controversy % at
the same time directed the public attention afresh towards
England's alleged monopoly of fishing in the British waters.
King James I. did not long remain deaf to exhorta-
tions so congenial to his own notions. In August, 1616,
without any previous renewal of the publication of 1609,

* Observations touching Trade and Commerce with the Hollanders
(published about 1610).

t England's Way to Win Wealth (published 1614).

\ Abridgment of all Sea Lawes (published 1613) ; De dominio
Man's (published 1616).

2 H 2

468 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

the king's officers by his orders demanded of Dutch fisher-
men a tax or retribution of one angelot, or a barrel of
herring and twelve cod-fish for every vessel fishing in the
British seas. The tax was paid by most skippers until two
of the convoying men-of-war's captains interceded and
reported matters home. Bitter remonstrances from the
States to the king ensued, but the tax was appointed to be
levied again in 1617. This time, however, the officer en-
trusted with the duty met with a flat refusal, in the name
of all the Dutch fishermen, at the hands of the captain of
one of the convoying ships. Having so far executed his
orders, the British officer was about to leave the Dutch
herring fleet, when Captain John Albertsz, of the convoying
vessel from Enkhuizen, one of those who had parleyed with
the English officer in the preceding year, alleged orders to
arrest him, and carried him to Holland. Two Dutch
captains were instantly taken by the English, and kept as
hostages. The States and Stadtholder hastened to utterly
disavow Captain Albertsz' rash act, turn him out of office,
and release the captured English officer. Still King James's
wrath required further satisfaction, and the Dutch hostages
were not returned until one of the guilty Dutch commanders,
Tlieff (Albertsz being retained by sickness), had been sent
to England and had been rebuked by the king in person
with such asperity as might be expected in such a cause.

Scarcely had the quarrel been thus adjusted upon the
offender's back, when complaints of ill-treatment by the
Dutch were heard from some Scotch fishermen. A fresh in-
terpellation from the British Ambassador at the Hague gave
rise to an examination of sundry fishing skippers, which
of course led to no result. The States, however, emitted
a sharp edict against ill-treatment of Scotch fishermen,*
* Gr. PL Boek, i. p. 707.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 469

charging all Dutch seamen, whether serving in herring
busses or convoying men-of-war, to refrain from violence
towards the subjects of His Britannic Majesty, and keep
" true friendship, neighbourship and good correspondence "
with them, on pain of being "punished in the body as
pirates and men of violence."

Matters, then, were scarcely on an amicable footing in
the North Sea, when, in the year 1619, a Dutch Embassy
went to London to treat, among other matters, of the
Greenland and Spitzbergen fishery question. The herring
fishery was not mentioned in their instructions, a circum-
stance sufficient in itself to ensure them a cold reception ;
and as regards the Arctic affairs they were met with an asser-
tion of the king's unlimited sovereignty over Spitzbergen,
which left small hope of coming to a definitive agreement.
The king indeed in a verbal audience consented to let the
Dutch fish off Spitzbergen for three years, but the restitution
of goods and chattels unlawfully taken by both parties
remained an unsettled question, and in point of rights
" Mare clausum " as regards Spitzbergen was maintained as
firmly as ever.

Another Dutch Embassy came to London in Janaury,
1621, with directions to negotiate on various matters of
importance then pending ; and although unprovided with
precise instructions regarding the fishery question, they had
that question broached to them by the British Government.
The States at the time were anxious to keep this delicate
point out of discussion and leave it in statu quo ; but the
king required an end to it, and the ambassadors were obliged
to promise the speedy opening of negotiations on the subject,
with a view to a definitive settlement of the claims of both
nations. The fact that the individual claims of several
Scotch herring-fishers for damage sustained on the hands

470 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

of the Dutch were in the meantime secretly settled by
order of the States, stands as a proof of their anxiety at the
time to conciliate England as far as it might be done
without serious injury to Dutch interests.

The fresh Dutch Embassy, which sailed for England on
December 8th, 1621, carried instructions which, as regards
the matter of fisheries, amounted to an order to tergiversate
as much as feasible. The king treated them to such
language as might be expected from an aged and querulous
invalid feeling wronged and aggrieved in one of his
favourite pretensions ; and in consequence of the tergiver-
sating policy adopted, the Greenland and the herring
fishery questions as well as the British claims for damages
were as unsettled as ever when the ambassadors left
England in February, 1623.

The States, who at the time had good reasons of general
policy to avoid any rupture with England, towards the
opening of the herring season issued orders for Dutch
herring boats to refrain from approaching too near the
British coast,* as, indeed, it had been tacitly understood
for years that they were to keep out of sight of that
coast. The damages question, however, remained un-
settled, and the Dutch fished off Greenland and Spitzbergcn,.
as well as in the North Sea, by the king's tacit ac-
quiescence and without any agreement as to their rights to
either. The demise of James I. and the Anglo-Dutch
Alliance of 1625 made it possible to continue matters in
this state without any serious collision, although the
ancient rivalry between the nations continued, and petty
claims and disputes occurred even in this period, in the
causes of which there is reason to believe the misconduct of
Dutch fishermen had a fair share. The publication or
* Res. St. Gen. June I2th, 1623.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 471

"placard" against violence to the Scotch was renewed
twice in this period of quiet, in satisfaction to British
complaints.

Charles L's politics involved the strengthening of Eng-
land's navy and the most strenuous measures to uplift
her fisheries. The establishment of an Act on herring
fishery, on the pattern of the Dutch. laws upon the subject,
and the chartering of a company for the herring fishery in
1632, are decisive instances of this tendency. But as yet
the competition of Dutch herring fishermen, whose trade at
the time had obtained immense development, was a serious
obstacle to its progress in England, and the company
founded there had but a short duration, and nothing like
success.

It was not in Charles L's character to suffer this state of
things for a long time. Selden's work on " Mare clausum,"
intended as a refutation of Grotius' " Mare liberum," was
published in December, 1635, by the king's express order.
The work instantly received general attention, the more so
because, being dedicated to the king and approved by
Council, it bore a semi-official character. Holland, where
Selden's work was very soon reprinted, very soon also was
visited with its effects. On April 5th, 1636, the king
notified to the Dutch Ambassador his intention to subject
all fishing in the alleged British seas to his royal license
and recognizance in the shape of a special tax ; and not-
withstanding the States' immediate protest, a proclamation
renewing the one issued by James I., and drawn in high-
sounding terms, was issued on May 3Oth, 1636.* The king,
indeed, in an audience granted to the Dutch Ambassador

* This proclamation is printed as an appendix to Mr. Muller's
work before-quoted, and translated in Aitzema's Matters of State and
War, ii. p. 306.

472 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

on the 2/th of July, represented the measure as being of a
peaceful nature and intended to benefit the Dutch fisher-
men by the protection of England against their enemies,
the Dunkirk privateers. But at the same time twelve
British ships of war sailed from the Downs to the Dutch
herring fleet's fishing grounds ; and though most of the
fleet had already leftr the rest were made to take the
license and pay the recognition demanded of them, which
indeed amounted to but two shillings per last for the year,
and was paid by the fishermen without hesitation. The
British Admiral, the Earl of Northumberland, nevertheless
took the commander of a Dutch convoying vessel prisoner,
and the Dutch Ambassador Joachimi, sent in haste to
England in order to obtain redress, was met with a more
than ever decided assertion of the king's right to exact last-
money from any who should fish in the alleged British seas.
The Dutch fishermen's readiness to pay the amount
demanded of them had, as Joachimi observed to the States,
greatly compromised matters.

Dutch fishermen complained loudly to the States of the
proceedings in which some of them had acquiesced readily
enough ; and in August, 1636, a fleet of fifty-seven Dutch
ships of war sailed under admiral van Dorp, with instructions
to give the herring busses efficient protection, " against the
Spaniards and all others inclined to molest them" Van
Dorp was late at his rendezvous, where he found a British
squadron had already arrived, and levied the tax from
most of the Dutch fishing vessels ; and having no orders
how to act in such a case, his presence was useless, and
his position awkward. The admirals of both nations, having
met in presence of the Dutch herring fleet, reciprocally
asked each other why they were there ? and each answered,
" to protect the fishermen." Both squadrons soon after-

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 473

wards left the spot for other business, and the net result of
the season's proceedings was the carrying off of some
twenty thousand florins as license-money by the British
admiral, and the establishment in England of a general,
though unfounded, notion that the Dutch States had tacitly
acquiesced in the tax for the future, and acknowledged the
sovereignty of England in the North Sea. The notion was
so far from being exact that the Dutch admiral van Dorp
was punished for his insufficient protection of the fleet by
having his demission pressed upon him, in the following
year, in such terms as moved him to instantly retire from
office.

Although far from acquiescing, the States were still
anxious to evade a definitive settlement of the sea-
sovereignty question. When, in October, 1636, they
negotiated an alliance with England against Spain, the
king's promise to leave the Dutch fishermen unmolested
as long as the proposed alliance should last, was asked for
as a set-off against certain concessions on the Dutch side,
without anything being said on the principle of " Mare
liberum " or " clausum." Pending the very intricate and
delicate negotiations on the Anglo-French alliance, in
which the whole of European politics were at issue,
Charles had reason to pacify the Dutch Republic, and
accordingly left her fishermen in quiet during the herring
season of the year 1637 ; and the States on their side
managed to keep the question out of view, though they
never once departed from their alleged right of free-
fishing. A learned treatise in refutation of Selden's " Mare
clausum" was about this time composed by the States
order, by one Dirk Graswinckel ; but it was thought
advisable not to publish it, and Grotius himself, then in
Swedish service after his disgrace and escape from his

474 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

mother country, had good reason not to meddle even with
the merely scientific side of the matter any more, because,
as he wrote to his brother in 1636, " Ego, cum Suecia
multum teneat orae maritimae, quid aliud praestare possum,
quam silentium f " The policy of " not waking sleeping
dogs " was in those days prevalent on all hands, and a
summer's unmolested fishing was the result for the Dutch
herring busses.

The naval battle of the Downs (October 2ist, 1639), in
which the Dutch fleet under Tromp routed that of Spain
within the so-called " King's chambers," and in spite of
Charles the I.'s inclining towards Spain, was of wide con-
sequence even for the fishery interest The engagement
constituted a most flagrant breach of Charles's alleged
sovereignty of the sea ; but at the same time it showed to
what a pitch the Republic's naval power had in the mean-
time ascended. The British pretences to sea-kingdom
were virtually at an end after the affront of the Downs,
which never was resented openly. The king having on
October loth, 1639, pressed the States to accede to the
Franco-British alliance, under promise that their freedom
to fish in the straits should ensue from such accession,
their answer was : " they did not intend to stipulate that
right from any one," being, indeed, in tranquil possession
of it. Striking instances of outrageous treatment from
Dutch fishermen to British subjects occurred at this
period.* Feeling themselves masters of the sea, they
indulged in acts of piracy, which Charles, then sorely

* Such acts were committed even before the battle of the Downs.
On the 26th of May, 1638, the States- General examined the matter of a
captain from Enkhuizen who appears to have gone ashore on a
piratical expedition, and plundered and sacked the house of one
Robert Sherret, a merchant of Ireland.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 475

intent on home affairs, was not at leisure to resent. The
events of 1640 utterly broke the king's power to make
himself respected abroad, and the impending fall of the
House of Stuart put an end, for a long period, to open
contestation between the two nations as regards the right
to fishery in the North Sea. Under Cromwell, other and
still more important questions than that of the free sea
fishery were at issue between the two then greatest naval
powers of Europe ; and their next collisions were the
beginning of that series of naval wars, the effects of which
upon the Dutch sea fisheries have already been described
in former chapters. Nor does the " Dominium Maris "
question, as between Great Britain and the Dutch
Republic, appear to have told upon the actual state of
the fishery in later years, though it continued for some
time to influence the diplomatical relations between the
two countries, especially in 1661, when British influence
considerably retarded the conclusion of a treaty between
France and the Republic, by which the former power
engaged to protect the latter's fishermen.

Besides England, Denmark has at several periods pre-
tended to " Dominium Maris," in the shape of a fishing
monopoly within a certain range from the shores of Green-
land, Iceland, and Spitzbergen. The Danish claims never
had anything like the importance of the British ; for,
besides being preferred by a power much less formidable,
they bore exclusively upon two minor branches of sea
fishery, viz. the whale and the cod-fish business. Still, as
Denmark more than once actually interfered with Dutch
fishery in virtue of these claims, they are entitled to a
brief mention in these pages.

The first instance I have found of controversies on

476 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

fisheries with Denmark dates from the year 1615, just
after the first successes of the Arctic Company. On
February i8th of the said year the King of Denmark
wrote to the States-General about the Dutch whaling
expeditions, and claimed for himself the exclusive right to
allow his subjects to whale off Greenland, to the exclusion
of all foreigners unless provided with a Danish licence.
The reason given was, that " the waters in question are off
the northerly shores of our Empire." Some contribution
from Dutch whalers had already been pretended to by
a Danish ship of war in the season of 1615, but had
then been refused by the former on the plea that they
knew of no title to the exaction. The British claims
to the whaling monopoly off Spitzbergen probably moved
Denmark to a similar measure relative to Greenland.
But the States-General, in their answer to the Royal Dane,
politely but peremptorily declined the latter claim as well
as the former ; and Denmark preparing for violent inter-
ference with the Dutch whalers, the States accommodated
the latter with artillery and ammunition, besides granting
them such convoy as kept the Danes in respect.*

Next, in 1635, the Danish Sovereign preferred similar
pretensions to a fishing monopoly off Iceland. A letter
from the King remonstrating against the Dutch fishing
off the shores of that island was laid by the §tates-General
before those of Holland, who took the advice of the Arctic
Company upon it. The latter were just then engaged
in difficulties about the renovation of their charter, and
owing, perhaps, to this circumstance, although the King
of Denmark renewed his protestations, and even employed
a Dutch merchant residing at Copenhagen to remind
the States of them, he got no answer for two years. A

* Res. St. Gen., April ^trr 28th ; May nth, I2th, and June 2nd, 1616.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 477

memorial was addressed to Denmark in 1637 to refute
their claims to a whaling monopoly off Iceland, and as
these claims are not mentioned again in the States'
Resolutions of the next years, they appear to have been
suffered to drop, as had the Greenland difficulties in 1616.
Still, pretensions of the said nature were not given up
by Denmark. In 1639 Dutch whalers were menaced
and annoyed by Danish men-of-war, in virtue of a law
issued against all who should fish off Spitzbergen without
a Danish passport ; and once more a " well-reasoned
memorial" from the States appears to have settled
matters. It would indeed have been indifferent policy for
Denmark to push them too far against a power whose
navy had just then beaten Spain and kept England at
bay in the famous battle of the Downs. I have found
no further mention of fishery difficulties with Denmark
till a century later, when the Danish claims for the first
time gave rise to actual violence, the first motive for
which, however, was taken not from a fishing but from a
trading monopoly.

It has been recorded in another chapter that Dutch
whalers used in the eighteenth century to apply themselves,
besides the exercise of their industry properly said, to
traffic with the natives of the Arctic countries. This trade
first occasioned a collision between Denmark and Holland
in the year 1739, in a bay near Disco Island, Greenland.
A Dutch whaler anchored there, and doing business with
the natives, was arrested and captured by a Danish man-
of-war, and four more Dutch vessels, equally trading with
the inhabitants, soon after endured a regular bombardment
by three of the King of Denmark's ships, whose com-
mander, having captured the vessels and crews, launched
the latter off to sea in open boats, and brought the ships

478 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

to Denmark as prizes. The Dutch sailors only escaped
death from starvation by their happily falling in with
some of their countrymen's vessels after a few days'
navigation, who carried them home and reported what had
happened. The Commissioners of the Greenland fishery
of course lost no time in petitioning the States for redress ;
and the proprietors of the captured Dutch vessels mean-
while resorted to retaliation by arresting a Danish vessel
then lying at Amsterdam. This at once called forth a
protest from the Danish Ambassador Griis (or Grys), who,
while demanding the release of the arrested ship, stated
the alleged cause of the proceedings against the Dutch
in Greenland to be a monopoly of trade granted to a
Danish subject on certain parts of that coast, including
the bay near Disco where the above-mentioned facts had
occurred. The Republic was then no longer as formidable
a naval power as a century before, and the States saw
fit on this occasion to use the utmost forbearance. They
showed to the Danish diplomatist that the arrest laid
on one of his country's merchant vessels was a matter
of civil litigation, and therefore could not occasion an
intervention by the political authorities ; but at the same
time they prevailed upon the magistrates of Amsterdam
and the parties concerned to release the Danish vessel,
a measure dictated by comitas gentium, which, as the
States did not fail to represent to the Danish Ambassador,
they expected to be responded to by the release of the four
captured Dutch vessels. Denmark, far from consenting to
such an amicable termination of the difference, gave it con-
siderable extension by falling upon the Dutch cod-fishing
fleet, then assembled round Iceland to the number of about
one hundred vessels. After some chasing and annoying
of this fleet, Danish men-of-war ultimately captured four

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 479

of the hookers ; but while being brought to Denmark
one of them succeeded in effecting her escape, and carried
to Holland, as prisoners, a Danish midshipman and three
common seamen who had been put on board to bring
the prize into port. The quarrel, which had at first
revolved upon an alleged monopoly of trade ashore, thus
became a fishery question ; and from the diplomatic
correspondence which was at once opened on the matter
it appeared that Denmark based her action on a pretended
exclusive right of Danish subjects to all fishery and navi-
gation within four miles of the coasts of all Danish pos-
sessions in the Arctic seas. Whether or not it may have
been true, as was stated in a petition to the States by " the
common shipowners of the cod fishery about Iceland," that
while chasing and capturing Dutch fishermen the Danes
had left those of France and England unmolested, here was
" Dominium Maris " come to life again, and the matter there-
fore called for the Republic's utmost vigilance and energy.
A series of remonstrances were accordingly presented to
the Danish Government by the Dutch Ambassador at
Copenhagen in the course of the years 1740 and 1741.
As regards the means of actual compulsion, Holland indeed
spoiled her case at the very outset, by reiterating the
extreme forbearance used towards the Danish vessel
arrested at Amsterdam in 1739. Upon the Danish Ambas-
sador's request the States in 1740 ordered the Admiralty of
Amsterdam to set the captive Danish sailors at liberty,
whereas the captured Dutch ships had been declared by
the Danish magistrates to be lawful prizes, and eventually
sold in public auction at Copenhagen. The point of law
meanwhile gave rise to extensive memorializing on both
sides. It was alleged by Denmark that all foreign vessels
were prohibited from approaching within four miles of the

480 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

Iceland coast, by a law issued in 1733, in confirmation of
a privilege granted in 1682 to a Danish trading company ;
and that the Dutch cod fishers made unlawful trading,
contrary to this act, their principal business, to the ruin of
the Danish traffic on the Iceland shores. To this, the
Dutch Ambassador opposed the non-acquaintance of his
Government with the law and privilege in question, and the
fact that Dutch vessels had, up to the year 1739, constantly
been allowed to fish and trade unmolested on the coasts of
both Greenland and Iceland. The right to both was averred
to belong to the Dutch in virtue of certain ancient treaties,
one of which, dated 1447, established the rights of the
Dutch to free navigation " usque ad Boreae oras." In this,
as in former disputes of the same nature with England,
the historical side of the question was strenuously discussed,
without leading to acquiescence on either side. The
Dutch pretensions were advocated with considerable energy
by Mauricius, then Dutch Ambassador at Hamburg, who
though not called upon by his diplomatical duties per-
sonally to act in the matter, made the rights of both parties
the subject of very profound and ample historical investiga-
tion, the results of which, in the shape of a series of
memorials, he sent to the States-General, who drew from them
the materials for the notes and remonstrances they ordered
their minister at Copenhagen, Coymans, to present to the
Danish Government* Far from bringing about an agree-

* Mauricius* several Memorials on the subject, together forming a
goodly folio volume, have been printed, and a copy of them is extant
in the Royal Netherlands Library. The volume gives astonishing
evidence to the mass of labour bestowed by this learned diplomatist
upon a matter alien to his own professional duties at Hamburg, from
which town the whole of the documents are dated. For the course of
facts and negotiations see Res. Holland, 1739, 1740, 1741 ; Res. St. Gen.
of the same years ; the secret Resolutions of Holland, 1740, 1742, and

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 481

ment this diplomatic debate only led to the question at
issue assuming more and more serious proportions ; and
finally, when remonstrances on both sides had gone on for
more than a year, a distinct pretension to " la domination de
la Mer du Nord " as the source and origin of the right to
exclude foreign vessels from the coasts of islands in the said
sea, was set on foot by the Danish Government in August
1741. The States-General immediately ordered their am-
bassador to deny this pretension in the most energetic
terms, " because other potentates might follow the example
of Denmark, to the inestimable prejudice of these countries'
trade and traffic in general." Denmark at the same time
sent a squadron north to enforce her claims, and the Dutch
Whaling Commissioners obtained convoy from the States.
A warlike conflict between the two naval Powers seemed
imminent, but was ultimately averted by the intercession,
in favour of the Republic, of the British and French
Ministers at Copenhagen. " Mara liberum " was the base
of their joint remonstrance, in which it is worthy of note
that a British diplomatist should have been employed, in
opposition to another naval Power's pretension to " Maris
dominium." The matter was subsequently adjusted by
an understanding that Dutch vessels should not trade
within the precincts of the Danish provinces in the Arctic
seas ; and a placard against such trade was issued by the
States-General on April I5th, 1762.* The limit of four
miles from the shores of these provinces appears to have
been afterwards interpreted by Denmark, not as a prohibition

the periodical called Europische Mercurius, 1741, vol. i. p. 313.
Wagenaar ( Vad. Hist. xix. p. 279) gives but a very incomplete account
of the matter, and plainly was not acquainted with its true bearings,
having never read the Mauricius papers.

* Res. Holl. 1762, p. 508.

VOL. IX. — E. 8. 21

482 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

to fish within that region, but as a precaution against
foreign fishing vessels going ashore for trading purposes,
and the commanders of Danish men-of-war in the Northern
Seas constantly had orders not to molest such fishermen as
should occasionally be found within the said limit, provided
they should not show any disposition to trade.*

PART III.

SEA FISHERIES SINCE THE END OF THE DUTCH
REPUBLIC.

CHAPTER I.
1795-1813.

THE Revolution of 1794-5 transformed the Republic of
the United Netherlands into a Batavian republic, at first
based upon the principle of the former United Netherlands,
and some time afterwards remodelled upon the pattern of
the French Republic. A gradual reform of ancient rotten
institutions attended these events ; but the rules and rulers
of sea fisheries survived the wreck of the rest

The " College of the Grand Fishery " was indeed
abolished in 1795 ; but a similar body was at the same
time appointed, under the more modern and French
sounding title of " Committee for the Affairs of the Grand
Fishery," by a decree of the provisional legislative body
dated May I2th. The members of the new Board appear
to have been freshmen in their business ; for the committee
was unable to make the necessary provisions before the
* Res. Hotl. 1761, p. 974 ; 1762, pp. 314, 650 ; 1774, P- 494-

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 483

busses' sailing day (June 24th), and some herring shipowners
were, at their request, appointed by the representatives of
Holland to arrange matters, under the title of a " Provisional
Committee for the Direction of the Grand Fishery."

Besides taking the necessary steps towards the timely
sailing of the fleet, this provisional Board tried to make out
the financial status of the ancient college's administration.
They found this an arduous task ; for the college's accounts
were scarcely in a creditable condition. Their secretary
was dead ; their chief clerk declined to give up the more
important papers to the new committee ; and the latter,
in such accounts as were delivered up to them, found many
instances of maladministration. Considerable sums had
been spent in banquets, the inevitable appendix of every
meeting of a Dutch Government Board in former times.
Herrings for the customary presents to certain authorities
had been bought from some privileged shipowners at the
very highest prices ; the towns of the south quarter
represented in the college had rendered no accounts, and
their " buss conveyer," or " hospital ship," to equip which
was one of the college's principal duties, had been taken by
the French two years before, and not replaced. Commis-
sioners from the " Committees of Public Welfare, Marine
and Finance," had to intervene in order to make the
refractory college clerk give up such part of his books as
he had chosen to secrete. In a word, it was shown that
the college's administration had latterly been anything
but an exception to the general rottenness and mass of
abuses prevalent in the old Republic's later years.*

Sea fisheries were scarcely then in a better condition
than the books of their administrators. The war with
France in 1794 had forced part of the herring fleet to
* Vervolg op Wagenaar, vol. xxxiv. p. 138 sqq.

2 I 2

4*4 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

return into port as early as the first days of July ; and in
September the French had taken the whole of the cod
fishing fleet* To apply for pecuniary aid was therefore
one of the first acts of the new committee ; and the several
immunities previously granted to the herring fishery were
accordingly continued by the government of the new
Republic. As for subsidies, the committee in i/95refrained
from applying for them, in consideration of the exhausted
state of the country's exchequer ; but at the same time
directed the attention of Government towards the expedi-
ency of ulteriorly granting the Grand Fishery the same aid
which they had enjoyed under the defunct Republic. f But
there was little occasion for subsidy in the next years, as
the protracted war with England, which at one time
nearly swept the Dutch colours away from the face of the
seas, stopped all or most fishing expeditions. The main
feature of this history in the years between the overthrow
of the Republic of the United Netherlands and the restora-
tion of 1813 is, that there was some legislation, but very
little fishery. Sailors and vessels belonging to the latter
were often pressed into the country's service ; and a
publication against resisting such requisitions had to be
issued by the Executive Board on July 4th, 1798. A
re-organisation of the committee for the Grand Fishery
took place on November 2Oth of the same year, but as yet
only the title of Provisional Committee was given them,
and there is no evidence of the extent of their business
transactions having warranted another name. Their only
act in the last two years of the century is indicative of the
veiy depressed condition, if not the utter stand-still, of the

* Nieuive Jaarboeken> a° 1794, p. 1218; Gevers, de magno sive
halecum piscatu, p. 61 sgq.

•j- Gevers, de magno sive halecum piscatu, p. 63.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 485

North Sea herring fishery. Some export trade in herring
was then kept up by the unlawful processes of repacking
imported foreign herring and cured " pan-herring," caught
in the Zuider Zee ; a sure proof that the Grand, or North
Sea Fishery could not supply the market. But, although
obliged by the troublous times to refrain from their trade,
the Grand Fishery would not allow others, who acted under
more favourable circumstances, to interfere with it Several
herring dealers in July 1799 applied to Government for a
prohibition against the re-packing of foreign herring, and a
strict application of the herring laws of the former Republic,
which had never been repealed, and were expressly main-
tained in force by publication of November 2Oth, 1798 ;
and the Committee of the Grand Fishery of course seconded
the application. In. consequence, on May 3Oth, 1800, a
publication was issued to the effect that all herring im-
ported from abroad should be re-exported in the same
barrels, without undergoing any manipulation whatever;
and that no " pan-herring " caught in the Zuider Zee should
be cured or laid in barrels as pickle-herring. The con-
siderations upon which this edict is based are a remarkable
instance of the spirit of monopoly surviving the trade, and
excluding competition even when competitors had the
market all to themselves. Zuider Zee herring, says the
publication, cannot be packed so as to acquire the taste of
the Grand Fishery's produce ; the former is never cured on
board, but always ashore, and while being carried home
uncured is crushed into a jelly,* by the motion of the
vessel ; and it is generally caught in spring, when it can be
sold at very low prices, so as to seriously depress those of
early cured-herring from the North Sea, and injure the
reputation of Batavian brand-herring abroad. The same
* " A Is in hare pap ivordt gaar gekookt."

486 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

contradictory statements in which the Grand Fishery were
found out while insisting upon their curing monopoly
against the North Sea coast fishermen in 1751* were now
repeated by them against those of the Zuider Zee. Letting
alone the improbability of herring getting " crushed into
a jelly," during a transport home which upon the Zuider Zee
must have generally been of but a few hours' duration, how
could herring so crushed be cured with a result so satis-
factory as by its competition to endanger the Grand
Fishery ? As a fact, Zuider Zee cured-herring was certainly
of worse quality than Dutch, or, as it was styled at the
time, Batavian brand cured on board in the North Sea ;
but the former was taken by the markets abroad, where it
certainly was more profitable to sell Zuider Zee herring
than to sell none at all.

The Grand Fishery's stand-still at the time is proved,
if not by any positive testimonies, by the fact that even
the coast fishery had come to a dead stop. If Dutch bum-
boats could not fish under the Dutch coast in 1799 because
. of the English cruisers, Dutch busses certainly could not
venture into their fishing areas off Shetland and Yarmouth.
And as regards the former, the forced stoppage of their
trade in the season of 1799 is established by several
petitions preferred by the municipality of Katwijk, suing
for a subsidy to maintain their poor, "because in the
present circumstances no fishery whatever can take place
in the North Sea." They applied for a weekly bounty of
£.40 for each bum-boat and fl.8 for each of the smaller
or shrimping boats, instead of which the first Chamber
decreed to allow the village a subsidy of fl.2OOO down,
towards the maintenance of their poor. But the second
Chamber declined to ratify the edict ; and the " poor fishers
* See part ii. chap. iv.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 487

of the Side," of whose often very miserable condition we
have had evidence in a former part of this work, had to go
without any relief from Government It might have been
found advisable under such circumstances to let Zuider Zee
fishermen at least have the full benefit of the exceptionally
sheltered position of their fishing water. But, as shown
above, the spirit of monopoly bore them down and kept
them within the old legislative trammels, even when they
were virtually the only branch of sea fishery still in action.

In the midst of this general stand-still of the business
the legislative bodies gave birth to a very prolix and
detailed fishery law, viz., the Publication of July 28th, 1801 ;
the preparation of which, although it was mainly a repetition
of existing regulations, had lasted since the summer of 1800.
This law has been in vigour for a very few years only, and
during the fisheries' greatest decay. It is nevertheless
important in the history of Dutch fishery legislation for
more reasons than one. In the first place, it is a thorough
proof that the Revolution had brought no change whatever
into the fishers' and fish dealers' notions. Secondly, the
law is, so to say, a crystallisation of the various statutes
and rules which emanated on the subject under the republic
of the United Netherlands, and reflects the whole of the
herring legislation from its beginning downwards ; while
in its turn it has been the model for Acts of later date.
Thirdly, the law of July 28th, 1801, contains many clauses
apparently taken from bye-laws made by the ancient
College of the Grand Fishery, of which I have not found
the text in any official publication of earlier date.

The greater part of this herring law of 1801 is a
faithful, and in many clauses a literal reproduction of the
placards on the Grand Fishery of 1582 and following
years, the contents of which have been exposed at some

488 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

length in Part II. of the present essay. The " Committee
for the Grand Fishery " was definitely organized by this
law, and their competency was much the same as that
of the college of old. They were to deliver licences
(acten van consent} to the masters of all herring busses and
sale-hunters, and of such cod-fishing vessels as should
carry herring nets ; to swear in the masters, and two of
the crews of all the said vessels to observance of the law ;
to provide "hospital ships" (the nature of which will be
shown hereafter) ; to issue instructions to the captains of
the same, levy last-money, and advise Government on all
matters of fishery legislation. The working rules relative
to the opening and close of the herring season (June 24th
— Dec. ult.) : — to the curing, sorting, packing and further
handling of herring on board ; the prohibition to carry
herring to a foreign port, or transfer it at sea to any but
licensed sale-hunters, or to any one after July I5th; the
interdiction from selling salt and fishing implements to
foreigners, or from taking service on foreign fishing vessels ;
the police regulations for fishermen at sea, and the rules
relative to the hiring and payment of sailors, and the
terms between them and the busses' masters and owners ;
to the salt to be used, the packing of herring, and branding
of barrels ashore — these several rules were all re-edited to
nearly the same effect, and partly in the very same terms,
as in the several placards in vigour under the Republic of
the United Provinces. Laws of many dates, and scattered
over many volumes of the Grand Placard Book, were now
assembled into one statute, in virtue of the principle of
codification brought into use as one of the far-spreading
consequences of the French Revolution.

Of the clauses now sanctioned for the first time by the
law of the realm, aad most probably taken from former

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 489

College bye-laws, the following are the most interest-
ing :—

No herring-buss to put to sea without a complete
' fleet " of forty nets at the least (Art. 2).

No buss to sail home during sale-hunting time (i.e.
between June 24th and July I5th), or come into port before
July i pth, unless with a complete cargo, i.e. with the whole
of her barrels packed full of herring treated according to law
(Art. 15). This is the first legal sanction of the monopoly
of sale-hunting, of which more shall be said in a following
chapter. The institution may have existed before, as
a College bye-law, but not before 1753, as it is not men-
tioned in v. d. Lely's ' Recueil.'

Herring-nets to be subject to control, as well as herring
barrels. A complete set of regulations relative to the
nets to be used in the cured-herring fishery was enacted in
1 80 1 (Arts. 67-73).*

The sizes of both nets and meshes, and the quality of the
hemp to be used in them, were prescribed in detail.
Previous to delivery to the owner, every herring-net was
to be submitted to inspection by a male or female
" counter " (teller of telster), i.e. a sworn official entitled to
verify and certify to the size and number of the meshes
and the dimensions of the net ; and the very hemp intended
to be spun into yarn for herring-nets was to be previously

' The style of these articles is in some parts so antiquated and
different from the usual wording of laws in the first years of the
present century, as to make it particularly probable that they were
modelled upon some bye-law of the former College's making, and of
a much older date. An "order" relative to herring-net making,
dated 1579 and arrested by " th£ four towns " then incorporated in
the College, is mentioned on p. 15 of v. d. Lely's Recueil, without
further reference to its contents.

490 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

inspected by a " keurmeester " or assayer. Other materials
than Dutch hemp were prohibited from being used in her-
ring-nets. No nets were to be used unless marked by the
" counter " with a leaden seal bearing the name and arms
of the town, and the official's own initials.

The most important innovations contained in the law of
1 80 1 are, however, the clauses relative to the rights of the
several branches of North Sea Fishery ; about which
rights, as has been shown in Part II., differences had
formerly arisen. The several monopolies, the limits of
which had in the course of the eighteenth century been
for the greater part established by College bye-laws, were
now, for the first time, sundered and defined by ordinary
legislation.

The Grand Fishery having the monopoly of curing, was
restricted to that business, and forbidden to use the
process called steuren* i.e. to salt herring in baskets
ungutted, for the purpose of ulterior curage by smoke.
The busses' steersmen were allowed to preserve herring
in this fashion in two cases only ; viz., when all the
barrels on board should have been filled with cured herring,
in consequence of an exceptionally felicitous catch, and
when it should be impossible, by reason of foul weather and
high sea, to use the proper method of curing (kaken\ which
required considerable attention from the whole of the ship's
hands simultaneously. If any herring had been salted in
the former manner by reason of either of the said circum-
stances, a peculiar oath to the fact was to be taken by the
vessel's steersmen and two of her crew, immediately upon
entering port (Art. 19).

The monopoly of the " steurharing" business being

* See part ii. chap. iv.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 491

thus assured to the fresh fishery, the latter were likewise
subjected to a complete set of rules. They were, in the
first place, strictly forbidden to cure (kaken} any herring
either on board or ashore, under any pretence or for any
purpose whatever (Art. 93). For the better enforcement
of this prohibition, which as will be remembered existed
under the former Republic as a bye-law of the Herring
College's making,* steersmen of the fresh-herring fishery
were prohibited from sailing before September I4th, or from
casting their nets before September 2Oth of each year
(Art. 91). They were, as formerly, obliged before sailing to
take out a peculiar licence under the seal of the Grand
Fishery Committee, and take oath to observe the laws and
regulations relative to their trade (Arts. 88, 89). They were
subject to last-money to the amount of fl. 3 per twelve
thousand herrings, the same amount being due for every
last, of fourteen barrels, of cured-herring brought into port
by the herring busses (Arts. 17, 99). To ensure the
recovery of this tax, which, as formerly, was levied by the
committee's officers for the benefit of their treasury, the
steersmen of all fresh-herring smacks were bound to have
their cargoes of " steurharing " examined and counted by
municipal officials, who made the necessary declarations
to the committee's last-money collectors. The steers-
men of the Grand Fishery were subject to no such
obligations, for they had to deliver up their barrels of
cured herring (or pickle-herring] to the assayer, whose
examination was sufficient control over their declaration
for last-money to be paid.

In the third place, the North Sea cod-fishermen's attri-
butions as regards herring-fishery were established in
detail by the law of 1801 (Arts. 21, 22). They were, as
* See part ii. chap. iv.

492 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

formerly, permitted to catch herring for bait at all
seasons; but if sailing before the I5th of July were not
allowed to have more than eight herring-nets on board, and
ten if sailing at a later date. In the former case, they were
prohibited from curing or preserving any herring whatever
unless for immediate use as bait for cod-fish ; and all sale,
barter, or transfer of salted herring was strictly interdicted
to them. If sailed after the I5th of July, they were
allowed to cure the remnant of their herring left after
providing the necessary bait ; but such herring was not to
be sold unless in open barrels, and qualified as " mixed "
(pngezonderdeti) herring, subject to previous inspection by
the assayer, who was to destroy the herring thus brought
into port if found unfit for consumption. The object of
these rules was to secure the Grand Fishery the unre-
stricted monopoly of curing till the i5th of July, i.e. the
day on which the last " sale-hunter " was to leave the
herring fleet and sail home ; and even after the said date
to prevent the cod-fishery from offering the cured-herring
business any serious concurrence.

Such are the principal contents of the Herring Law of
1 80 1. It was, as has been shown, a codification of the
rules in vigour under the Republic of the United Nether-
lands, whether established by the legislator of the realm or
by the Herring1 College's ill-defined but seldom-questioned
authority.

Besides the law itself, which is composed of no less than
109 clauses, and a series of forms of oath annexed to it in
imitation of the Placard of 1656,* the publication of
July 28th, 1 80 1, contains two more documents requiring
peculiar mention, viz., an instruction for the members of
the " Grand Fishery Committee of the Batavian Republic,"
* See part ii. chap. i.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 493

and a form of commission for the commanders of their
buss-convoyers, or hospital ships.

The former instruction, issued in lieu of the provisional
organisation of the year 1798, contains the following
principal clauses :

The committee is to superintend the whole business of
the Grand Fishery (and indeed, as appears from the terms
of the law just mentioned, much of that of the fresh-herring
trade) under the supreme supervision of Government
(then the " Uitvoerend Bewind " or executive board of the
Batavian Republic). The committee is to be composed of
nine members, all of whom are to be privately concerned
in the herring-fishery, and appointed, subject to approba-
tion by Government, by the managing owners (boekhouders)
of herring busses in the towns and villages most concerned,
viz., four by Vlaardingen,* two by Maassluis, two by
Enkhuizen, and one by de Rijp. If the Grand Fishery be
ulteriorly exercised or extended in other towns, such towns
shall be entitled to appoint one further member of the
committee if fifteen busses be equipped there ; and if the
number of such busses exceed forty, they shall be entitled
to apply to Government for their further representation
in the committee. The latter body's place of meeting,
formerly Delft, is now fixed at the Hague. They are
entitled to appoint their several officers and last-money
collectors, and to regulate the latter's salaries and caution-
moneys under Government approbation. They shall
annually elect their chairman, and hold their first and

* This town was not a prominent " herring town " in the earlier
times of the old Republic, and was repeatedly declined admission to
the College of the Grand Fishery. Vlaardingen's greatness in the
trade seems to date from the latter half of the i8th century ; it has
been foremost in it ever since.

494 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

second meetings on the first Mondays in March and May,
having previously conferred with the shipowners in the
several towns and on the sea-coast, and taken their
instructions as to the subjects to be considered for the
several interests of the cured and fresh-herring fisheries.
They shall annually render an account of their financial
administration to a delegate from Government, in presence
of such shipowners as shall choose to attend their meeting
designated for the purpose ; and their account is to be
ultimately submitted to the Commissioners of the National
Accounts (or supreme Government Board of Control) for
liquidation. The said administration involved, as receipts,
the last-money mentioned in the above law, and Govern-
ment subsidies ; as expenditure, the equipment, manning,
and victualling of hospital-ships, the salaries of committee
officers, and other general expenses. The committee's mem-
bers were entitled to nothing beyond travelling expenses
under a certain tariff. They were under oath to Govern-
ment strictly and honestly to fulfil their several duties.

The form of commissions for commander of hospital-
ships annexed to the law of 1801 throws much light upon
the convoying institutions of the time. The hospital-ship,
also called " buss convoyer," appears to be the ultimate
result of a gradual transformation of the ^direction-ships,"
anciently sent by the college after the herring fleet to
protect them against enemies, and to enforce the rules of
fishery police upon them.*

The "hospital-ships "of 1801, if they were still armed

* " Hospital ships" were sent out with the herring fleet under the
old republic, in time of peace, when convoy properly said was un-
necessary; v. d. Lely's Recueil mentions the cost of two "hospital-
ships" in 1714 and following years, without stating their precise
nature at the time.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 495

convoying vessels like the " direction ships " of old, were
mainly intended for peaceful purposes. Their captains'
instructions indeed contained an injunction "to use good
seamanship and soldiership" but the rest of their vessels'
attributes, as apparent from the same document, are such
as no man-of-war could carry out without very serious
prejudice to the latter function. Jhey were to be floating
lazarets, marine stores, and wharves for the busses'
convenience, whom they were bound to assist with
surgeons and carpenters, spare rigging, and all such
materials as they should require. They were to relieve
the busses of their sick, and provide them with able
seamen instead, and in general see that no buss should be
obliged to sail home prematurely by reason of avary or
lack of hands. In some cases the captain was instructed
to act in concert with the commander " of the other
hospital-ship ; " whence it is evident that no more than two
used as a rule to be sent after the fleet ; and both of them
were constantly to sail round the herring fleet, and carry
signals to enable busses in distress to find them out

A short while after the establishment of the law of 1801,
and the definitive organisation of the Committee of the
Grand Fishery, the preliminaries of London were signed ;
and in the next spring the short-lived Peace of Amiens
opened the sea for peaceful pursuits. Sea-fishery was
instantly recommenced, and of course its beginnings were
attended with such financial difficulties as shipowners had
in former years been accustomed to overcome by the
aid of bounties. Accordingly, to sue for premiums to
herring-busses was one of the first acts of the now es-
tablished committee ; and besides, they applied for the
subsidy which the provisional committee had not enjoyed
during the stagnation of herring-fishery. A subsidy of

496 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

£.3000 was granted them on January 1 5th, 1802, and on May
2 ist the sum was increased to fl. 12,800, by the addition of the
ordinary subsidies, which had been kept back in the pre-
ceding years. Besides the subsidies, which as formerly were
intended to cover general College expenditure, a premium
of fl./oo for each buss to sail in that year was allowed by
the Legislative Body on April 27th, somewhat to the
committee's disappointment, as the sums applied for by
them were fl.Soo for 1802, and fl.5oo for the next ten years.
The other branches of sea-fishery likewise applied for
premiums to recommence their business. The Commis-
sioners of the Greenland fishery * had the highest preten-
sions of all, and sued for fl.3OOO as a premium for each
whaler carrying forty men and seven boats, besides fl.5OOO
as an indemnification for each of twenty-nine whalers which
had been sent north in 1798, and all taken by the English.
As, however, the Treasury could afford no such largess,
they had to be content with fl.2OOO for each whaling ship
equipped and sailed in 1802, besides the " indemnization " t
formerly held out by the Placard of October 3rd, 1788,^ to
the amount of fl.5o for each quarter of train oil wanting to a
hundred in each cargo. The commissioners of the small, or
Iceland cod-fishery at Vlaardingen and Maassluis § were
likewise accommodated with bounties to the amount of fl.7OO
for each vessel, and the fresh-herring fishery of the Side
had fl.2OO held out to them as a premium for each bum-
boat. || One hundred and sixty-eight busses sailed in this
memorable year of peace, 1802 ; and it may be readily

* See part ii. chap. ii.

f " Premie van dedommagement."

\ See part ii. chap. ii.

§ See part ii. chap. iii.

|| Notulen van het Staatsbewind, Dec. 1801 — June, 1802, passim.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 497

assumed that, as a consequence of the re-establishment of
the premium system for all the several branches, the
revival of sea-fisheries was general, and shared by the
other branches besides the Grand Fishery. At any rate,
such a revival of the fisheries and the trades dependent on
them was counted upon as certain after the peace of
Amiens, as is proved by a publication dated April 22nd,
renewing the prohibition issued by the States-General in
1778,* against exporting well-boats for cod-fishery.

As an instance of the spirit of enterprise infused into
those concerned in sea-fisheries in the year 1802, the institu-
tion of an African whaling society may be cited. A report
had spread that whales were very plentiful about the Cape
of Good Hope, so that, although they were of a small size
and yielded train of an inferior quality, a renewal of the
ancient Greenland Company's first successes might be hoped
for. Accordingly a corporation styling itself " South Sea
Whaling Company " was started in 1802, and subscriptions to
it soon reached the considerable figure of £1.790,000. They
obtained a Government charter of monopoly to last twenty
years. Government (then the Executive Board called
" Staatsbewind " ) indeed judged all monopolies "hateful
and contrary to that equality " of all citizens, which formed
one of the fundamental principles of the Batavian
Republic ; but they undertook to reconcile monopoly and
" equality " by an ingenious wording of the charter. As a
precaution against their superseding the ancient Greenland
whalery, the new company were obliged by their charter
to take a one-eighth share in every vessel sailing to Green-
land, if the owners of such a vessel should demand it, and to
a maximum of one-fourth of the company's paid up capital. f

* See part ii. chap. iii.

t Vcrvolg op Wagenaar, vol. xlv. pp. 54, 327.
VOL. IX.— E. 8. 2 K

498 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

The rupture of the peace of Amiens in the next year
stopped these hopeful beginnings. The blow was the
heavier, as considerable preparations for sea-fishery had
been made in the first months of the year, under the con-
tinued stimulus of premiums, which were granted again
in 1803, to the amount of fl.7oo and fl.5oo, for the next
eleven years, for busses and hookers employed in the
cured-herring and cod-fisheries. To prevent the utter loss
of the capital invested in vessels and equipment by the
time war had recommenced, the Committee for the Grand
fishery asked Government to apply for passports from
England ; but far from acceding to the petition, the
" Staatsbewind " on June 6th ordered the Committee to
prevent the sailing of busses. Several shipowners next
applied for permission to sail under the colours of neutral
Powers, but were likewise forbidden to. carry out their
purpose. Coast fishermen were subjected to particularly
rigorous measures. Napoleon's grand project of a descent
on the British shores was then so far ripened as to make
him anxious for the preservation of a store of flat-bottomed
vessels in the hands of his ally and subordinate the
Batavian Republic ; whence England was, with excellent
reasons, peculiarly anxious to capture and destroy Dutch
fishing craft from the coast. Many smacks were taken in
the beginning of the war ; and so great was the terror
spread by these events, that an order against the sailing of
bum-boats from the side was soon followed by another,
purporting that all such boats should be secured out of the
enemy's sight behind the downs. It is, and probably was
always customary to haul the " pinken" or bum-boats up
the beach, close under the outer declivity of the sand-
downs, either for repair or during the short interval
between the herring and hook-fishery seasons, so high as to

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 499

be beyond the highest tide. But I am not aware of
another instance of their having been hauled completely
across the first range of downs, and the operation must
certainly have been a very difficult one. Government,
however, set much store by the order being strictly
executed. It was feared that, if the smacks were left
ashore so as to be visible from the sea, they might be
destroyed by British artillery, or burnt in some successful
landing razzia ; and such an event would not only have
been a severe infliction upon shipowners, but also have
brought down upon the Batavian Government the dis-
pleasure of their powerful ally in the south, who wanted
the boats to be preserved for his ulterior military views
The coast fishermen of Scheveningen, Katwijk and Noord-
wijk opposed the measure, and baulked its execution for
some time, but it was ultimately carried out all over the
coast, and as regards Scheveningen was enforced by the
intervention of the municipal authorities of the Hague.
As an instance of the extreme reluctancy of shipowners to
subject their bum-boats to the operation prescribed, some
fishermen of Noordwijk tried to evade the order on the plea
that their boats were no longer subject to the Batavian law,
having been sold to Prussian subjects.*

And now there was virtually an end of Dutch sea-fishery
for some years. Herring shipowners in the course of the
year 1803 tried, but in vain, to obtain a premium as an
indemnification for having equipped their vessels to no
purpose/)* and some of them ultimately sought to cover part
of their outlays by fishing for cod on the Dogger bank, and
occasionally trying a cast for herring, towards which end

* Vervolg op Wagenaar^ p. 249, sqq. Notulen van het Staats-
bewind, June-Dec. 1803, Jan. 1804, passim,
f Notulen Staatsbewind 1803, passim.

2 K 2

Soo THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

they obtained from the Legislative Body a dispensation of
the law of 1 80 1 as regards the restrictions put upon herring-
fishery by cod-fishing vessels.* The premiums decreed in
1802 were in the next years paid for the very few ships
which ventured to sail ; but the dread of British cruisers
was generally stronger than the hope of a bounty. Matters
became still worse under King Louis' reign, when Holland
was virtually a province of France, and the Emperor, as
omnipotent there as in the lands under his own direct
government, kept the fishing fleet constantly in readiness
as instruments for the one great plan he never could put
into execution, viz., the descent on the British shores. A
«' Dutch Herring Company " was formed at London in 1809,
for the purpose of cultivating the Dutch method of curage ;
and employed some captive Dutch herring-fishers, without,
however, obtaining a durable success. The period when
Holland was actually annexed to France (1810-1813) is
remarkable in the history of Dutch sea-fisheries, not, of
course, because of anything like prosperity for them, but
because during this short period the Dutch fishery-laws were
cancelled. As a consequence of this, coast fishermen, who
alone could sail now and then with hope of escaping the
British cruisers, used their new-gotten freedom to cure fresh-
herring caught off the Dutch coast ; and so good was the
produce of their curage that dealers from, Vlaardingen and
Maassluis, whose busses could not sail to their accustomed
rendezvous off the British shores, did not disdain to buy cured
herring from the coast and sell it under their brands. The
only instance of French sea-fishery legislation is an Imperial
Decree of April 25th, i8i2f by which the herring, cod, and
fresh-fisheries were permitted, but under such rules as to

* Notulen Staatsbewind, May 22nd, 25th, 1803 ; April 22nd, 1805.
f Bulletin de Lois de V Empire Francais, 4me sdrie, vol. xvi. p. 373.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 501

the duration of their absence from home, their obligation
never to enter any port but their own, and always to rally
there at an appointed signal, and the inspection of their
vessels and men, as kept them constantly under the hand
of the military and naval authorities, to be gathered at a
moment's notice. It was the Emperor's object, not to
secure for his subjects such freedom of sea-fishery as was
not precluded by his disastrous wars, but merely to use
their ships as instruments for the ever-proposed expedition
against England. The fishery boards of the country were
swept away, and the Decree of 1812 substituted for them
a College of " prud hommes pecheurs" in each fishery port,
whose main duty was to supervise the regulations relative
to the well-known French "inscription maritime? The
chiefs of the Imperial Navy were by this law made the
supreme ordainers of all fishermen's conduct, and the vessels
employed in sea-fishery were considered in no other light
than that of ferry-boats, to be kept handy eventually to
land a French army across the Channel. And yet the
whole of this military organization was set up under a
pretence of consummate benevolence and liberality towards
the fishing interests; for the I2th article of the above
quoted Imperial Decree expressly stated that it was made,
" voulant degager ceux de nos sujets qui sadonnent a la
peclie de toutes les entraves qui peuvent gener leur Industrie,
et les tclairer des lemons de V experience ! "

502 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

CHAPTER II.

PROTECTION AT A CULMINATING POINT.

ON November 3Oth, 1813, the Prince of Orange crossed
from England to take the hereditary government of the ex-
Batavian Republic. On December 1st, he was proclaimed
Sovereign Prince of the Netherlands at Amsterdam ; and
one of his very first acts of economical legislation was to
cancel all fishery laws of French origin and re-instate the
herring law of 1801.*

The old system of fishery regulation and protection was
further rebuilt in the next years. Premiums were held out
to encourage a fresh beginning of the several fisheries, to
the amount of fl.5oo for every cure-herring buss equipped,
for every vessel employed on cod-fishery in the North Sea
during the winter months, and for every voyage made by a
vessel in the Iceland cod-fishery ; of fl.2oo for a fresh herring
bum-boat, and fl.4OOO for each of the first twelve whalers
to sail in the next years, besides, as regards the latter, the
"indemnification bounty" of fl.5O for each quarter of train
wanting to a hundred, under the same conditions as to
equipment, strength of crew, and duration of voyage, which
had been enacted in 1788 and i8o2.f In virtue of the
latter premium, a whaler was entitled, if returning " clean,"
i.e. without any cargo, to no less a sum than fl.QOOO as a
bounty. The permission to send a few sale-hunters direct
from the fleet to Germany, was also granted once more in

* Decree of January loth, 1814 (Staatsbl. No. 6).
f Staatsblad 1815, Nos. 2, 27; 1816, No. 6 ; 1817, No. 3; 1818
Nos. 13, 42, 43. Bijvoegsel op het Staatsblad, 1818, p. 892.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 503

1815 ;* and although this grant had been constantly made
in the last years of the ancient Republic, the fiction of its
exceptional character was upheld even now, and the
permission was given for one year only, and renewed after-
wards. The old exemption from excise duty on salt was
likewise restored, for the benefit of all herring and cod
fishery, by the law on salt excise duty of September I5th,
i8i6;f and a Decree of May 3Oth, i8i/t besides estab-
lishing peculiar facilities for the enjoyment of this
immunity, in the shape of credit for excise duty not
subject to the common bonded warehouse rules, held out a
special premium of fl.3 per last of salt cod-fish brought into
port, and a general bounty on exportation of salt cod or
herring. Another decree, dated July 3ist, i8i7,§ estab-
lished facilities of a similar nature for unrefined salt used
free of excise duty by the North Sea coast fresh herring
(or steurJiaring) fishery. In a word/no efforts were spared
to promote a speedy rising of the national fisheries ; and
as the sea was now free, and national labour anxious to
take avail of the withdrawal of the fetters imposed by
foreign domination, the herring-fishery, and its corollary the
North Sea cod-fishery, soon reached something approach-
ing their status of the latter part of the former century.

Whaling was likewise attempted afresh, under the stimulus
of the very important premium offered ; but the attempts
were timidly made, generally in old and wretched vessels,
and the trade never regained anything like a rank worth
mentioning among the Dutch sea-fisheries in the present
century. A whaling company (limited) was chartered at

* Staatsblad, 1815, No. 34.

t Ibid. 1816, No. 36.

\ Bijvoegsel tot het Staatsblady 1817, p. 220.

§ Ibid. p. 236.

504 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

Harlingen in 1824,* the King being one of the principal
participators. A similar company was formed at Rotter-
dam about the same time. Notwithstanding the very con-
siderable amount of premiums awarded, I have not found
any evidence of these whaling attempts having been success-
ful ; indeed the " Nederlandsche Hermes" of December 1826
distinctly states the contrary, and whaling was the only
branch of Dutch sea-fishery which did not perceptibly
survive the ruin of the ancient Republic.

Not content with restoring every detail of the ancient
system of fishing regulation and protection, the Govern-
ment of the Kingdom of the Netherlands soon began
to out-Herod Herod, and add fresh fishery restric-
tions and monopolies to those made in former times. A
minimum charter for herring busses allowed to cure
and entitled to the premium of fl.5oo was established,
by a Decree of June i6th, 1815 ;t twenty-four lasts and
thirteen men being prescribed as the minimum size and
crew for such vessels. The same Decree contained a
clause by which the Grand Fishery College's virtual
power was very much extended, and it became indeed a
matter of some difficulty to assign its exact limits. All
laws whatever emanated on fisheries in former years,
and aiming at the maintenance of the credit of Dutch
herring were declared to continue in vigour, unless ex-
pressly repealed; and the publication of May 3Oth, 1800,
against curing Zuider Zee "panherring" and importing
foreign herring unless for re-exportation in the same

* Bijvoegsel op het Staatsblad, p. 612.

f Staatsblad No. 39. Although virtually a modification of the law
of 1 80 r, the enactment was disguised in the shape of a simple regula-
tion prohibiting the College of the Grand Fishery from issuing licences
for vessels not responding to it.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 505

barrels, was expressly renewed. By this enactment the
whole of the ancient herring legislation of the United Pro-
vinces was virtually re-established, although the essence
of it had already been, so to say, crystallized in the law of
1 80 1. It was not easy to apply the tangled mass of the old
Republic's fishery laws to the modern kingdom, or indeed
to make out what part of the countless Resolutions of the
States-General and the States of Holland, on the subject,
was still lawfully in vigour, and what part repealed. There
was now, in short, too much general legislation on sea-
fisheries ; and a simplification was found necessary. To
promote this end, without detriment to the principles of the
existing laws, the King, on February 2Oth, 1818, laid a Bill
before the States-General, the leading idea of which was to
leave all detailed working rules to the provincial authorities,
under Government approbation, and have only general
precepts laid down in the law of the realm. This law,
promulgated on March I2th, 1818, (Staatsblad No 15) was
the last general statute regulating sea-fisheries in the
Netherlands. It contained the leading principles of the
system on which fishery protection was built, and its
several clauses have been an object of much debate down
to the final overthrow of the system in 1857. For these
reasons I have found it expedient to add a translation of the
full text of the law of 1 8 1 8, as Appendix D. to these pages.
The law, as will be found upon perusal of the said
Appendix, repeated the outlines of the system in vigour
ever since the beginning of the ancient Republic, and de-
scribed in Part II. Chapter L, of the present essay. It
moreover contained one important novelty, viz., the utter
prohibition from importing any foreign herring whatever,
whether for transit or for home consumption. Both under
the Republic and by the law of i8oi,it had been permitted

506 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

to import foreign herring for re-exportation in the same
barrels, un-opened and unbranded ; and the general Customs
tariff of 1816 admitted such herring for home consumption,
although subject to a heavy duty. Fish dealers in 1818
were, for the first time, utterly deprived of a branch of
their business for the better preservation of the Grand
Fishery's monopoly.

The law was not established without serious opposition.
The importing prohibition just mentioned was, in the first
place, the subject of a warm remonstrance in the Second
Chamber, on the part of no less a personage than Count
Hogendorp,* who found sufficient motive in Art. 6 to
vote against the Bill, although favourably inclined towards
it in general.f But the main brunt of antagonism was
borne by the sixteenth clause of the law, by which the
Grand Fishery's monopoly of curing herring after Beukelsz'
ancient method was once more consecrated, to the exclu-
sion of the fishermen of both the North Sea and Zuider Zee
shores. This monopoly, which we have seen established in
the eighteenth century by the potent Commissioners of the
Grand Fishery, and maintained by the laws of 1800 and
1 80 1, had already been expressly re-enforced by a special
law dated November 25th, 1814 (Staatsblad No. 108). Of
all the several items of protection to which the Grand
Fishery had learned to cling for two centuries and more,
they held this curing privilege the most precious. Fresh-
herring fishermen, on the other hand, still considered their

* One of the illustrious men who led the revolt against the French
authorities, some time before the arrival of the allied forces. This
great and wise statesman has, throughout his career as such, ad-
vocated the principle of Free Trade.

t Hogendorp, Bijdragen t.d. Huish. van Staat, ii. p. 249. The entire
debate upon the Bill is to be found in Mr. Noordziek's collection of
States-General Records > 1817-18, p. 288.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 507

exclusion as the main cause of their trade's insignificance,
and took occasion from the general revision of the fishery
statutes ordained in 1818 to strenuously claim the right to
cure their herring. Their petition,* besides the arguments
used by their fathers in I75i,fhad now some still more
stringent reasons as a base. Under the French Government
in 1812 and 1813, fishermen from the Side were allowed
to cure ; and as they of the Grand Fishery could not venture
into their ordinary fishing waters, herring caught and cured
by the despised bum-boats closer to the continental shore
was carried to Maassluis and Vlaardingen, and those towns
were then anxious enough to export it under the Grand
Fishery brand.

The petition from the coast villages (viz., Scheveningen,
Katwijk, Noordwijk, Egmond aan Zee and Zantvoort, the
rest having meanwhile given up fishing), was this time
echoed higher up than its predecessor in 1751 had been.
Four sections out of the five into which the Second Chamber,
or Lower House of the legislative body, was then divided
for the preliminary examination of Bills brought in, desired
more ample elucidation respecting the curing monopoly.!
Government answered them with assertions either un-
founded or not to the point. Firstly, it was said, the early
herring which really constitutes the renown of the Dutch
brands abroad is caught off the Shetlands, whither no keel-
less boat can sail ; a statement in flat contradiction to
the representations of the coast fishermen, who in their
petition alleged the early herring caught off Shetland to be,

* Published as Appendix XIX. to the Report of the Committee on
Sea-Fisheries, 1854.

t See part ii.

\ See the Report of the Central Section, in Byvoegsel tot het
Staatsblad, 1818, p. 1006.

5o8 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

as a fact, unfit for exportation. Next, said the Minister in
defence of the Bill, it is a requisite for first-rate cured-herring
that the fish be cured quite fresh, whence buss-fishermen
are enjoined to throw overboard in the morning all such
herring of yesterday's capture as they have been unable to
cure in the night ; and bum-boats, being much less strongly
manned, could not carry out this point of the law with
sufficient precision. To this argument it might have been
objected that if bum-boats carried fewer hands, they also
shot fewer nets, and had less fish to cure in one night.
Subsequent events have fully proved that herring can be
cured in bum-boats with entire success. Thirdly, Govern-
ment argued that it had been enacted in 1801, that no vessel
should sail home in the early part of the season unless with
a full cargo ; and the smaller vessels, having sooner com-
pleted theirs, could have the immense privilege of the early
market all to themselves if allowed to cure. The true
reason for maintaining the monopoly, to wit, the preponder-
ance of the Grand Fishery interest, peeped through this
last argument ; and in preferring it, Government omitted to
take into account the institution of sale-hunting, by which
the first cured-herring was annually brought into port much
earlier than a bum-boat could ever hope to make the shore
with a complete cargo. Another pretended danger of
allowing burri-boat fishers to cure, viz., that of their divulg-
ing the professional secret of curage in the ports of Great
Britain, and Yarmouth especially, which they used to visit,
was indeed altogether visionary. Keeled busses as well as
bum-boats were in the habit of holding communication
with the British shore ; and the danger of the former's
crews promulgating abroad the mysteries of Dutch curage
was much the greater. Bum-boats from the coast were all
manned exclusively by Dutchmen ; whereas the greater

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 509

part of the busses' crews was, at the time now spoken of,
composed of foreigners, Germans especially, whom nothing
prevented from teaching their countrymen, or other
foreigners, the process on which they were employed
during the summer. If Dutch curage was not generally
practised abroad, it was because other methods were used
in foreign countries with such success as made English,
Germans, Swedes, Danes and Norsemen the victorious
competitors of the Dutch in the great herring markets, as
early as the beginning of the present century.

The point at issue being so far elucidated on both sides
in the Parliament papers, the oral discussion could not of
course bring any fresh arguments into the field. Still it did
not lack interest. The speech of Mr. Kemper, who employed
himself most strenuously in defence of both the curing
monopoly and the importing prohibition, is a fair specimen
of the peculiar logic customary to protectionism. The
first-named measure, according to Mr. Kemper, was in
reality not a monopoly at all. Bum-boat owners were
left perfectly at liberty to exchange their vessels for keeled
busses, and take their share in the profits of curage. And
so they certainly were, as far as the words of the law were
concerned. But no keeled vessel could sail from, or anchor
in safety at a convenient distance off one of the villages
on the Dutch sea coast ; so in order to adopt the orator's
advice, shipowners from the coast would have had to
transfer their establishments to the riverside towns, and
abandon the capital primarily sunk in their business,
besides the many other expenses and disadvantages always
attendant upon shifting the seat of an industry from one
place to another. As coast-fishermen pithily said in their
petition, their liberty to equip busses was equivalent to a
merchant's liberty to sell certain wares, under an obligation

5io THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

to pack those wares in bales too big to be got through his
warehouse doors.

Yet another point of the Bill was forcibly illustrated
in the course of the debate, viz., the King's faculty to
allow dispensations from the prohibition to cure issued
against coast fishermen. This clause was never meant for
anything but a decoy to win the opposition over. The
parliamentary system was at the time in its infancy in the
Netherlands. There was no ministerial responsibility ; and
to oppose a Bill emanating from the King himself was some-
thing awful, on which many members of the House did not
care to venture so long as they could somehow keep their
consciences at rest in acquiescing. To provide a sedative
to this effect was therefore a means to shut up importunate
mouths. One member distinctly stated his intention to vote
for the law in the hope that the King would use his faculty
to establish exceptions ; whereas, as he justly observed, the
Bill's rejection would be the continuance of the laws of 1800
and 1 80 1, by which the monopoly was sanctioned without
any perspective of relaxation. It is probable that many
members tacitly embraced the same course ; and it certainly
was a clever piece of parliamentary tactics to make such
members vote the continuation of a monopoly obnoxious
to their views, by asking them to empower Government to
overthrow its own handiwork and system. But such an
overthrow was no part of the King's intentions. The
Minister's speech in defence of the Bill has unfortunately
been lost ; but it is more than probable that Mr. Kemper
fully expressed the Government's views upon the subject,
by stating that he did not look forward to any breach in
the monopoly, and would rather have abandoned the reserva-
tion clause. This was straightforward speaking ; and the
law having been voted by a majority of fifty-one to sixteen,
coast fishermen had not many illusions left. Of the several

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 511

provincial regulations on herring-fishery subsequently issued
under the Royal approbation, not one permitted coast-
fishermen to cure until long after King William the First
had ceased to reign ; and the privilege was thus maintained,
which prevented them from making above fl.io or fl.12 for
a quantity of herring, to which their concurrents imparted
by curage a value of fl.5O and sometimes more. t

The details of the system, as regulated under the law
of March I2th, 1818, fully responded to the legislators'
rigorously conservative spirit in fishery matters. No change
was at first made in those details. For four years and a
half, in virtue of a Royal decree dated June pth, 1818
(Staatsblad, No. 27), the working rules laid down in the
law of 1 80 1 were continued in vigour, while a new set was
under consideration with the Provincial authorities, now
appointed legislators, under the royal approval, for all such
working details as were rather vaguely defined by the
law of 1818 as "internal police" of the herring-fishery.
" Provincial authorities," of course, meant those of the
province of Holland, now, as in former centuries, the only
one where herring-fishery was exercised on a considerable
scale. On December 3ist, 1822, the royal approbation was
given to a set of rules drawn up by the Provincial States of
Holland, relative to herring-fishery in their province.*

Two Regulations were made in 1822 ; one on the Grand
and one on the Fresh-herring Fishery. They were mainly a
repetition, in a more prolix wording, of such details of the
law of 1 80 1 as had not been transferred to the law of
March I2th, 1818. Very little was added to the virtual
contents of the statute ; and that little tended to make the
rules even more stringent than before. A minimum size
for herring busses had been determined in 1815 ; the
provincial regulation added that such busses should carry
* Bijvoegsel op het Staatsblad, 1822, pp. 1018 sqq., 1358 sqq.

512 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

square sails (razeileii). The law of 1801 had ordered every
buss to carry forty nets ; the regulation of 1822 added the
size of those nets for each voyage. The former statute pro-
hibited cure-herring'fishermen from salting herring in baskets
ungutted (steureti), unless in urgent cases, when it should
be impossible to cure the fish ; the latter made away with
the exception, and prescribed all herring caught in a buss
to be either cured (kaketi) immediately or thrown over-
board. Besides these, and a few more tightenings of the
old fetters, the Regulations of 1822 offer one important
new feature, viz., the institution of two distinct boards for
the cure-herring, and fresh-herring fisheries. The former
was to sit at the Hague and exercise exactly the dominion
formerly held over the cured-herring business by the
Committee for the Grand Fishery. The latter board was
to meet at Katwijk, as the most centrally situated among
the North Sea coast villages, and hold sway over the smoke-
herring concern. As a novelty, the whole of the coast
fisheries, including those for pan-herring and fresh fish in
both the North Sea and Zuider Zee, and even shrimping,
were brought under the supervision of the College as-
sembling at Katwijk, who were enjoined to keep their eye
upon these several branches of the trade, and from time to
time to draw up the necessary regulations regarding them
for the Provincial States' approval. Last-money was to be
levied by both colleges under similar provisions as made
in 1 80 1 for the committee's sole benefit ; and the forms of
oath, instructions for steersmen, and hospital-ship captains,
&c., &c., ordained in 1801, were renewed in pretty much
the same words.

Another novelty of some importance in the Grand
Fishery Regulation of 1822 is, that it first gives a legal
definition of the several qualities of Dutch cured-herring,
, maatjes, ijlen, and kuitziek (Jwmziek). The former

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 513

and latter terms had indeed been used from very early
times downward, the former meaning herring full of spawn
or milt, and the latter fish about to shoot the same, and
consequently unfit to be preserved for a long time
" Ylen" is a common word for lean, or empty, and was
applied to herring, in its literal sense, down from old times
The word maatjes first occurs, without any positive state-
ment as to its meaning, in the I4th clause of the Herring
Placard of 1656. The Regulation of 1822 defines this very
i mportant description of cured-herring as containing neither
milt nor spawn, but much fat, and " maatjes " herring is
stated to be a great delicacy, but not very durable. The
" maatjes " and " ylen " qualities were formerly certified on
board by the skipper, by means of " girdings " or circles
drawn round the barrels. Positive brands for them, to be
given of course ashore by the brander, are first prescribed
in the Regulation of 1822, besides the old brands stating
the season of catch and described in Part II., Chap. I.

Besides the aforesaid regulations, a Royal Decree of
April 4th, 1824 (Staatsblad, No. 28), extended the clause
of 1 8 1 8, forbidding Dutchmen to fish "between the rocks
of Scotland, Hitland, and Norway." They were now pro-
hibited from fishing, or even without urgent reasons from
approaching, within two hours (twenty making a degree) of
the British shores. The main object of this statute appears
to have been to stop Dutchmen smuggling on the British
coast ; but as cure-herring fishery off " Hitland," Fairhill,
and Yarmouth, and all fresh-herring fishery, were expressly
dispensed from the rule, it is not easy to see what can have
been its real force at the outset. It was carried into full
effect, and the exceptions were withdrawn, by a new
regulation on cure-herring fishery enacted by the Provincial
States of Holland in 1826, and approved by Royal Decree

VOL. IX.— E. 8. 2 L

514 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

of June 5th, 1827,* which regulation did not otherwise
materially alter the existing rules.

The edifice of legislation on herring fishery was now
more complete than ever. Its base, construction, and
general outlines still responded to the Placards of 1582 ;
and the only material alterations wrought since then were
such novellae as had been, in the course of two centuries
and a half, invented by the ingenuity of many generations
of fishermen, the better to secure their several monopolies
against home and foreign competition. As regards the
former, the rules now as formerly proved efficient enough.
As for the latter, no laws or monopolies had in former
days shielded Dutch fishermen from the effects of war, or
of elevated tariffs and active concurrency abroad ; nor
could they now, under profound and continual peace and
industrial activity, make the Grand Fishery regain anything
of its splendour of a hundred and fifty years ago.

But the spirit of monopoly had not yet done its utmost.
The narrow-minded greed of parties interested had still
more stringent measures of Protection in store. Before
speaking of these it will be necessary to relate how the
herring fishery fared between 1814 and the time of which
I am now speaking.

About one hundred busses sailed in 1814; and as
herring prices were very high in the next two years, and
premiums, as has been shown, were lavishly given,
enormous gains were made. The returns of one season
sometimes amounted to fl. 10,000 per vessel, besides the
bounty.f An organization of the sale-hunting busi-
ness was agreed upon during this period of success, in

* Staatscourant, 1827, No. 278 (Bijvoegsel).

t See a Memorial on a Herring Association, written in 1828.
(Notulen Holland, 1829, p. 211.)

THE HISTORY OP DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 515

virtue of which cure-herring shipowners annually clubbed
to equip sale-hunters, and each buss, while at sea, sold her
early herring to these for a price fixed beforehand. The
much higher prices made in the home market for this
"hunted herring" (Jaag-haring) were then divided among
the participators in the " Hunting Association " (Jagery-
vereeniging), according to the number of barrels sold to
the hunters by each buss ; and a managing Committee of
shipowners regulated the sale and expedition of the early
herring so as to prevent an overstocking of the market
and a downfall of prices early in the season.* Under the
very favourable circumstances mentioned just now the
number of the vessels of course increased fast, and reached
1 60 in 1817. A series of exceptionally bad years, during
which the catch was very scanty, and most busses " sailed
money overboard," notwithstanding tolerable prices, re-
duced the number of busses to 145 in 1821. In the said
year a shipowning company established at Emden trans-
ferred its fleet of twenty-five busses to Enkhuizen and
carried the total of the Dutch fleet up to 170. Fishing
returns in 1821 were once more plentiful ; but prices went
down to an extremely low level, mainly on account of the
competition of Scotch herring in the foreign markets ; and
several firms were in jeopardy. At this juncture, a herring
dealer from Amsterdam, in the spring of 1822, proposed a
measure which, being adopted by the principal shipowners
of the towns on the Maas, led to some amelioration of
prices. They agreed not to sell herring under fl.17 a
barrel before October I5th, whereas fl.io had been paid in
the preceding year. This was a considerable extension of

* After steam navigation had come in, the Dutch Government
annually supplied a steamer to the Hunting Association to act as the
first " sale-hunter."

2 L 2

5i6 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

the principle on which the Hunting Association used to
act ; for the former did not meddle with prices after the
close of hunting time, generally July 1 5th, and left com-
petition in the market entirely free at all times beyond the
first three weeks of the season. The measure was repeated
in 1823, and by it prices on the Dutch market were indeed
kept at £.17 or upwards, but three hundred lasts* of
herring remained unsold in the winter of 1823, and had to
be thrown on the market for fl.8 in the next spring, before
the opening of the season 1824. A " Herring Company
of Amsterdam " (" Amsterdamsche Haringreedery ") was
created and chartered in the said year, in the hope of
exploiting the fixity of prices caused in the two preceding
years by the general association of shipowners. But such
an association was not again formed, as its results had
upon the whole proved unsatisfactory, and some doubts
had arisen as to the faithful observation of the contract by
many of the participators. Meanwhile prices went down
again; and in 1825, although the bounty of fl.5oo was
carried to fl.75O, most shipowners sustained severe losses,
which in that and the next three years were shared
by the Amsterdam Company, based on an unfulfilled ex-
pectation. The cause of these losses might have been
manifest to any unprejudiced observer. Scotch, German,
and Norse herring was now prevalent in most of the
European markets. Herring had become an article of
common nourishment in some countries, by reason of its
cheapness, the result of vastly increased international com-
petition. In order to sell a fair quantity of herring it was
now necessary to catch it at little expense and sell it

* The " last " of herring at this time and afterwards was a quantity
of 14 barrels ; the barrel contained on an average 800 herrings. In
former centuries the " last " averaged from 12 to 14 barrels.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 517

cheap ; and the Dutch herring laws, instead of pointing out
the way to cheap production, were based on the bicen-
tennial principle that Dutch cured herring was to be, not
an article of daily food, but a delicious, and of course
expensive, luxury. The legislation had been built up in a
time when the Dutch were, if not the only, at least by very
far the greatest herring-fishers of the world, and enabled
by the absence of serious competition to put their own
prices upon their own brands. Thus the notions of Herring
and Monopoly had for centuries been closely interwowen
in the Dutchman's mind ; and he was not able to disen-
tangle those notions, even when foreigners began to go far
ahead of Holland in competition upon the herring markets.
Other countries at the same time retaliated on Holland for
her former ascendency and present exclusive policy, by
closing their markets against Dutch herring by heavy
customs duties. This state of things had not been realised
in the course of the eighteenth century ; whence the con-
tinued downfall of the Dutch herring fisheries, in spite of
premiums and regulations without number. It was not
realised in the first part of the present century ; whence
the impossibility of keeping up competition abroad. Nor
could home consumption, being curtailed by prices arti-
ficially high, sustain the business even under a prohibition
of foreign herring. Herring Protection, more than two
centuries old, had been bringing down its own punishment
for one century or more ; and yet nobody saw the evi-
dent effects of the great social law against which they had
been striving in vain.

As a very conclusive instance of this blindness, the
"A msterdamsche Haringreedery" before mentioned in 1828
presented a petition to the King, which, though not fully
carried out, led to a very masterpiece of monopolising

5i8 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

policy. They asked that, by the abolition of clause 46 of
the Herring Regulations for the province of Holland, it
should be made lawful for every buss to transfer herring to
every other, during the whole of the season ; and that the
whole of the fishery should then be formed into one
Association, whose committee should at all times determine
a minimum price for the last of herrings, and regulate the
sale so as to keep up that price. The accession of all
shipowners to this association, and their submission to its
rules, they required to be enforced by depriving all out-
siders of the premium of 500 florins, and dividing the sums
which would have been due to them as premiums between
the members of the Association, whose premiums might
thereby exceed the former amount.

The arguments preferred for this plan by those who
moved it were the following. As things were under the
Provincial Regulation of 1827, herring might only be
transferred to the licensed sale-hunters between June 24th,
or the opening of the season, and July I5th ; and the large
supply of herring during this " hunting-time " {jaagtycT) was
apt, in spite of the monopoly of " hunted herring " in the
home markets secured by the prohibition against busses
sailing home unless with a full cargo, to drive prices down
to a level insufficient for that precious delicacy, the noble
early Dutch cured herring. After the close of " hunting
time," i.e. when it was no longer permitted to transfer
herring from one ship to another, a scarcity of herring,
frequently set in, for it was manifestly contrary to the ship-
owners' interest to have their ships home, and stop fishing
for a couple of weeks, unless the necessity of bringing in
a complete cargo compelled them to do so. Thus, in
consequence of the " hunting " monopoly and its restricted
time of operation, many lasts of prime herring remained

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES, 519

afloat and lost their freshness, while foreign orders upon
the Dutch market could not be executed for lack of
adequate supplies. Prices unnaturally low were thus
succeeded by prices unnaturally high, or rather by -a
grievous understocking of the market. As a fact, this
arrangement was certainly a monument of stolidity in
economical legislation. But the remedy proposed by the
men of Amsterdam was little better. They wanted, indeed,
to have herring-hunting free throughout the season, but
only in order to have all the herring brought in confided to
the care of one central committee, who should limit the
sale so as never to severely depress the market. They
wanted, in a word, to monopolise into one single hand the
whole of a trade already monopolised for the benefit of
those few who could afford keeled and square-rigged
vessels. While the law limited the cure-herring fishery to
comparatively few ships, they wanted to limit the market-
able production of those ships to such quantities as should
suit the convenience of a body of narrow-minded ship-
owners and dealers, anxious, not to sell much fish, but only
to make a high figure for such fish as they could manage
to sell. The main end of the plan was, not to extend, but
to restrict the business.

There has been a vast amount of written and oral
discussion of this plan. The permanent Committee of the
Provincial States,* before whom the matter was laid, called
a meeting of parties concerned at Lisse, and had heaps of
memorials presented to them, both before and after that
meeting. The College of the Grand Fishery for Holland
was then, as in former times, divided into two Chambers
or " Departments," one for Amsterdam and the towns in
North Holland, and one for the towns on the Maas ; and
* Gedeputeerde Staten.

520 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

of these Departments the former sided for the plan
proposed by the " A msterdamsche Haringreedery" and the
latter opposed it in the most strenuous terms. Of all the
clamouring parties in the debate, this latter official Board
was the only one which showed discernment, by starting
from the premise that "not high prices, but abundant
capture, were the means to restore the Grand Fishery."
But even they were anything but faithful to their principle,
and indeed disavowed it wofully in some of their sub-
sequent reasonings. One of their objections to the plan of
Amsterdam was, that if the " hunting " monopoly were
removed, and all and sundry left free to carry home herring
at any time, prices, now in some measure kept up till
July 1 5th by the Hunting Association (jfagery- Vereeniging],
would be frightfully depressed from the very beginning of
each season.

Volumes of memorials were, as said before, written for
and against the Amsterdam plan.* The numeric majority
was against it ; for the whole of the shipowners' companies
and herring firms on the Maas of course took the side of
the southern department of the College. Still the argument
of Amsterdam prevailed in part Having to suggest a
decision to the King, the Provincial States determined upon
a plan for conciliating the views of both parties, which
was perhaps the worst solution they could possibly have
contrived. By their advice, the King in 1829! maintained
the 46th clause of the Regulation, but authorised the
Provincial States to postpone the closing of the " hunting "

* The whole of the documents are preserved in the record-books
(Notulen] of the Provincial States of Holland, 1828, p. 102, seqq., and
1829, p. 1 80, seqq. They form about a hundred pages of folio print.

t Decree of May 5th, 1829 (Bijvoegsel op het Staatsblad, vol. xvi.
p. 14).

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 521

season till a later date than July J5th. On the other hand,
the new monopoly sued for by Amsterdam was granted by
this Decree, and premiums were withheld (although without
accretion to others) from all such herring shipowners as
should decline to accede to a universal Association, since
famous under the name of " Vereeniging der Zoutharing-
reederijenr The constitutive rules for this Association
were shortly afterwards drawn up by a committee of dealers
and shipowners, and approved by the Provincial States.*
Four local Boards, residing at Vlaardingen, Maassluis,
Amsterdam and Enkhuizen, were appointed by the herring
shipowners, each buss conferring a vote on her owner.
These boards were to buy up all branded herring brought
in by the partners, and sell it out again ; the prices for both
purchase and sale being fixed, from day to day, by a
central Board residing at Vlaardingen, " to the furtherance
of the shipowners' interest, by preventing unnecessary
depression of prices, and on the other hand, moderating
them so as to leave no herring unnecessarily unsold." The
Board, though a wholesale and monopolist dealer, was not
to export directly, but sell to second-hand inland dealers
only ; and all herring left unsold on April ist of any year
was to be sold in auction at any price, and the returns
recovered before May ist. As herring kept till April ist
of the year succeeding its capture is comparatively worth-
less, this fresh monopoly was equivalent to throwing away
part of the herring caught, in order to enhance the price of
the rest. The measure was just the reverse of what ought
to have been done. The only chance of upholding the
herring business, even under the laws which bound it down,
lay in altogether removing the preposterous " hunting "
monopoly and restriction, and leaving the supply of the
* Bijvoegsel op het Staatsblad^ vol. xvi, p. 16.

522 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

article to regulate itself; whereas Government now pro-
ceeded to cap the measure by having the sale monopolised
and restricted likewise. The regulation and protection
system, as applied to herring fishery, was now screwed up
to its very acme. A cure-herring fisherman was not much
beyond a machine as regards the management of his
business. He was accurately prescribed how, in what
vessels, with what nets, when, and where to fish ; how to
prepare his fish ; how, when, and in what vessels to convey
it home ; and he was obliged to let others decide for him
whether, when, and at what prices it was to be sold. He
had not the slightest liberty of action ; a knowledge of his
business, of prices, markets, &c., was unnecessary for him ;
and he would have been fined large sums had he tried to
improve his business by any technical innovation. Anybody
could, so to say, be a herring shipowner, if he had a know-
ledge of the several regulations of which the above chapters
contain a brief, and far from detailed, account. It is a
marvel that a trade should have lingered so long, in which
all vitality and spirit of enterprise was so utterly extin-
guished by regulations ; the more so as the avowed object
of some of these regulations was, not to extend, but to
restrict the business. Of this baleful policy of directly and
openly keeping back part of the supply of an article in
order to enhance its market price, the history of the
Netherlands in former centuries can show more instances
than one ; but I doubt whether in the present century
there is an example of such a thing applied to food.

As regards the principle, the Dutch fish monopolies were
decidedly worse than the British Corn Laws ; and the rea-
son why the latter affected the general welfare much more
seriously is merely that they were applied to an article
without which no one could do. Nor was the revival of

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 523

Government regulation under the reign of King William
the First limited to the herring fisheries. Coast fishery for
plaice, flounder, sole, &c., shared the general reinforcement
of old rules, and close attention to their observation. Laws
against trawling, for the protection of fish-life under the
Dutch coast had, as related in a former part of this work,
been enacted in 1676 and relinquished in 1689, as un-
necessary vexations. A statute of this nature was once
more set up by Royal decree dated January I2th, 1820.*
Trawling was not prohibited altogether by this edict ; but
it was forbidden to trawl within view of the coast in
November, December, and January, and at any time to use
trawls or any other nets narrower than the " eight-and-
twenty " size of old, i.e. a width of three (Netherlands)
inches and nine-tenths, or about one inch (English) and
a-half, for each mesh. Another( decree of November I5th,
1825, f prescribed that the reglet, or spatule (spaari) deter-
mining the meshes' width of nets for the coast fishery
should be made of copper, and subject to assay. The use
of trawls for fishing herring along the coast was altogether
prohibited by this Edict of 1825 ; but, at the same time, the
general prohibition of all trawling was limited to the period
between November I5th and February I5th. The latter
date was afterwards shifted to February 1st by Decree of
August 29th, 1837 (Staatsblad No. 56). It is worthy of
note that the Decree of 1825 was only enacted for the
province of Holland, whose States held it to be necessary ;
whereas the provinces of Antwerp, Zealand, and Occidental
Flandersj whose inhabitants, like those of Holland, exer-

* Staatsblad, No. 2.

t Staatsblad, No. 75.

\ It should be remembered that, from 1815 till 1830, the provinces
now forming the kingdom of Belgium were part of the kingdom of the
Netherlands.

524 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

cised coast fishery on the North Sea shores, declined to
have them enforced within their precincts. The States
of these three provinces were so anxious to maintain their
fishers' liberty in the choice of their gear that they bought
it by the loss of a considerable advantage. A premium of
fl.25O was held out, by the. Decree of 1825, to every boat
from the province of Holland (bumboats included) which
should fish in the North Sea with hooks and lines,* without
interruption, between November i$th and February i$th
of any subsequent year. As this premium was not limited
to any definite number of years, it afforded considerable
encouragement to the coast-fishery of Holland ; and yet
the southern provinces chose to forego this benefit in order
to maintain their right to use the trawl.

The premium awarded in 1825 to hook-and-line-fishery
during winter was by no means a superfluous bounty.
Hook-and-line fishery was, upon the whole, a good substi-
tute for winter trawling. Plaice, turbot, &c, besides cod
and haddock, were caught on the hooks ; whence, though
trawling was the more convenient, and it would appear the
cheaper of the two methods, the other offered better chances
of a fair return. But this was not the only consideration.
Trawling was till then the coast-fishers' chief, if not their
only, source of livelihood in winter, after the close of the
smoke-herring business ; and, being forbidden to use the
trawl, they were, in common equity, entitled to some
equivalent to keep them from starving. I have shown in
former chapters that severe penury used to prevail in the
coast villages during winter ; and the premium for hook-
and-line fishery during prohibited trawling time was, at the
outset, a preventive measure against over-burdening of the
Poor 'Boards. It soon wrought a considerable increase of
* " Beug- of hoekwant?

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 525

the hook-fishery by bumboats in winter, and even in
autumn and summer, and subsequently occasioned a
curious incident in the race for premiums characteristic of
Dutch sea-fisheries between 1775 and 1850. Fresh-herring
or " steurharing " fishermen, who had only fl.2oO a year as
a premium, began to desert their business for the more
favoured hook-fishery ; and the owners of herring smokeries
in the coast villages complained of a scarcity of herring
supplies to their establishments. The premium for " steur-
haring " fishery was therefore augmented to fl.3OO per
boat, by Decree of July nth 1835, No. 72 ; whereupon a
shifting in the opposite direction took place, and hook-
fishers from the coast turned fresh-herring fishers to such
an extent that the municipality of the Hague complained
of their market being under-stocked with fresh haddock
and plaice. A sliding scale of premiums was now adopted ;
and it was enacted by Decree of November 6th, 1840
(Staatsblad No. 71), that such of the two rival fisheries as
should have the greater number of boats engaged in it in
any year should in the next be entitled to the premium of
fl.25O, and the other to the full bounty of fl.3OO.

Besides the prohibition from trawling in the winter months,
another measure for the preservation of fish-life along the
coasts was taken in 1842. It will be remembered that the
use, within the sand-bars, of the shrimp trawl, known in the
Placards of the seventeenth century by the name of
" sayngh " had been permitted at all times by those enact-
ments, while they prohibited trawling at greater depth and
distance. The several laws and Decrees of 1820 and fol-
lowing years had likewise left the use of the " saayem " (as
the implement was now styled) unrestricted. But it was
now discovered that, although the spawn of plaice, &c., was
supposed to be deposited on the bottom at some distance

526 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

from the coast, immense shoals of fry of such fish, quite
unfit for consumption, sometimes approached so near the
shore as to be caught in the shrimpers' nets, when they were
either thrown away or used as pigs' food or manure. It was
deemed advisable, as a supplement to the law on trawling,
to prevent such waste of the fisherman's future stock ; and
towards this end it was enacted that, whenever a shrimper
should find more than one-eighth of the contents of his
" saayem " to consist of fry, or unripe fish, he should report
the fact to the member of the Coast Fishery College or to
the municipal officer nearest at hand ; when all use of the
shrimp-trawl should instantly be prohibited in the locality
for eight days.* An estimate of the utility of this measure
cannot be formed, for the prohibition was not applied above
a few times, and the statute was repealed in 1857. But
there is little or no probability of it having, till then, been
faithfully observed. It was of course impossible to efficiently
control the shrimpers' nets ; and they were interested, if
finding a quantity of fry of fish in those nets, in concealing
the fact in order to avoid a compulsory holiday of a week
or more.

CHAPTER III.

THE END OF PROTECTION.

THE present narrative has now come to a turning-point,
viz. the period when the ancient system of sea-fishery
legislation was abandoned, as inadequate to the regime
of modern production and exchange. Before entering
upon the details of the system's overthrow, it may be
useful to resume its plan and outlines in a very few words.

* Royal Decree, January 7th, 1842 (Staatsblad^Q. 2)

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 527

There were no less than three monopolies in the Grand
Fishery, or business of fishing for herring to be gutted and
salted on board as soon as caught (kakeii] ; to wit :

Firstly, the fishing and curing monopoly, restricting the
business to those who owned keeled and square-rigged
vessels ; forbidding them to fish unless between June 24th
and January ist, or carry fish elsewhere than into Dutch
ports ; and subjecting fish, barrels, and fishing implements
to obligatory and strict assay.

Secondly, the carrying monopoly, restricting the liberty
to buy cure-herring at sea and carry it home to the earlier
part of the season, and virtually monopolising the supply
of herring, during that part of the season, in the hands
of the body called " Vereeniging van de Haringjagery?
by an enactment prohibiting fishing busses from sailing
home during " hunting time," unless with a full cargo.

Thirdly, the selling monopoly, empowering a wholesale-
dealing corporation called " Vereeniging van Zoutharing-
reederyen" during the whole of the season to determine
the quantity of cure-herring to be thrown on the market,
and the price to be put upon it In order to enforce
adhesion to the rules established by this corporation,
premiums were only granted to such buss-owners as were
partners in it

To make up for the first-named monopoly, the owners of
vessels excluded from it were invested with a monopoly of
the curing process called " steuren? i.e. salting herring
ungutted, preparatory to curage by smoke. But they were
prohibited from fishing for herring and preparing it in this way
until the beginning of autumn, when the other branch, or
" Grand Fishery," was no longer exercised on a large scale.

All herring fishery, including the cured, the smoked, and
the fresh, or " pan-herring " business, was protected by a

528 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

prohibition from importing any herring caught by foreigners,
or by Customs duties amounting to such a prohibition.

All sea-fisheries, including, besides those just named,
those of whale, cod, flounder, plaice, &c., were encouraged
by bounties more or less considerable.

It will be noticed that this system, whatever its faults,
was in its kind a well-ordained and finished organization.
Its main parts completed each other so that no single stone
of the building could be removed without endangering the
whole. The curing monopoly of the Grand Fishery, and
the smoking monopoly of the coast fishery, made the
prohibition from importing herring an absolute necessity, it
being impossible to let foreigners import articles which
some or most natives were forbidden to produce. Again,
the importing prohibition necessitated obligatory assay of
brand-herring ; for it would have been impossible to
prevent foreign cured-herring from being imported if
Dutch fishermen had bought it at sea, which they would
have done, in spite of the legal prohibition, if obligatory
assays at home had not made detection highly probable.
Next, Dutch fisheries being thus prevented, by a complete
set of legislative trammels, from following their natural
course of development and effectually facing the over-
whelming competition of English, Germans, and Norsemen,
they could not of course go without direct government
assistance, and would have altogether ceased to exist if
their losses had not been covered by premiums.

Finally, as the whole of the system was pointed towards
the main object of maintaining Dutch cured-herring as a fine
and expensive delicacy, and as this object was still aimed at
when the delicacy ceased to be in great demand abroad,
there could of course be but one chance of selling Dutch
herring at high figures, and that chance lay in restricting

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 529

the supplies. Thus, no considerable item could be missed
out of the system ; and if the public's eye should once be
thoroughly ppened to the evils of one part, it must of a
necessity open to the wrongs of the whole. *

We have now to consider the effects of the system of
which a sketch is given above, in the short period between
its reaching the highest degree of perfection, and its final
break-down. For a summary view of those effects, I beg to
refer the reader to the statistical tables contained in Ap-
pendices E, F, G, H, and I. The leading fact at once
apparent from the first three of these, is : that the Grand
Fishery, to whose interests the other branches of her ring-fishery
were sacrificed, languisJied and decreased under extreme pro-
tection and regulation ; ivhereas the smoke-herring fishery,
being free in its own sphere of action, increased rapidly,
although the law precluded its produce from being prepared
to advantage.

Next, it will be seen from Table G, that from 1845
downward, the greater part of the herring caught by Dutch-
men, was prevented from being cured, or prepared to advantage,
in order to keep up the prices of the lesser part.

Exports of herring of course followed a course analogous
to that of production. Cured-herring exports remained
stationary, being prevented from increasing, firstly, by the
artificial dearth of the article and the lower prices of
foreign herring, and secondly by the elevated customs
tariffs against Dutch fish in most foreign countries, the
inevitable consequence of the prohibitive measures against
foreign herring in Holland. Smoked-herring, or " bucking,"
being a cheap article, and fit for a poor man's food, was
better able to withstand these duties, and its exports
actually increased, though not in proportion to its pro-

VOL. IX.— E. 8. 2 M

530 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

duction.* As regards the operations of the Salt-herring
Shipowners' Association, or " Vereeniging van Zoutharing-
reederijen " before alluded to, this corporation did in two
ways contribute to keep Dutch brand-herring at high
prices. Firstly, it limited the supply in the markets as
soon as a tendency to fall became manifest. Secondly,
it greatly enhanced the cost of production of the article
as delivered to dealers. ,The association's expenses of
management, warehousing, &c., were excessively high, so
as often to swallow up the whole of the premium, and
make it the shipowner's interest to forego the bounty and
keep free of the association. Most shipowners indeed kept
within the latter, but mainly, it would appear, because the
association in course of time acted not only as their sole
client but their banker, and embarked in credit operations
entirely alien to its primitive sphere of action.f

Of the other branches of sea-fishery little need be said
during the period now under consideration. Whaling was
extinct, or very nearly so, and when mentioned at all in
the writings of the period, is spoken of as a trade lost to
the country. The somewhat reckless enterprise of the
African Whaling Company had been wrecked long ago,
during the English war. Of the several whaling companies
started within a few years from the renewal of premiums in
1815, the greater part liquidated shortly afterwards. One
corporation, of which King William L, a strenuous pro-
moter of all national industries, was a shareholder,
continued to work two old whaling vessels until a much

* Vide Appendix xxii. and xxiii. to the Report of the Committee on
Sea-Fisheries, 1854. I have refrained from reproducing these, and
other interesting statistical documents,, in order not unnecessarily to
extend the volume of this work.

t Report of the Committee on Sea-Fisheries, 1854, p. 199.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 531

later period ; but the results were- very unsatisfactory, and
the vessels took out of the country's pocket in premiums
some four-fifths of the total value they brought into it in
blubber and whalebone. Such was the effect of the
" indemnification " bounty before mentioned, which was
paid to whalers, not for the fish they caught, but for those
they failed to catch.*

Iceland cod-fishery also continued in a state of extreme
insignificance,! having never recovered the effects of the
prohibitive duties on salt cod and haddock levied in foreign
countries, in the latter part of the eighteenth century.J
Hook-fishery in the North Sea continued to be of im-
portance, as a complement of the several herring-fisheries.

This branch of sea-fisheries, as to which I have not
succeeded in finding sufficient information at earlier periods,
at the time now spoken of bore something of an universal
character. It was exercised in herring-busses or " hookers,"
in sloops, and in bum-boats. Herring-fishers of all de-
scriptions made hooking their business at times when
nature provided no herring, or law forbade to catch it.
Most or all herring-busses used to go for cod and plaice in
spring, and continue the business till the end of May or
the first days of June, when the time came to prepare for
the first herring voyage. The lines used in this early
hook-fishery were made out of a peculiar kind of hemp
named kol ; whence this branch of hook-fishery was
commonly called kolvaart, and a hooking voyage arranged
so as to be back in time to equip the vessel for the cure-
herring season took the name of kolreis. Besides, some

* See ^ Minister Thorbecke's speech on premiums in the Second
Chamber, on December 2ist, 1850.
t See Appendix H.
t See part ii. chap. iii.

2 M 2

532 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

herring-ships fished for cod in winter, using a gear of
somewhat different description called beug ; whence the
business was called beugvaart. Hook-fishery was thus a
resource for all herring-fishers to keep their capital con-
stantly in activity ; and the concern was the more
profitable, as several kinds of fish (cod, haddock, plaice,
&c.) were caught on the hooks, and an abundance of one
sometimes made up for a scarcity of another. I have not
found any separate and complete accounts of hook-fishery
by busses during the period now spoken of* But whatever
its actual importance, it certainly served to keep busses
afloat at times when market restrictions could not squeeze
a profit out of the herring returns, nor premiums cover
herring losses ; and it will be observed that this precious
resource in all seasons and for all fishermen was solely due
to the fact that, beyond a few restrictions as to herring
caught by cod-fishers, which have been spoken of above,
there was no legislation on hook-fisJiery. And even these
restrictions served to show the futility of the herring laws.
Hook-fishers were allowed to cure herring caught by them
after the 1 5th of July ; but in order to prevent any danger-
ous competition for the Grand Fishery, they were enjoined
to pack their herring as " mixed " (pngezonderd\ sell it in
open barrels, and have it branded with a peculiar mark.f
In spite of these several disadvantages, and, so to speak,
marks of infamy, it is fully proved that birring of this

* The importance of winter hook-fishery on the Dogger bank (beng-
vaarf) is shown by Appendix I.

f The mark consisted in the word " kerf." North sea hook-fishers
were called kervers (or, in former centuries, corners), from the
customary carving of haddock and flat-fish ; whence herring cured by
them, although it was not apparently submitted to any other carving
than consistent with the common method of curage, used to be called
kerfharing*

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 533

description brought to market by coast-fishermen from
Katwijk did, about 1850, fetch the same prices as regular
brand-herring sold at the same time.* It could not be
better proved that the vaunted superiority of herring caught
by busses over herring caught by bum-boats, and the
latter's unfitness for any curage unless by smoke, were
either fictions or rules fraught with many exceptions ; a
fact as to which the experience of later years has not left
the shadow of a doubt.

Of fresh-fishery I have not found any peculiar account
during the period now spoken of. It was, indeed, no
longer a separate business, being exercised by bum-boats
of the North Sea coast, concurrently with hook and smoke-
herring fishery, and especially at seasons when the latter
was not permitted ; and all the year round, by a multitude
of small craft of various descriptions, in river-mouths of
Holland and Zealand, and in the Zuider Zee The trawl
was the fresh-fisher's favourite implement in the North Sea
during the months when its use was not prohibited. The
capture of anchovy, of which I have found scarcely any
positive mention made in earlier times, became an industry
of some importance in the first half of the present century,
when the Zuider Zee was especially its area, and it was
commonly carried on with a net of conic shape, and of
course very narrow, dragged between two ships ; probably
the same practice which we have seen prohibited in the
latter part of the i8th century. Anchovy-fishery has
always been subject to strong vicissitudes, and often gave
rise to reckless speculation on future fishing returns. Thus.
the annual quantity of anchovies brought to market at
Monnickendam between 1847 and I^S3 averaged about

* Report of the Committee on Sea- Fisheries, 1854, p. 90.

534 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

forty million ; but it was sixty-eight million in 1851, and
little more than one million in the next year.

I have now briefly to narrate why and how the system of
sea-fishery regulation and protection was relinquished.

The main cause of this most important reform was the
fact that rational notions on political economy began to
prevail in the Netherlands in the second quarter of the
present century, especially after the secession of the Belgian
provinces in 1830. It was between 1830 and 1850 that
Free Trade was decidedly adopted as the base of the king-
dom's commercial policy ; and to its adherents nothing
could be more objectionable than sea-fishery protection in
its actual form. The evils of monopoly, and the folly of
paying bounties out of the public funds to encourage an
industry while keeping it down by rules, began now to be
fully realised, and public opinion, led by able writers in
periodicals, gradually turned away from the system. It did
indeed continue after most other items of protection had
been abandoned ; and the main reason of this is, that the
public at large were still kept in a state of excitement by
wonderful accounts of the herring fishery's ancient great-
ness, and taught to believe that this greatness had been
attained by similar protective measures as were now in
force ; whereas I have shown that the principal, and most
stringent of those measures were invented long after the
fisheries' decay had begun. But this was not known at the
time now spoken of. Whenever the subject was broached,
writers and speakers in the fishery interest used to declaim
out of Semeyns' and Raleigh's tales of wonder, and to take
it for granted that those splendours, in which they still
believed implicitly, were owing to our ancestors having
done as we did now. The curious cry of " Try not to be
wiser than thy fathers" was never raised with a more bois-

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 535

terous obstinacy than it was in matters of sea-fishery, as
soon as modern ideas began to prevail in the question.

Considerable light was thrown on the subject in 1842,
when Belgium increased its import duties on foreign fish,
to the prejudice of Dutch sea-fisheries ; and fishing ship-
owners loudly clamoured for more efficient protection. The
public mind was then strongly turned towards the question
of fishery protection ; and it became apparent that it was
impossible to allow the several fisheries more protection than
they enjoyed ; while at the same time that naked fact, that
tlie branches most strongly protected declined in spite of pro-
tection, was urged on the public's notice. The measures
proposed by the writers in the fishery interest were to
augment premiums, which expedient the Treasury interest
forbade to adopt, and to retaliate on Belgium by elevating
the duties, not on their fish, which was prohibited as it was,
but on sundry other articles imported from the former
southern provinces. The duties in Belgium were reduced
some years afterwards. But, in the meantime, the brisk
interchange of pamphlets and leading articles occasioned in
1842 by the Belgian protective measure, had the result of
bringing the subject of sea-fishery legislation in its full
extent before the Dutch public's eye.

A breach in the system, however, was not made till 1846;
and it was not then a wound in a vital part. It was
reported by the Grand Fishery Committee in Holland, that
in 1845 herring entirely ripe had been caught by Scotch
fishermen some time before the consecrated opening of the
Dutch cure-herring fishery, so that the produce of the latter
was late in the market, much to the shipowners' and
dealers' detriment. A Bill was brought in, and passed
without opposition, by which Government was empowered
to anticipate the opening date of the Grand Fishery by a

536 THE HISTORY OP DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

period not exceeding a fortnight, i.e. fix it at any day
between June loth and 24th. The power was granted for
two years, but renewed for three more in 1 848 ; and
the anticipation tenm was extended to twenty-three
days in 1851 and 1854. Under these laws, the date on
which the first casting of herring-nets should be permitted
was fixed by Government on June loth in the years
1846-50, and on June 1st in the years 1851-55.* The
measure was not attended by any decided success. The
first experiments of early fishing were indeed successful ;
but in nearly all the following years the results were un-
satisfactory, and most shipowners returned to the observa-
tion of the ancient St. John's Day rule, finding the returns
of early fishing did not cover the additional expenses
necessitated by it, or compensate the disadvantage of
having to quit the spring hook-fishery, or kolvaart, at an
early date, whereas that business" was generally most pro-
fitable in the latter part of May. The advisability of early
fishing for cure-herring was a point of pretty constant
debate in the course of the above-named years ; shipowners
generally advising to observe St. John's Day rule, in spite
of the concurrence by early Scotch herring, and dealers
urging early voyages because of that concurrence. Now
dealers, although represented both in the College for the
Grand Fishery and in the Salt-herring Shipowners' 'Asso-
ciation, were in a minority in both Boards ; and conse-
quently the College, after a few years' trial, advised against

* Laws of May Qth, 1846 (Stbl. No. 35) ; May iSth, 1848 (Stbl. No.
21) ; May 2nd, 1851 (Stbl. No. 23) ; and April loth, 1854 (Stbl. No.
21). Decrees executive of these several laws, of May I2th, 1846
(Stbl. No. 41) ; May igth, 1848 (Stbl. No. 24) ; May 8th, 1851 (Stbl.
No. 51) ; May 3rd, 1852 (Stbl. No. 21) ; April 28th, 1853 (Stbl. No.
24), and April 22nd, 1854 (Stbl. No. 70).

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 537

continuation of the early fishing system, recommended by
them in 1846. The main cause of opposition to early
fishing was the Herring-hunting Association's contrary in-
terest/ This corporation, or rather annual covenant between
shipowners, generally found it inconvenient to equip one or
more " hunters " for the sole benefit of the few shipowners
who chose to try an early cast of the nets ; and all ship-
owners were obliged to be partners in the association and
act upon its rules, in order to have some of their fish brought
into market early and sold at the high prices prevalent
during the first days of the season. As a fact, the liberty
to fish before St. John's Day, though in itself desirable
because good herring was sometimes caught at an earlier
date, could only be of real use if the sale-hunting monopoly
were abolished, and any buss allowed to transfer fish to any
other, or sail home at any date with or without a full cargo.
Thence the discussion of the laws for early fishing served
to throw some light on the evils of the hunting monopoly,
and are therefore of importance in the history of the regu-
lation system, although the lawful opening date of the fish-
eries was not in itself one of its constitutive elements pro-
perly said, and could be altered without necessarily affecting
the rest. Wherefore the measure of 1 846 was not, properly
speaking, the beginning of the system's destruction.

Premiums were the vital point in which the system was
attacked. It has already been shown that, as sea-fisheries
were regulated, bounties to them were necessary and
equitable ; and that, on the other hand, the fallacies of the
bounty system were by this time found out in Holland,
not only by political economists, but by the greater part of
the enlightened and disinterested public. Fishery bounties
threw a peculiarly strong light on the inherent defects of the
system : for the trade declined in spite of them, and had,

538 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

indeed, been in constant decline since bounties had first
been given. Accordingly, when in the course of the years
1830-50 Parliament began seriously to oppose protection,
th^ annual budget debates usually brought on a discussion
on fishery premiums. The latter were especially the object
of pretty general censure in the course of the debates on
the budget for 1850, when their gradual abolition was de-
manded in unequivocal terms. Sea-fishery bounties at this
period occasioned an average annual expenditure of about
two hundred thousand florins, or some £17,000 sterling, a
large sum for so small a State, especially as it was now felt
to be poured into a Danaid's vat ; and Government, besides
being opposed to premiums as a principle, was of course
anxious to reduce or if possible to stop this drain upon the
Exchequer. The Department for home affairs, under which
matters relative to national industry at the time resorted,
was then headed by no less a statesman than the great Mr.
Thorbecke ; and he saw clearly that bounties must be
stopped, and fishery laws must ultimately follow. A
reversed order of repeal might have been preferable, but a
good deal of inquiry had yet to be gone through before
determining how far the fishery law reform was to go. The
subject was dark and delicate, and it was not easy to pro-
cure information upon it unless from fishermen, who one
and all clung to the wisdom of their fathers and to the
country's money, and did their best to oppose or retard
reform. Meanwhile, to save money by simplifying institu-
tions (bezuiniging door vereenvoudiging] was at the time the
popular cry in home politics, and the treasury interest was
imperative against the continuation of premiums. Their
abolition (by degrees of course) was therefore resolved upon ;
and all sea-fishery bounties were reduced by one-tenth by
royal decree of February 27th, 1851 (Staatscourant No. 52),

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 539

under express statement that the step was taken prepara-
tory to the entire abolition of premiums. The stone was
now set rolling ; and it was generally understood that the
whole of sea-fishery legislation was at issue.

The measure of course elicited strong opposition. The
whole of the fishing interest, from this moment downward,
clamoured against a step which, as they represented it,
deprived their tottering trade of its sole support ; but failed
to see and to appreciate the equivalent of liberty for boun-
ties, which was being prepared for them. Parliament had
approved the measure before it was taken. The budget
estimate of sea-fishery bounties for 1851 had been lowered
by about one-tenth, in accordance with the intentions of
Government, and upon previous recommendations by a
majority in the Second Chamber. During the debates on
the budget, in a memorable night sitting on December 2 1st,
1850,* a Conservative member, Mr. Wintgens, who in the
next years gave much of his attention to fishery matters,
moved an amendment to carry the estimate up again to
fl. 1 72,000, or the sum granted in the preceding year. The
honourable gentleman declared himself, as protectionists
without number have done since, an adherent of free trade
in principle, and, as such, averse to bounties as a rule ; but
he claimed circumspection in the rule's application, and this
circumspection, in his opinion, was inconsistent even with
a 10 per cent, reduction of premiums. A protracted debate
ensued, in which the whole of the arguments for premiums,
such as they were, were brought out. The importance of
the Grand Fishery, even in its then reduced state, and the
folly of letting it go to ruin, were exposed at a length the
more remarkable, as the debate opened at one and lasted
till past three in the morning, an occurrence extremely rare
* Handelingen v. d. Staten-Generaal, 1850-1, p. 461, sqq.

540 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

in Dutch parliamentary habits. But no one succeeded in
proving, or indeed attempted on logical and historical
grounds to prove the point at issue, viz. that bounties could
save the fisheries ; and the fact that British herring-fishery
had increased rapidly since the discontinuance of bounties
in 1830, was the only truly relevant and conclusive argu-
ment preferred in the course of the debate. The result of
the night's proceedings was the rejection of Mr. Wintgens'
amendment by forty-five votes against sixteen ; in other
words, a sentence of death passed on premiums, and im-
plicitly on the fishery legislation system in general.

A very important point was now gained ; and a reform
leading to the ultimate establishment of free fishery was
but a matter of time. Government made no secret of its
preoccupation to examine into the subject of fishery law
repeal, and on several occasions declared in Parliament
that the matter was under its constant consideration. It
was now to be considered how far, and how fast, the
reform was to go. A considerable majority in the Second
Chamber of the States-General (or House of Repre-
sentatives) from 1851 downward lost no occasion to de-
mand immediate and complete repeal of all fishery laws
and regulations ; but as yet the many evident and latent
difficulties of the subject forbade such a course. Existing
laws were extremely complicated, sundry interests were
involved in the matter ; and although in a rational state
of things those interests might have been in perfect
harmony, monopoly laws had since centuries brought
them into collision. Some points, such as the propriety of
laws for the protection of fish-life, were overhung
with positive uncertainty ; all were darkened by con-
tending one-sided representations from the various parties
concerned, each of whom, as usual in cases of this nature,

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 541

nervously clung to its own prima facie interest ; and yet
Government could scarcely hear any but parties concerned,
as no one else was supposed to be a judge of a matter so
dependent on personal experience. Cure-herring fishers,
for instance, insisted on their monopoly, which smoke-
herring fishers wanted to be overthrown ; the case was
exactly the reverse as regarded the smoke-herring or
" steurharing " monopoly ; and whom could the Minister
consult, unless either cure or smoke-herring shipowners?
Three Fishery Boards were then in existence : one for
the Grand Fishery, one for the fresh-herring and coast
fisheries, and one for the Iceland cod-fishery ; and on the
several monopolies, the cod-fishers' permission to cure, and
the distribution or abolition of premiums, no two of these,
when consulted by the Home Department, were of one
mind. The whole of the questions involved in the fishery
laws were therefore peculiarly hard to elucidate ; and the
inquiry preparatory to further measures took some years
to lead to a result. And yet Government was at first
resolved to rely solely on such information as could be
collected by the customary canals of office. Mr. Wintgens,
the member of Parliament quoted above, in October 1852
proposed an Inquiry into the whole of the subject by
parliamentary committee, an institution then just introduced
into Dutch constitutional law. There was much opposition
to the plan ; the more so, as a suspicion prevailed that its
mover's intention was to have bounties re-established, or at
least to counteract their gradual suppression. . Mr. Wint-
gens strongly denied the charge ; but he nevertheless
withdrew his proposition at the Minister's request, who
declared that a Government inquiry was then proceeding
and about to be terminated.

Political events entirely alien to the fishery questions

542 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

occasioned Mr. Thorbecke's Cabinet to withdraw from
office in the spring of 1853, before the inquiry had led to
satisfactory results. Before this, however, the great
statesman had taken further steps in the path npon which
we have seen him enter. By decree of January lOth, 1852,
the reduction of bounties had been carried, for that year,
to 25 per cent; and it was carried to 50 by decree of
January 5th, 1853. The prohibition from trawling in winter
contained in the decrees of 1825 and 1837, and mentioned
in the preceding chapter, was also withdrawn under
Mr. Thorbecke's administration ; the initial term of pro-
hibited trawling being shifted from November I5th to
December I5th, in November 1852, and the prohibition
removed altogether in January 1853.* The latter measure
consisted in the entire repeal of the decree of November
I5th, 1825, including the control over the nets used in coast
fishery, and the premiums for hook-and-line-fishery, during
the time when trawling was prohibited. Coast fishery was
now free, both in the choice of its implements and the
regulation of its fishing time ; and the only measure for
the protection of fish life still in vigour was the decree
of 1842, on the use of the shrimp net or saayem.

Minister van Reenen, Mr. Thorbecke's successor in the
Home Department, found the sea-fishery question in this
state on coming into office. Being unacquainted with the
precise bearings and antecedents of the matter, he was not
prepared at once to act in it, and for the moment stopped
the process of repeal, by leaving premiums for 1854 at the
rate of the preceding year, or half the original amount. t
The Minister stated his intention to this effect when laying

* Decrees of November 24th, 1852 (Stbl. No. 202), and January
29th, 1853 (Stbl. No. 8).

t Royal Decree, January gth, 1854 (Stbl. No. 9).

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 543

the budget for 1854 before the States-General ; and the
result was a sharp debate on December 3rd, 1853, in the
course of which an amendment to continue the reduction
of bounties was moved, and rejected by a majority of only
one vote.* The Minister's principal reason for leaving
matters in statu quo for the nonce was, that he saw a
rashness in a farther reduction of premiums unless attended
by repeal of the fishery regulation laws, which thorough
measure was not as yet warranted by the information
obtained by Government inquiry. The debate once more
showed the extreme anxiety of a strong majority in the
Second Chamber to go through with the matter, and have
done with the fishery laws ; and this moved Government,
at the outset of the year 1854 to appoint a Royal
Committee to inquire into the question " whether all
sea-fishery laws and regulations could be repealed al-
together, or whether it was desirable to maintain, or re-
enact any part of them."f

Parties immediately concerned in sea-fishery, as may be
readily supposed, had not in the meantime been silent in
the debate. Both the actual reduction of premiums and
the proposed repeal of protective laws, were the object
of violent criticism and passionate appeal by the organs of
the fishery interest. Kemper's advice in favour of the law
of 1818, although given in circumstances long gone by,
and overthrown by forty years' experience, did daily
service in this discussion. The importance of the fisheries
as an ancient branch of genuine national industry, as
having been once the " principal gold-mine of the country,"

* Handelingen van de Tiveede Kamer, 1853-4, p. 288 sqq.

f Royal Decree of February Qth, 1854, No. 57. The Committee's
Report was published 1854, and has been quoted more than once in
the course of this work.

544 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

as a recruiting-school for the navy, &c. &c., was passionately
urged ; and the two main points to be established, viz., the
possibility of upholding the business by maintaining
bounties and laws, and the certainty of destroying it by
repealing both, were taken for granted without examina-
tion. The nation was used to such demonstration. Out-
cries of a similar nature had been raised in succession
against each of the several reforms by which, since the
Belgian revolution of 1830, Free Trade had gradually been
established as a standard principle in Dutch economical
policy. There had been a majority, both in and out of
Parliament, to back those several measures ; and the evils
prophesied as sure to attend them had not been felt. Free
Trade at the time was implicitly believed in, and was
successful. Wherefore on the public at large, and on
Parliament especially, the fishery opposition made little or
no impression.

Nor was Fishery Law Reform entirely stopped during the
first part of Mr. van Reenen's administration. The States
of the several Provinces, actuated by the several fishery
colleges, and subject to Government approbation, were, as
has been shown, legislators in most of the detailed fishery
rules ; and in this quality they took a share, even before
the legislative power of the realm, in the removal of
fishery regulations. The rules concerning fresh, or smoke-
herring fishery first underwent considerable alteration at
the fishers' own request, as preferred by the college for the
fresh-herring and coast fishery. The decree relative to the
subject, dated December 3ist, 1822, had been repealed in
1848, and replaced by two consonant statutes for the
Provinces of North and South Holland, into which the
former province of Holland had been divided in 1840 ; but
as regards their principal contents, these two enactments

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH S.EA FISHERIES. 545

were not at variance with the Statute of 1822.* In 1854
at the request of the States of both provinces, the Regu-
lations were altered on two important heads, by the
abolition of last money, till then levied from all fresh-
herring fishers by the College, and the shifting of the fresh-
herring fishery's opening date from September 2Oth to
August 2oth of each year.f The latter alteration especially
indicated a slackening of the monopolising spirit, as on
August 2Oth cure-herring fishery was still in full activity
on the Scotch or English coasts, whereas the former
opening date of the fresh-herring business had been
contrived with a view to keep bumboats out of the herring
seas altogether during the height of the cure-herring
season. A month afterwards the States of South Holland,
(in whose province nearly the whole of the Grand Fishery
was then centred) took another and much more decisive
step towards the abolition of the curing monopoly, by
permitting bumboats to cure all herring caught in the
course of any voyage commenced after October loth.
The measure had been strongly urged by the Fresh-herring
and Coast Fishery College in the course of the preceding
year, and was then retarded, not by any unwillingness on
the part of provincial authorities, but by the naked fact of
the request having been preferred too late for sanction by
the Provincial States ordinary summer meeting.! This
very important breach in the Grand Fishery's curing
monopoly was sanctioned by Royal Decree of Septem-
ber 5th, 1854 (Staatsblad, No. 132), in virtue of the Royal
qualification, established by clause 16 of the law of

* Royal Decrees of August 22nd, 1848 (Staatsblad, Nos. 36, 37)
t Decrees of August 7th, 1854 (Staatsblad, Nos. 109, no).
\ See Mr. Gevers van Endegeest's speech on premiums in the
Second Chamber, on December 3rd, 1853.

VOL. IX.— E. 8. 2 N

546 THE HISTORY. OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

1818,* to grant dispensations from the said monopoly. It
will be remembered that the said royal qualification had
contributed to make the law of 1818 acceptable to such
members of Parliament as then objected to monopolies
as a principle. It was now used for the first time, at a
moment when the repeal of the law itself was looked for
on all hands, and in immediate perspective.

On September 29th, 1854, or exactly a fortnight after
the momentous date on which the curing monopoly
was thus broken into, the Royal Committee appointed in
February of the same year laid their Report before the
Home Department. If any doubt remained in an unpre-
judiced mind as to the propriety of doing away with the
whole of the sea-fishery laws, this very remarkable docu-
ment was sufficient to dispel it. It was the result of an
inquiry at once thorough, impartial, and dispassionate ; and
it laid before the public, in a clear and terse resumption,
the whole outlines of the sea-fishery system, its faults, and
its effects. The Committee's members, four in number, had
been selected out of the Permanent Committees of the
Provincial States (Gedeputeerde Staten) of South and
North Holland ; they had, therefore, had ample occasion in
the fulfilment of their daily official duties to acquire well-
founded views on sea-fishery questions. Their secretary,
now Professor Buys, has since achieved an eminent career
in science and political literature. The report was hence-
forward the elementary handbook for any one desirous to
form an opinion in sea-fishery matters. The public at
large, as has been said, was then strongly disposed against
Protection ; but it is more than probable that most were
unacquainted with the exact bearings of the case for and

* Appendix D.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 547

against Protection as applied to fisheries, until they had
read the Committee's Report.

It is needless here to dwell on the contents of the
document, as most of the matter contained in it has been
more amply developed in the preceding pages than in the
Report itself. A special mention, however, ought to be made
of Appendix I to the Report, containing an account of wit-
nesses examined. Nearly all these witnesses were concerned
in fishery or trade in fish ; and their evidence, taking all in
all, was a mass of contradiction. Parties concerned in the
Grand Fishery in 1854 stoutly maintained that obligatory
assay of cured-herring was the only way of warranting its
quality, and fairly did warrant it ; whereas two great dealers
in fish stated in as many words that assay, as then practised,
gave no warrant whatever, and one of them added that, if made
facultative, it might be quite as efficient as when obligatory.
Cured-herring fishers and their representatives denied that
herring caught by bumboats could yield a tolerable article
when cured ; fresh-herring bumboat owners, as well as
herring dealers, were entirely confident as to the contrary,
and if they did not strongly insist on the removal of the
Grand Fishery's monopoly, it was chiefly because their own
was expected to be withdrawn together with the other.
One dealer averred that the " Vereeniging van Zoutharing-
reederyen " was ruining herring commerce by enforcing
artificial prices and restraining supplies. Another (who
was also a shipowner) stated that, as things were, the
association acted for the best of both fishers and dealers
by regulating the market ; but added that entire liberty
was the only chance for the herring fishery, whereas
delegates from the College of the Grand Fishery strongly
insisted on having existing laws maintained, and one buss-
owner from Enkhuizen went the length of stating, in the

2 N 2

548 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

face of the most conclusive statistical evidence, that no
decline of the cured-herring fishery had occurred under
those laws for twenty years.

Summing up the results of its inquiry, the Committee
came to a set of conclusions, which may be rendered as
follows : —

The aim of the fishery laws is to have herring sold in
small quantities at high prices. The interest of both fishers
and consumers requires herring to be abundant and cheap.
Therefore the laws ought to be abolished.

And to this end, the Committee laid the draft of a Bill
before Government, the chief purport of which was as
follows : —

Everybody to be free to fish w/ien, how, and where he finds
convenient. Foreign sea- fish to be imported duty free.

Assays of herring to be made facultative. Government
to have assayers and branders at the disposal of all who
shall require their herring to be branded. Assayers to be
appointed by a College for the Netherlands sea-fisheries,
which shall have no other administrative functions whatever,
but be a Consultative Board to Government on sea-fishery
matters, a majority in which shall be composed of men not
personally concerned in the trade.

As exceptions to the general rule of free fishery, the
Committee advised to re-enact the prohibition from trawling
in winter along the coasts, and to maintain the law against
the use of the shrimp-trawl whenever fry of fish should have
been found in it. The reason for these exceptions was,
that most of the fishers examined by the Committee be-
lieved in the exhaustibility of the coast waters by the
unrestricted use of ground-nets.

The case had now been heard to satiety. All parties
had pleaded their side of it ; both the public and the

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 549

legislative power were fully enabled to pronounce ; and
a termination of debate was an urgent necessity, as the
state of uncertainty about ulterior measures, combined with
the suppression of premiums while restrictions remained,
for some years reduced the herring fishery at a fast pace
indeed. More than a year, however, was still suffered to
elapse before a final decision was asked from the legislative
power ; and the only steps taken in 1855 were a further re-
duction of both premiums and monopolies, within the range
of Government competency. By Decree of January Qth
(Staatscourant, No. 10), the reduction of premiums, which
had been stopped at 50 per cent, in 1854, was carried to 75
per cent. ; and no provision for premiums was made in the
budget for the next year, so that none were paid from 1856
downward. Next, the Grand Fishery's curing monopoly
having been impaired in 1854, by allowing coast-fishermen
to cure herring after October I5th, the coast-fishers'
monopoly was reciprocally broken into in 1855, by allowing
buss-shippers to salt herring for smoking (steuren) after
August 2Oth, or the coast fishery's opening day.* Com-
petition was thus opened, within certain limits, in both
branches of fishery ; and buss and bumboat owners, from
the season of 1855 downward, were each others' competitors
on tolerably fair terms, except so far as the latter continued
to be precluded from curing in summer.

This remnant of the curing monopoly, besides those of
carrying and selling, the prohibition against importing
foreign fish, and the rest of the edifice of sea-fishery protec-
tion, were now to be cancelled. A law was necessary for
this ; for the said institutions were either contained in or
directly based upon the law of 1818.

* Royal Decree of August 2nd, 1855 (Bijvoegsel op het Staatsblad,
P- 347).

550 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

On December 4th and 7th, 1855, Minister van Reenen
brought in two Bills for the final abolition of the system the
development and effects of which have been the principal
subject of the preceding pages.

One of these Bills, treating of sea-fisheries, was a repro-
duction of the draft made out by the Committee more
than a year before. The other, treating of Customs duties
on fish, reduced these duties to an amount equivalent to
10 per cent, on salt and cured-herring and miscellaneous
salt fish (romineling] of foreign catch, and abolished them
for all other descriptions of fish, whether fresh, salt, dried,
Or smoked, including shell-fish. The duty on salt-herring
was fixed at fl. 1*50, or two shillings and sixpence, on
the barrel of 150 pounds. The duty on herring was
simply meant as a transitory measure not to expose the
fishery at once to the full effect of unrestrained foreign
competition. It should be noticed that the absolute pro-
hibition to import any foreign herring contained in the law
of 1818 had in the meantime been slightly mitigated. As
the Customs tariff stood in 1855, cured-herring was still
prohibited, but salt-herring not cured was permitted to be
imported in the months between November and May,
subject to a duty of fl. 3 on the 100 pounds, and "buck-
ing," or smoked-herring, was admitted at all times under a
duty of fl. 0*90 on the thousand.

These two Bills were kept under consideration for a year
and a half, owing to a series of mutations in office actuated
by political motives alien to the subject of this work. As
far as the prevalent opinions in Parliament were concerned,
both Bills might have been passed in a few weeks. Free
Trade, as said, strongly prevailed in Parliament ; and as
every system is carried to extremities in the first period of
its triumph, so " doctrinarism " in Free Trade, and the

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 551

uncompromising principle of " laissez faire, laissez passer/'
was predominant with the Liberal side in politics. Thence
the history of the Fishery Bills may properly be contained
in a very few words. Government went a fair length
Free Trade way, and Parliament urged them still farther.

Opposition to the leading idea of the Bills was now con-
fined to the circle of fishery interest, and to those few
publicists who, in the days of which we are speaking,
openly advocated Protection. In Parliament scarcely a
show was made of opposition to Fishery Law Repeal. The
Sections' Report on both the Bills commenced by the
auspicious statement that the principle laid down by
Government had met with nearly universal approbation.
Everything which looked like an exception to that principle
was objected to. Not a few members wanted the fishery
law to consist solely of a clause repealing all existing laws
and decrees on the subject — in other words, they wanted
the facultative assay, the advising College, and the measures
against destruction of fish-life, to be removed out of the
Bill, and all Customs duties on fish to be abolished at once.
Assay of herring, they said, yielded no proper warrant as
to quality, and retarded those expeditions of early herring
by which very high prices were made during the first days
of each season. The trawling and shrimping restrictions
were regarded as unnecessary ; and it was shown upon the
occasion that, as to the period when, and the place and
depth where, spawn of plaice, sole, flounder, &c., are found
in the sea, the opinions of pisciculturists and fishermen
were then anything but consistent. Some said that spawn
of these fish lay on the bottom, and was therefore destroyed
by the trawl-net ; others averred that it swam in the water,
and did not suffer from a trawling apparatus. According
to some, the period when spawn and fry required undis-

552 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

turbed development lay between November and February ;
others stated that plaice full of spawn had been caught in
May. A conclusive argument against restrictions was
drawn from the fact that they did not exist in the Zuider Zee,
where plaice, flounder, and turbot survived the effect of the
most absolute fishing liberty. It might have been added
that the trawl had been used in the North Sea without a
restriction for centuries ; that its use had only been inter-
rupted or curtailed between 1676-89, and 1825-53 ; and
that exhaustion of the coast waters, or scarcity of fish
positively attributable to over-fishing, had never occurred,
and the year 1856 was particularly beneficent for trawlers
and coast-fishers in general. Besides, foreigners were not
subject to the prohibitive laws, and were free to trawl off the
Dutch coasts in all seasons ; and, as a writer on the subject
not inadequately remarked, "if the sea could indeed be
emptied or fished dead (doodgevischf), it was but fair that
Dutchmen should have their share of the burial feast."
The rule for a temporary prohibition of the use of the
shrimp net, whenever fry of fish should have been found in
such a net, was opposed on similar grounds. It sacrificed
one branch of fishery to another ; and many held that fish
born under the Dutch coast will migrate to other waters
ere it be full-grown, whence to protect such fish in early
life would be to put bread into the' mouths of Belgians,
French and Germans, who would have the benefit of the
lives so preserved, although they did not use reciprocity in
the matter. Even a College, or Board of Fisheries, was ob-
jected to, although its proposed attributes were merely to
supervise assays, and advise Government in fishery matters.
The paralysing sway so long held over fishermen by Boards,
Colleges, and Associations of a very different nature
evidently scared some of the more uncompromising Free

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 553

Traders, and made them shun the notion of having a Board
at all.

These men of thorough measures did not, however,
ultimately carry the day. The Fishery Bill was debated on
March 7th, 1857 ; and facultative assay of herring, as well
as an advising College, obtained a majority. On the other
hand, a learned and lengthy speech by a member versed in
natural history settled the fate of restrictions on trawling
and shrimping, and they were removed by amendment.
The law, as ultimately adopted,* simply established the
entire liberty of all sea fishery in the largest sense of the
word, and repealed all prohibitions of the importation of sea-
fish. Next it established facultative assays of herring caught
in Dutch vessels, and instituted a College to appoint assayers
and generally promote the sea-fisheries' interests by advising
Government in matters relative to them. The Bill on
Customs duties on fish underwent some vicissitudes. It was
amended so as at once to abolish all such duties ; and the
amendment was carried in the Lower House by a majority
of one vote. The Upper House, or First Chamber of the
States-General, then rejected the Bill by a slight majority.
Government brought it in once more, in its primitive
wording, in September 1857, when a fresh conflict was
avoided by an amendment reducing duties on salt-herring
and " rommeling " to half the amounts proposed. Their
entire abolition took place two years afterwards, f

Provincial regulations were repealed soon after the new
law was passed, as contrary to its purport ; and a new law
as a base for future administrative rules on the immunity of

* Dated June I3th, 1857 (Staatsblad, No. 86). An error in the text
was removed by law of August I3th, 1857 \Staatsblad, No. 102).

t Laws of Dec. nth, 1857 (Staatsblad, No. 122) and Dec. 23rd,
1859 (Staatsblad, No. 136).

554 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

salt excise was established simultaneously with the new
Customs tariff on fish.* Some control against fraud is of
course inevitable whenever an article subject to excise
duty is exempted from it when consumed for one special
purpose ; and the object of the new regulation was to
make that control as easy as possible for fishermen, as a
compensation for eventual damage by foreign competition
attendant upon the reduced tariff.

A regulation upon assays of herring was made in time
before the opening of the herring season of 1858.! The
new rules were as simple as was consistent with main-
taining the accustomed appearance of Dutch brand-herring.
The old distinctions of " full-maatjes," " ijlen," any of these
either sound or " wrak" were maintained, with a brand for
each. To these was added a new brand for " overnight,"
or herring cured the day after its capture, which process
was now permitted, whereas former regulations forbade
such herring to be cured. A new distinction was likewise
made between herring caught in deep sea, under the North
Sea coast, and in the Zuider Zee ; the latter two qualities
being now allowed to be cured as well as the one first
named. Every barrel of assayed herring was thus to carry
two brands, one stating its description, and the other where
it was caught. The figure of the brand, formerly repre-
senting a lion, was altered into the royal crown ; and it
will be shown in the next chapter what evil consequences
attended that alteration. Assayers were to brand all
herring presented to them, unless the barrel were defective,
or not stamped with the owner's mark and filled from
top to bottom with herring of one single description. Care
was thus taken that there should be a Dutch brand as of

* Law of Dec. iith, 1857 (Staatsblad, No. 123).
f Decree of January iith, 1858 (Staatsblad, No. 2).

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 555

old, to which foreign dealers were used ; but any one who
chose was free to sell or export unbranded herring.

Sea-fishery Reform was now complete, and the trade
allowed entire liberty in every respect I shall briefly
relate, in a last chapter, what effects were wrought by the
measure.

CHAPTER IV.

REVIVAL.

IT is, I believe, a fact now known on every considerable
fish market that Dutch sea-fisheries have been increasing fast
for the last fifteen years. There is no need of words to
state the fact ; it may be seen at a glance from the fishery
statistics of the last twenty-five years, the leading figures of
which I have compiled from the annual Reports of the
College, or Board of Sea-fisheries, instituted in 1857, and
beg to lay before the reader in Appendices K, L, and M.
It now remains to be shown how the increase, and indeed
the entire revival of the business, was a direct consequence
of fishing liberty substituted for fishery regulation. The
task is an easy one ; for, from 1857 downward, the above-
named Reports contain every particular relative to the
history of Dutch sea-fisheries.

The revival alluded to is nowhere so apparent as in the
herring fisheries ; for a general survey of which, from 1857
downward, I refer the reader to Appendix K. It will be
seen from this table : —

ist. — That bumboat fishers in the coast villages used
their new-gotten right to cure herring on an insignificant
scale for some ten years after they had obtained it

2.ndly. — That the prices fetched by their cured-herring
were, on an average, not much inferior to those of " buss-
herring " cured in keeled vessels.

556 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

pretty. — That they began to cure herring on a much
larger scale in 1 866 and subsequent years.

^thly. — That the whole production of cured-herring, and
the number of ships employed in that production, took a
leap upwards about the same time, and they have since then
been constantly increasing.

yhly. — That a gradual lowering of cured-herring prices
(see the lowest prices in columns 12 and 14) coincides with
the increase of production.

Thus the irrefutable verdict of statistics now corrobo-
rates what one corporation realised in 1829, and what the
Committee on Fisheries in 1854 set down as the funda-
mental idea of reform, viz. that abundant capture, and not
high prices, were the means of restoring the Dutch herring
fisheries ; whereas the ancient system was based on the
opposite theory.

Abundant capture (setting aside, of course, the
vicissitudes of herring seasons) could only be, and was,
obtained by means of improvement in the fishing processes.
The progress of these improvements may be described as
follows : the net of hemp was supplanted by the cotton net,
the use of the cotton net brought luggers and cutters into
use instead of the old clumsy " hookers " ; and the use of
new nets and ships caused the capture to increase five-fold
in fifteen years. The cotton net therefore gave the
impulse to the thorough revival of the fishery ; and the
cotton net could not have been used under the Grand Fishery
Regulation, 1827, which prescribed all nets to be made of
hemp yarn.

An eminent shipowner, Mr. A. E. Maas, of Scheveningen,
was the first to import cotton herring-nets from Lowestoft,
about 1857 ; and at the outset used those nets in bum-
boats only. The superior catching power of the nets at

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 557

once became apparent. Being much lighter than hemp,
larger fleets could be used, and more water covered ; and
at the same time their depth could be made greater
without the weight causing the upper meshes to contract,
and be of no avail. But, as a set-off to their lightness,
cotton nets were found subject to more wear and tear than
the solid net of the ancestors. Mr. Maas spent some years
in tanning and boiling experiments to make them as
durable as hemp ; and cotton prices being at the time up, in
consequence of the American war, it was not till 1865 that
the use of cotton nets fairly began to spread among herring
ship-owners.

Several causes besides the dearth of cotton meantime
counteracted the effect of the new law. Both shipowners
and dealers had to get accustomed to liberty before
learning how to turn it to account A body' of men
brought up from childhood to strict observation of a set of
rules precluding all innovation whatever, could scarcely be
expected, immediately upon the withdrawal of those rules,
to turn their attention to novelties, and invest money in
experiments, or look abroad for examples, all of which
operations they had been taught to regard as the breaking
of sacred laws. Fetter a man down through life, and when
set free he will be some time in recovering the use of his
limbs. Besides these psychological causes for a continued
stagnation, positive checks at first kept the herring-fishery
down. Years elapsed before an enlightened administration,
advised by a College of competent men, could, under the
salt excise law of 1857, regulate the conditions of freedom
of salt excise for fishermen in such a manner as not to
thwart the development of the several branches of sea-
fishery. The herring seasons of 1857-1861 were in
general unfavourable, and the returns below the average,

558 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

and sometimes bad. Much capital had of late been lost
in the business ; and the state of suspense in which it had
been kept between 1850 and 1857, when bounties were
gradually withdrawn and uncertainty prevailed as to future
fishing liberty, had especially done much to reduce it, and
scare fresh capital away. Extensive markets, such as
those of Northern Germany, Hamburg, Bremen, and
Stettin, which in former centuries were supplied by Dutch
brand-herring exclusively, were now entirely lost ; and
customs tariffs in some countries thwarted an extension of
exports, while Scotch herring was prevalent everywhere,
and very far ahead in the race. The commercial treaty
with Belgium expired on January ist, 1858 ; and the severe
prejudice caused to Dutch fisheries by the elevation of
tariffs attendant upon the event was by no means counter-
balanced by the abolition of differential duties against
importation of Dutch fish in Russia, which took place in
the next year. But the greatest enemies of Dutch herring
in the markets abroad, it must be owned, were Dutch
dealers. Prices of good Dutch brand-herring were then
still as a rule above those of Scotch ; and no sooner was
importation of herring permitted than some Dutch dealers
hastened to import Scotch herring of anything but the
best quality, and export it repacked, not under the new
Dutch crown-brand, but in old barrels marked with the
abolished brand, consisting of the figure of a lion. The
fraud was generally detected too late by foreign buyers,
because the change in the brand had not been efficiently
brought to the knowledge of dealers abroad ; and when
detected and reported on it could not be punished, because
it had been omitted to enact penalties against the use of
abolished brands. Thus the liberty to forego assay was at
first misapplied for purposes of delusion, and the perpetrators

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 559

of the fraud of course were themselves the victims of their
short-sighted artifice. The alteration of assay rules in 1858
contributed to spoil the market. Under the Regulation of
1827 herring was assayed and sorted with tolerable accuracy
immediately upon being landed, and a preliminary mark was
generally put on the barrels to certify the result. The large
barrels, loosely packed as they were on board, where close
and careful packing of herring was an impossibility, were next
sold to wholesale dealers, and by them delivered into the
hands of packers, who transferred the fish to barrels of the
regulation size, shape and construction, and the article was,
by this re-packing, prepared to receive the official brand
for exportation. These packers, who were alone entitled
to transfer herring from the " sea barrel " (ton zeestuks) into
the brand-barrel, were public officials, and under oath, like
the assayers themselves, whence there was a fair certainty
that the contents of the " sea-barrels " should be transferred
to the exportation barrel without any tampering ; and the
barrels issuing from the packers' hands could be, and were
generally, branded by the assayer with the exportation
brand, without renewed examination of their contents.
Under the Regulation of 1858, which was the first piece of
work prepared by the new College (and owned by them in
their Report for 1859 to have been deficient in several
points) there were no sworn "packers," and the assayers'
own verification was required for the exportation brand as
well as for the first marking of the sea-barrel ; the latter
operation being still a requisite to shield first-hand buyers
against fraud. Now, however diligent the assayers (and as
to their diligence and honesty there are no serious complaints
to my knowledge) it was beyond their power to effectually
and twice control the immense quantities of fish subjected
to them under the spur and hurry of the early " hunting "

560 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

days of the season, when every dealer was anxious to have
thousands of barrels branded and exported at once. The
first assay upon landing was done as usual, and the first
sale of the herring to the inland wholesale dealer was
effected upon its credit ; but for thoroughly performing
the second there was no time left, and the inspection
previous 'to giving the crown-brand was generally very
superficial, allowing much refuse of the Scotch fisheries to
obtain the Dutch brand, and spoil its renown abroad. A
revision of the branding rules in 1860, and another in 1861,*
intended to introduce an easier mode of control, and pre-
vent foreign herring from obtaining the Dutch brand, failed
to accomplish the purpose. Both the old and new brands
continued to be put on bad foreign herring ; and the fraud
was even turned into open connivance with foreign dealers,
who had " Scotch herring in Dutch fustage," consigned to
them at prices above those of Scotch and under those of
genuine Dutch fish, and in their turn made their clients
pay the latter. Although of course highly prejudicial to
the sale of the genuine article, these dealings could not be
stopped ; and they went on, on a scale more or less exten-
sive as herring prices ruled higher or lower, until the
average prices of Dutch brand gradually came down to a
level with, and even below, those of Scotch crown-brand,
chiefly owing to the frauds described. Then, of course,
there was no longer a profit in selling Scotch herring for
Dutch ; and the only way of making fraudulent gain lay
in obtaining the Dutch " full," or " maatjes," crown-brand
for herring of inferior quality, which practice never could
be stopped entirely until the official brand was finally
abolished altogether. Assayers always did their utmost ;

* Decrees of March 4th, 1860 (Staatsblad^ No. 11) and February
24th, 1 86 1 (Staatsblad, No. 13).

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 561

but their control was not now more efficient than it was in
former centuries, when we have seen foreign dealers fre-
quently complain of bad herring being sold under Dutch
prime brands.

Such were the principal reasons which in the first ten
years after the legislative reform counteracted actual im-
provement, the progress of which shall now be described.

Cotton nets had been first used in bum-boats, as said
above, about 1857, and were in a keeled vessel in 1861.
In 1865 about one-third of the fleet had some cotton nets
on board, but not a vessel could use many of them ; for on
account of their lightness they did not sufficiently steady
the clumsy "hookers" while lying before the fleet. The
virtue which increased the catching power of the nets
was a defect as regards navigation ; and whenever
a fleet chiefly composed of cotton nets was tried, the
vessel was apt, as soon as part of the nets was got on
board, in rough weather to drift across the rest The
evil might have been stopped by enlarging the fleets ;
but there is, of course, a limit to the surface of net that can
be managed in one ship of a given size. Experience soon
showed that light vessels were required to get the full avail
out of cotton fleets ; and this seems to have been the reason
why they were at first principally used in bumboats, two
of which, belonging to Mr. Maas, tried the Shetland seas in
1862, being the first Dutch flat-bottomed vessels ever seen
in those waters. But if bum-boats were light, they on the
other hand afforded too little stowage for an abundant
catch. The point to be gained was to have a vessel at
once light enough to manage a cotton fleet in all weathers,
and capacious enough to carry as much herring as could be
caught in such a fleet.

Mr, Maas, now as formerly ahead in fishery innovation,
vol. IX.— E. 8. 20

562 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

solved this problem in 1866, by sending out a lugger built
upon a model from Boulogne. The vessel had as yet more
hemp than cotton in her fleet ; she had upon the whole
not a favourable catch, and she began to fish three weeks
late, and thence did not share in "hunting" prices. In
spite of these disadvantages, she covered her building and
equipping expenses, including two complete fleets in six
voyages, and in the first year yielded a net return of thirty-
seven per cent. The splendid success of this first lugger
in the Dutch fleet, named by her owner the Scheveningen,
after his residence, was the signal of a rapid revolution in
the country's herring-fishery. Four luggers were launched
in 1866 ; and the number increased very rapidly in the next
years. All new ships built were either luggers or cutters ;
and the wharves on the Maas had a busy time of it. The
old " hookers " were sometimes sold off before being worn
out; and the transformation was so rapid that, in 1872-3
and 1875-6, there was actually a decrease in the strength
of the herring fleet,* owing solely to old vessels being sold
off faster than new ones could be built. The following
figures show the progress of this most important reform :

Years.

Hookers and
sloops.

Luggers and
cutteis.

Years.

Hookers and
sloops.

Luggers and
cutters.

1867

85

4

1875

25

90

1868

80

II

1876

17

92

1869

79

28

I877

19

94

1870

69

51

1878

18

109

1871

58

64

I879

14

114

1872

44

64t

1880

12

121

1873

34

68

1881

II

127

I874

3i

83

*, See Appendix K.

t The stand-still in lugger-building in 1872 is apparent, not real.
Six luggers were in that year transferred to a German herring
company formed at Emden, whose directors prevailed upon a Dutch

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 563

Improvements in other fishing material went hand in
hand with this renovation of the fleet. Sea-fishery ex-
hibitions, as will be remembered, were very frequent about
the time now spoken of; and in each of them the
Netherlands exhibits outshone those of preceding years.
Objects considered and reported upon as novelties at
Amsterdam in 1861, and at Bergen (Norway) in 1865,
proved antiquated in 1867 at the Hague. British cotton
net-yarns created a sensation at the first-named exhibition ;
Dutch cotton yarns, and nets made out of them, the
produce of several inland factories which did a brisk busi-
ness in them, were medalled at the latter. And it is to
be noticed that this strenuous expansion of the whole of
the fishery business was obtained without a single florin
of subsidy. Up to 1861 Government had contributed
towards equipping a " hospital ship," the nature of which
has been explained in a former chapter. The subsidy had
been gradually lessened, and declined by the common
herring shipowners in 1861, since when no " hospital-ship '
was sent out.

The organization of the herring shipowning business in

shipowner to sell them the whole of his ships and materials, and take
the direction of their business. Any one inclined to pursue patriotism
into superstition may read a warning against selling the nationality of
a ship or a business in this Emden company's fate. Their ships,
managers, and management were Dutch j they fished in the same
seas and seasons as Dutch ; and yet they never could make catches
or returns like Dutch vessels of exactly the same description. While
Dutch shipowners, being entirely unprotected, were making handsome
dividends, the Emdeners, who have a " protective " customs tariff to
shield, and an immense national market to support them, have for ten
years hardly shown their shareholders the colour of their money, and
were in 1881 still deeply indebted to their Government for subsidial
loans not paid back.

202

564 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

the same period likewise underwent a material change.
New vessels of course demanded considerable capital, and
as their catch averaged from forty to one hundred per
cent, above that of the "hookers," capital was invested in
them freely enough. Shipowning companies, limited, sprang
up, and superseded the partnerships of the old type, many
of which liquidated as their hookers were broken up or
sold off. The institution of "sale-hunting" shared the
general reform. The Herring-hunting Association, which,
as said before, was in a previous period formed every year
to carry home early herring from the fleet, had continued
annually since the law of 1857 had abolished the "hunting"
privilege and restriction, and any shipowner was free to
carry herring home at such a time and in such quantities
as he chose. One firm only kept outside from the begin-
ning ; most shipowners found it expedient to be partners
in the association for some of their vessels, in order to
secure the enormous prices of the opening season, or " hunt-
ing time," for some part of their catch ; but the association's
general expenses were so high as gradually to drive out
many vessels ; and owners, while they kept some of theirs
on the association's books, left out an increasing per-
centage. The association's mode of operating was also
materially altered. It had, till now, kept up the old
traditions. Partners bound themselves not to have their
ships home before a date annually fixed by common
consent, unless with an exceptional cargo ; and the fish
brought home before that date in the association's
" hunters " was sold at certain minimum prices, and kept
on hand if prices in the early season were unfavourable.
The latter practice was now abandoned, and the whole
stock sold in auction for the partners' account as soon as
landed. Thus the institution of " hunting " became what

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 565

it should have been from the beginning: an annual
contract of carriage for common account between ship-
owners, and lost the monopolising character it had adopted
in the height of the regulation period.

As for innovations in fishing properly said, the main
feature of the period now spoken of, is the mixing up of
the two branches formerly known as grand and small
fishery. Fresh herring or " steurharing " began to be
brought home in luggers, whose crews thereby managed to
turn to account portions of their catch which there was no
time to cure, and sometimes, when the catch in the ordinary
herring waters was not favourable, went into seas where no
keeled vessels were permitted to go by the law of 1 8 1 8, and
made the capture of fresh-herring their business for the
time. On the other hand, the pickling of herring in coast
bumboats increased exceedingly fast in the years suc-
ceeding 1870 ; so that both the curing and the fresh herring
monopoly of old were now not only abolished by law, but
had actually fallen into entire disuse among fishermen, and
there was no longer a grand fishery in keeled, and a small
fishery in flat vessels. The latter fished for herring as early,
and in the same waters, as luggers and cutters, which in
their turn sometimes invaded the continental shore waters,
and did bumboats' work. A glance at the figures in
Appendix K will show that not a vestige was ever felt of
the dread consequences which we have, in former parts of
this work, seen both parties predict as sure to attend such
mutual competition. There was indeed a decline in pickle-
herring prices, partly occasioned, as has been shown, by
dealers tampering with the brand ; but the average prices
of fresh-herring and " bucking " at the same time showed a
tendency to rise, owing to the widening of the market for
the latter ; and in both branches of the business, the liberty

566 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES,

to choose a fishing place, a fishing gear, and a curing pro-
cess according to the state of the season and the market,
amply made up for increased competition.

The brand, and the more and more apparent impossibi-
lity of preventing abuse of it, still continued to thwart
progress. I shall conclude this account of Dutch herring-
fishery by briefly relating how this last monument of
Government interference with it came to be abolished like
the rest.

From lugger fishery, as stated just now, there ensued a.
promiscuousness of the herring-fishery's produce. Besides
deep-sea herring as of old, luggers in 1867, and subse-
quently, brought home fish caught off the continental coasts,
which in quality was decidedly inferior. Now, the branding
regulations of 1860 and 1861 had ordained distinct brands
certifying herring to have been caught either in the high
seas (V. Z. V., or high-sea catch brand), under the coast
(K. V., or coast-catch brand) or in the Zuider Zee. The
latter brand was never or very seldom given, as Zuider Zee
herring of late years has ultimately proved unfit for curage ;
but lugger skippers were in the habit, although they often
fished under the coast, of declaring all their cured-herring
as high-sea catch. They generally obtained the V. Z. V.
brand for inferior fish, as an efficient control never could be
carried into execution. Bumboat owners, on the other
hand, not only cured herring on a large scale, but actually
sometimes cured it ashore, contrary to all ancient notions
and prescriptions; and fish thus cured, though certainly
much inferior to fish cured on the day of the capture, ob-
tained the same brand as the latter. It became, in short,
an impossibility under the new fishery regimen to certify
where herring had been caught ; and a new regulation
approved by Royal Decree of May nth, 1868 (Staatsblad

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 567

No. 66), accordingly ordained the V. Z. V. or K. V. brands
to certify, not where fish should have been caught, but
where it should have been cured, i.e. whether at sea or
ashore. At the same time, as the promiscuous use of the
several fishing methods led to promiscuous results, the main
stress of the brand certificate was laid, not as formerly on
the place where herring should have been either caught or
prepared, but on its actual quality ; and a new sub-division
was introduced into the three great descriptions of Dutch
brand herring (full, " maatjes," and " ylen "), each of which
was to be furthermore stamped either IA, 2 A, or 3 A, accord-
ing to its quality upon test. This arrangement of course
greatly increased the assayers' task and responsibility ; and
as accurate verification of the contents of each barrel
became more utterly impossible in proportion as the yields
of the annual catches increased, it soon became customary
to brand herring as Full IA, Maatjes IA, or ylen IA, as the
case might be, upon little besides the owner's authority. The
circumstance of course by no means increased the brands'
repute abroad. Moreover, the change in the brands proved
an evil in itself, inasmuch as in some foreign markets con-
fusion once more ensued between the old brands and the
new.

To abolish the Government brand was the only way out
of these several difficulties, as the Sea- Fishery Board clearly
saw ; but they did not venture to advise the measure unless
Great Britain should cease to brand at the same time.
Foreign correspondents averred herring not bearing an
official mark to be unsaleable so long as Scotch branded
herring should be in the market ; and overtures made by
the Dutch to the British Government about a simultaneous
abolition of brands were received in a very friendly and

568 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

congenial spirit, but ultimately led to nothing, owing to
circumstances which it is unnecessary here to mention.
Dutch brands gradually lost most of their reputation ; and
the loss was the worse, as no unbranded herring was
exported as long as the brand existed, upon the representa-
tions of the dealers' correspondents abroad.* Thus, as a
fact, the brand, after having been for three centuries and a
half held on all hands to be the palladium of Holland's
greatness in the herring market, was now found out to be
the main stumbling-block in the path of its progress.

The quality brands, or IA, 2 A, and 3 A marks, instituted in
1868, were given up in 1875! on account of the difficulties
just now exposed, and the simple brand in use till 1868,
stating, besides the year of the catch and the place of
curage, the herring's quality as full, " maatjes," or " ylen,"
was reinstated. No change for the better ensued ; and the
Fishery Board, after taking the opinion of many consider-
able herring shipowners and dealers, in their report for
1875 earnestly advised to abolish the brand, without
waiting for England's co-operation. It was high time, in
the Board's opinion, for Government to stop warranting
the quality of an article of which it knew little or nothing,
to the detriment of trade in an important article of expor-
tation. The advice was followed, and a Bill for the
abolition of the official brand laid before Parliament in
June 1877. An intervening political crisis delayed the
measure for about a year ; and when adopted by Parlia-
ment it was too late to put it into operation for the herring-

* Nearly none of the herring cured in bumboats was indeed
branded upon landing, but nearly the whole of the fish was carried to
Vlaardingen to be mixed up with the lugger-herring landed there, and
exported under crown-brand.

t Royal Decree, March 2;th, 1875 (Stbl. No. 31).

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 569

season of 1878 ;* and June 1st, 1879, was determined upon
for its execution. From this date downward assayers
appointed by the College have still continued to examine
any pickle-herring presented to them, but the operation
now bears a strictly private commercial character. The
assayer's task is now no other than that of a common
commercial expert ; and he gives no official certificate
whatever. Penalties have this time been enacted against
the use of the abolished brands, and as a consequence no
complaints of this abuse have arisen. Four seasons have
elapsed since the measure was taken ; and its effects have
been decidedly very beneficial. As long as there were
Government brands, dealers but too often sought profit in
obtaining those brands for fish undeserving of them.
Since the brand was abolished they have been obliged, like
dealers in any other article, to get their own trade-marks
respected and sought abroad by strictly attending to the
quality of the goods. The measure was, in fact, nothing
but a final link in the chain of consequent fishery reform,
and a completion of the system adopted in 1857, viz. to
make parties concerned look for profit to nothing but their
own vigilance, industry, and honesty, and stop their ances-
tral habit of leaning upon Government measures taken in
their behalf. The law of 1857 had put a stop to the
herring fishery's utter rottenness ; it was reserved for the
law of 1878 to bring about a state of entire soundness in
its stead.

Of such a thorough soundness the herring business has
indeed since 1879 given the most substantial proofs. By
the aid of very favourable seasons, both fishing returns and
exports have, as shown by Appendix K, increased in the

* Law of May 7th, 1878 (Stbl. No. 37).

570 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

late years at a rate hitherto unknown.* Care has been
taken that the law of 1878 should be known on every
foreign market in time before its coming into vigour ; and
foreign dealers in the season of 1879 were fully aware that
there was no longer a Dutch official crown brand. Far from
showing a diffidence towards herring not bearing that mark,
they may be said to have ceased to mistrust Dutch fish
since the removal of a Government certificate, the fallacy
of which had been proved to satiety. Several markets,
where in the course of the present century Dutch cured
herring had ceased to appear, are now taking the article
with increasing eagerness. Prices, which under the brand
system had fallen below those of Scotch herring, are once
more steadily rising above them, as regards the better
descriptions of the article. The south of Germany is, as
formerly, the greatest market for Dutch pickle-herring, in
spite of the German tariff. Exports to Belgium have
much increased since a new treaty of commerce was
concluded with that power ; the United States have of late
years become a market of importance ; and the North
German markets, upon which we have in former parts of
this work seen Dutch herring predominant, are being, so to
say, re-conquered by the sheer force of the article's worth.
Stettin herring statistics are conclusive evidence to the
fact. No Dutch herring had been seen on that market
for [ years ; whereas the quantities brought in, and nearly

* The Fishery Report for 1882 has not been published while this is
being written, and will not appear before a couple of months are over.
It should therefore be remembered that the above statements can be
backed by official statistics only as to the years including 1881. It
can, however, be stated now that the year 1882 has also been a very
favourable one as regards catch, exports, and prices. Dutch herring
• fishers and dealers are now quite confident to sell the whole of their
produce at good prices, however fast the supply may increase.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 571

all sold off at the end of each year have in the latter years
been as follows :

Years.

Barrels.

Years.

Barrels.

1875

302

I879

3,663

1876

530

l88o

13,584

1877

848

1881

5,915

1878

1,446

1882

io,593

I have now, as throughout the present work, treated
matters relative to Dutch herring fishery with particular
care, for the obvious reason that this branch is the one
most closely connected with legislation on fisheries, and
therefore directly responding to the subject given for the
present essay. A few words still remain to be said
of the other branches since 1857; some of which,
although unconnected with legislation, are still of
considerable importance.

The fate of hook-fishery (for cod, flat-fish, &c.) may
be resumed in the simple statement : that it is now
carried on in the North Sea exclusively, and is gradually
being absorbed in, or superseded by, the herring business,
and is chiefly kept going by the capture of fresh fish, not
of cod for salting. Bumboat owners of Scheveningen,
Katwijk and Noordwijk, are gradually abandoning the
hooks, or beugvaart, and occupy the time between herring
seasons chiefly by trawling for fresh fish. In the two
villages of Egmond and Zandvoort, where herring fishery
has become unusual, the trawl is likewise the implement

57* THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

most used. Herring ships continue hook-fishery between
herring seasons, i.e. in winter and spring ; but the returns
often amount to a clear loss, and the reason why many
ships are not kept at home between herring seasons is
chiefly to keep their crews together, and have men ready
in June. At the same time, luggers sometimes use the
trawl instead of the hooks and lines in winter and spring ;
whereas a trawl-net and a keeled vessel were formerly held
as objects entirely incompatible. What remains of the
once important " beugvaart " is exercised by vessels of all
descriptions and hailing from many parts of the country ;
and it is therefore difficult to give anything like complete
statistics of the business. The figures contained in
Appendix L, and relative to exports of salt cod, will show
that cod-fishery, the only branch in which no other gear
than hooks can be used, has not shared the increase of
other branches. The maintenance of prohibitive tariffs
on foreign salt-cod in France has contributed much to
keep the salt cod business down. Two more important
causes have of late years likewise checked its progress.
Firstly, a series of circumstances have contributed to keep
the fish called geep, the usual bait for cod-hooks, at
inconveniently high prices. Secondly, profits are much
greater in fresh fishery than in the salt-cod industry. The
two are indeed much mixed up ; for most of the flat-fish
and haddock brought home from hooking trips to the
North Sea is sold fresh.

Of fresh fishery it is difficult to give accurate statistics,
owing to the same circumstance just stated for hook-
fishery. Vessels of every description and from every
fishing port and coast locality are now employed in this
lucrative business ; and it is carried on with implements
of several descriptions, and in part jointly with fishery for

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 573

cod to be salted. Its actual importance can, like that of
the latter, best be shown by export figures ; which have
been collected in Appendix M. The reasons why exports
of fresh fish should have increased -at the very fast rate
shown by this table, may be evident to any one upon the
very slightest reflection. It is, simply, the increase of
railway traffic, and the care now taken by continental
railway directors to provide cheap and fast conveyance for
fish. Fresh fish caught by Dutch vessels may, owing to
the said circumstance, any day be eaten all over Belgium ;
and the importance of the German market on this score is
being keenly realised by Dutch dealers. Packing in ice
is of course increasing at the same rate, as exports of
fresh fish ; and companies exclusively destined to work
this new mine have sprung up of late years, and are in
a flourishing condition. Nieuwediep, particularly well
situated in the centre of the North Sea and Zuider Zee
fresh fisheries, and for years past directly connected with all
Europe by rail, is fast increasing in importance as a fresh
fish market Ymuiden, the new North Sea port of Amster-
dam, seems by its geographical position to be destined to a
similar importance ; and fresh fishery may be susceptible
of any degree of increase in the towns of- Vlaardingen and
Maassluis, when the plan for giving them a direct communi-
cation by rail with Rotterdam, and the rest of the world,
shall have been fully carried out, as it will be soon. Rapid
conveyance is of course the mainspring of the fresh-fish
business ; and it cannot be denied that in this respect, as
applied to the fishery interest, Holland has much to learn
from foreign countries. Still we are now very far from the
days of yore when " de neeringhe van den versche " was a
despised business, fit for small men without capital, and
yielding a pittance. A shadow, however, seems to impend

574 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

over this flourishing trade ; to wit, complaints of impaired
catch. It is said by some, that the North Sea is showing
signs of exhaustion, possibly by over-trawling.

The latest Fishery Board Reports mention the circum-
stance more than once ; and not a fortnight ere this is
written, bumboat trawlers from Scheveningen reported
that " the sea seemed fished out (doodgevischf)? We have
in former chapters seen similar complaints raised at more
than one period ; and if they were unfounded then, the case
may be different now the number of trawlers of all nations
in the North Sea has very much increased. Trawling
prohibitions, shrimping restrictions, &c., may possibly with-
in a few years become once more the fishery topic of the
day.

Measures of a similar nature, i.e. to prevent the extinc-
tion of fish-life, have since years been the preoccupation of
Government as regards the Zuider Zee. It has been re-
marked in an earlier part of this work, that whatever may
be the probabilities of the North Sea being exhausted, the
inlet called Zuider Zee, being small and very shallow,
is certainly more liable to exhaustion than the wide
main ; and we have seen, in former centuries, men of the
provinces surrounding this gulf engaged in long-winded
disputes, and even in actual contests, to secure the
conservation of a stock of fish. As a fact, in the last
fifteen years the yield of pan-herring and flat-fish from the
Zuider Zee has been declining ;* and complaints of exhaus-

* Some figures relative to Zuider Zee fishery since 1857 have been
collected into Appendix N. They are anything but complete ; for
pan-herring caught in the said water has during this period been
brought to several other markets besides Monnickendam, and the
fresh-fish returns (plaice, flounder, sole, turbot, eel, &c.) form no part
of the table.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 575

tion of the water have not unfrequently occurred ever since
1857, becoming towards 1880 constant and loud. A
local inquiry instituted by delegates from the Sea Fishery
College in 1878 showed that the peculiar species of small
herrings caught in the Zuider Zee and sold as "pan-herring "
were indeed liable to be destroyed by the use of narrow
nets, and that anchovy-fishery with very narrow pocket-
nets, dragged through the water at a great speed, either
between two vessels or between two beams rigged out from
one boat, might be presumed to extirpate herring, as fry of
herring was caught in those nets in great quantities, and
thrown away or sold as manure. Some Zuider Zee fisher-
men, it appears, were actually in the habit of " fishing for
manure " in this manner, when no full-grown fish could be
caught The pocket-nets alluded to, and especially the net
used between two boats and called wonderkuil from the
astonishing returns of small fish yielded by it, could not
however be prohibited altogether ; for without them it was
not possible to catch anchovy, which article, as shown by
Appendix N, continues to be of much importance in the
Zuider Zee. Anchovy is not a fish resident in the said water,
but visits it in the early summer, generally between May
1 5th and July I5th, when there is no pan-herring fishery
of importance ; and the plain way to conciliate the interests
of both trades was, therefore, to allow the use of the
incriminated pocket-nets between the said dates, and to
prohibit it at all other times. A statute to that effect has
accordingly been established by law of June 2ist, 1881
(Staatsblad No. 76), which, further to prevent the destruc-
tion of herring, flounder, and smelt, prohibits at any time to
buy or sell, transport, possess, or use fish of those descrip-
tions inferior to certain dimensions. In a word, statutes
analogous to those described in Part III. chapter IV., have

576 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

been called into life again, and are in vigour at this
moment.

The same law of June 2ist, 1881, in which these statutes
are contained, regulates a few more subjects relative to
fishery, of which brief mention ought to be made in the
present work.

The tenth clause of the law empowers Government to
prohibit the killing of seals in certain parts of the Northern
seas, and during certain seasons. The enactment existed
before, and has only been repeated in the law of 1881 in
order to collect all legislative dispositions relative to fisheries
into one single statute ; the unrepealed clauses of the law
of 1857 being likewise repeated in 1881 for the same reason.
The Government's faculty to restrict seal-killing by Dutch-
men was first established by law of Dec. 3ist, 1876 (Staats-
blad No. 289) and executed by Royal Decree of February
1 5th, 1877 (Staatsblad No. 19), by which Dutchmen were
prohibited from killing seals in certain high latitudes before
April 3rd of each year. The measure was enacted upon
the invitation of the British Government ; it was at the time,
and is now, of no importance whatever for the Netherlands,
as the last enterprise of seal and walrus-killing in the
Northern seas had come to an infelicitous termination in
1875, the year before the law, and the business has not
been since resumed. Walrus-killing in latter years only
deserves mention because it has been, so to say, the last
glimpse of the once flourishing trade of whaling. I have
stated in a former chapter that the latter business was kept
up late in the present century by two vessels from Harlingen
under the stimulus of premiums, without which it would
have been given up much earlier. The last whales were
caught by these vessels in 1851 and 1852, each of which
seasons produced one fish ; and they have since made it

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 577

their sole business to knock the seal on the head and kill
the walrus in the Arctic seas, this also having been
given up in 1875, on account of insufficient returns. A few
seals are still annually killed in the Zuider Zee and Zealand
estuaries. But of the bold spirit which caused Dutchmen of
old to look for gain, and find plenty, in the Northern seas, a
spark has survived the utter ruin of Dutch whaling. A
seaman of spirit and experience, Mr. Bottemanne,* in 1869
prevailed upon some capitalists to invest in a whaling enter-
prise, the aim of which was to kill the animals, not by
harpoons thrown from boats, but by the modern contrivance
of the rocket-shell-harpoon shot from a gun on board a
steamer. A company was formed, and fitted out a whaling
vessel of this description, under Mr. Bottemanne as com-
mander. He made his first voyage in 1870, and secured
only one fish, owing to inexperience in the use of the
artillery. In the next year better aim was taken and 26
whales were shot, but half of them lost, mainly oXving to
deficiencies in the lines and gear. The returns of 1872
were still worse ; and the Whaling Company of Rotterdam,
which had chartered the steamer, was forced to liquidate.
Another attempt to create a similar company was made
in 1875, but failed for want of partners ; and whaling,
once the second in importance of the Dutch sea-fisheries,

* Any one who writes a complete history of Dutch sea-fisheries
in the last quarter of a century will have to make very frequent
mention of this remarkable personage. With a sailor's love for salt-
water Mr. Bottemanne combines a scientist's interest for, and extensive
knowledge of, the creatures that live in it. He has been a merchant-
captain and a whaler ; he is now Inspector of the Fisheries in the
Schelde and Zealand Estuaries, and his thorough and practical
ichthyological acquirements have made him the constant adviser, in
matters of salmon fishery, oyster-culture, and similar subjects, of both
the Government and the Sea-Fishery Board.

VOL. IX. — E. 8. ;; P

578 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

is now quite extinct. Cod-fishery off Iceland, the former
extent of which has been spoken of in the course of the
present work, has shared the same fate. The last voyages
North with the cod-lines were made a few years after 1857,
and all attempts to revive the business have since been in
vain.

Before closing this account of Dutch sea-fisheries I have
to mention a subject in which some of the men employed
in them are viewed in a light not altogether favourable, to
wit, the conduct of Dutch fishing crews towards their
patrons and towards their foreign colleagues. The subject
were perhaps best avoided ; but, as it has occasioned legis-
lative measures, the present work would be incomplete
without a brief statement of its bearings.

It is a painful fact that ever since Dutch sea-fishery has
begun to increase fast, the great demand for able hands
has caused fishing sailors not only to raise their pretensions
as to wages, which is but natural, but also in many cases
to adopt a most unjustifiable behaviour towards their
employers. As trained fishermen became scarce, Dutch-
men and foreigners, ill-acquainted with the business, have
had to be intrusted with vessels and nets, and, what is
worse, with the cure of herring ; and many native able
fishermen, finding the demand for their trained labour to
acquire the proportions of sharp competition between
employers, have resorted to the baleful habit of desertion,
i.e., breaking contracts of service whenever they were
tempted from them by higher bidders, or had earned
enough to indulge in idleness for a time. Wages in Dutch
sea-fisheries uniformly take the shape of a share in the
raw returns, generally averaging about one-third ; and the

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 579

contracts upon which this share is determined are now, as
we have found them in former centuries,* intricate and
apt to give rise to many disputes. Part of the crew's
shares in the returns is under the habitual contracts not
paid in money, but prepaid in fish ; and this of course
promotes the men's tendency to help themselves to all
they can get It would be highly interesting fully to
investigate the effects of socialism, as embodied in this
system, upon the fishing population, both from a moral
and an economical point of view. As regards the effects
of the sailors' behaviour upon the business, they have for
a series of years been highly deleterious, and have seriously
retarded the several fisheries' progress. Instances of vessels
kept at home in the height of a favourable season by the
crews' desertion have been frequent of late years ; and the
lawlessness prevailing in the connections between fishing
shipowners and men might have ended in the ruin of both
employed and employers, had not the legislative power
intervened, upon the urgent representations of all ship-
owners and of the Board appointed to second their interests.
There is a law on discipline in merchant shipping, dated
1857, on the Netherlands statute-book; but this law has
been pronounced by the supreme judicial authority not to
apply to fishing-vessels. The new Penal Code enacts
penalties against desertion by fishermen ; but this Code,
although now a law of the realm, has not yet been put to
execution, owing to several combined circumstances ; and
a special law upon the subject was therefore enacted on
June 2Oth, 1881 (Staatsblad No. 98). Imprisonment for
from one to thirty days now attends desertion, consisting
in non-fulfilment of contracts of service in Dutch sea-fishing

* Part iii. chapter iii.

2 P 2

58o THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

vessels. The law is as yet of too fresh a date for a fair
judgment of its effects to be formed. In the meantime,
lack of able crews is still a drawback upon Dutch sea-
fisheries ; a circumstance which in itself proves their
expansive vitality.

Desertion till 1881 was not the only offence frequently
laid at the doors of Dutch fishing-crews. We have seen
in earlier parts of this work that a peculiar standard of
notions on private property seems from early times
downward to have existed among sea-fishermen at large ;
that they appear never to have strictly respected each
other's possessions, and have from time immemorial been
given to acts of petty piracy, which, when carried on
between crews of different nationality, frequently took the
aspect of private warfare. This state of things, inherent
in the nature of both the men and the trade, has of course
become worse in proportion as fishery in the North Sea
developed in the several countries surrounding it. The
available fishing-grounds have of late become very much
crowded by vessels of many descriptions and nationalities,
using herring-nets, trawls, and hook-and-line gear, of
increasing dimensions, every one of which implements is
liable, either by accident or wilful mismanagement, to
injure or destroy others. A man may sometimes be in
the necessity of cutting his neighbours' fleet, and is often
tempted to do it, and to appropriate them afterwards, by
having so formidable an instrument of destruction as a
trawl in the water at the time. To pilfer nets from the
fleet of a vessel lying helpless miles away is often a hard
temptation for a conscience no stronger than a fisherman's
appears but too frequently to be ; and, though most of the
evidence on this head now before me is relative to outrages
committed by British fishers upon Dutch, I do not mean

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 581

to say that the latter are as a rule much more scrupulous.
At any rate, mutual remonstrances relative to acts of either
wilful outrage or deliberate piracy have of late years
occasioned much correspondence between the Foreign
Offices of the North Sea fishing states, and between those
of Great Britain and the Netherlands especially ; and,
although in some cases offenders have been detected and
punished, the impossibility either to take them in flagrqnti
or identify them afterwards has generally been the reason
of their escaping. This is not a place for dwelling on so
painful a subject ; neither does the scope of the present
work include an exposition of the Convention concluded
at the Hague on May 6th, 1882, for the future prevention
of similar outrages, and the establishment of an international
police in the North Sea A Bill for the ratification of the
said treaty has been laid before the Netherlands Parliament,
not many weeks before this is being written, and has not
as yet been taken into consideration ; and the subject
therefore cannot as yet be said to belong to the history
of Dutch sea-fisheries, or of legislation respecting them.
The only statute for the prevention of ill-doings by Dutch
fishermen as yet on the Netherlands statue-book, besides
of course the common penal laws, is contained in articles
2-5, 14, and 20 of the above-mentioned law of June 2ist,
1 88 1, which is at present the sea-fishery code of the realm.
The obligation for every Dutch fishing-vessel to carry on
her bows and sails letters and a number, stating her home
port, name, and owner, and never to hide or obliterate
those letters and numbers, is contained in the said law,
together with the necessary penal and administrative
dispositions to ensure the precaution being carried into
effect.

582 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

APPENDIX A.

STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE GRAND OR CURED-HERRING FISHERY
BETWEEN 1750 AND 1794.

>

Number of busses sailed from each of the following places : —

"rt

H°

Market-hunters.J
(ventjagers.} |

Maassluis.

Vlaardingen •

Enkhuizen.

Amsterdam.

•£j

3"

V

Q

Zwartetraal.

Delfshaven.

Rotterdam.

Schiedam.

Den Briel.

1

d

Z
o

i

03

"c "

2N

Si
w

1750

22

III

56

16

..

12

13

5

. .

. .

235

27

1751

2O

IJ3

57-

17

14

13

5

• f

239

26

1752

22

118

55

17

. .

16

12

8

I

. .

249

28

1753

23

in

57

16

17

12

9

I

246

30

1754

22

101

58

16

. .

17

10

10

234

31

1755

20

IO2

58

. .

16

18

10

IO

. .

. .

234

26

1756

2O

99

58

16

.

17

8

10

228

24

1757

16

90

59

16

. .

17

8

IO

216

24

1758

15

80

56

. .

H

. .

17

5

6

. .

193

17

1759

12

68

44

H

12

6

7

163

15

1760

IO

63

43

14

II

6

7

154

13

1761

7

59

40

H

5

5

4

134

15

1762

7

59

39

14

„ .

5

6

5

135

15

1763

7

64

40

H

7

7

5

144

15

1764

14

7i

40

H

. .

9

6

6

1 60

17

1765

15

69

40

H

9

6

7

1 60

17

1766

H

60

40

. .

14

. .

8

2

ii

149

17

1767

14

58

40

. .

16

. p

7

2

ii

. .

148

17

1768

12

61

4i

15

7

2

IO

148

17

1769

12

64

4i

14

7

2

9

149

20

1770

H

62

4i

14

7

3

8

149

20

1771

H

64

4i

H

. .

7

5

7

i

I

153

2O

1772

15

68

42

!3

7

7

7

I

1 60

23

1773

18

76

44

13

. .

7

7

5

. .

I

171

2O

1774

18

74

44

. .

14

7

6

2

. .

. .

I

. .

1 66

20

1775

17

66

4i

16

6

6

2

2

I

158

2O

1776

21

84

4i

16

6

6

2

2

I

179

22

1777

23

76

41

15

. .

6

4

2

2

I

170

22

1778

20

7i

41

. .

15

.

6

4

I

. .

. .

2

. .

1 60

18

1779

17

75

4i

16

. .

6

4

I

2

I

163

21

1780

16

67

40

15

6

4

I

2

151

20

1781!

No business done on account of the war.

1782

1781

60

AT.

17

1 20

*• / °J

1784

25

74

TO

43

. .

18

. .

3

2

I

. .

, .

. .

1 66

15

1785

23

74

45

4

18

3

2

I

• >

170

15

1786

24

77

44

5

17

4

2

I

174

15

1787

24

81

44

6

i7

4

2

I

. .

. .

179

15

1788

25

84

45

6

17

. .

2

I

I

.

.

. .

181

15

1789

27

82

44

6

17

2

I

. .

180

15

1790

29

85

44

4

17

3

I

183

15

1791

28

93

44

4

17

2

I

189

15

1792

30

103

44

i

18

2

I

199

15

17Q 2

71

104

44

i

ii

2

I

194

15

1 /yj

1794

«J

35

96

44

i

17

I

2

196

II

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 583

APPENDIX B.

STATISTICS OF DUTCH WHALING, 1670-1794.

Years.

Vessels sailed
to Greenland.

Whales caught
off Greenland.

Vessels sailed to
Davis Straits.

Whales caught in
Davis Straits.

1670

148

792

1671

155

630^

(

1 fr2 \ ^^e Greenland trade in these years was forbidden
because of the troublous times.

1674 j

1675

I48

88i£

1676

8o8§

1677

149

686

1678

1 10

iiiSf

1679

126

831

1680

148

1373

1681

172

889

1682

186

1470

1683
1684

242
246

1343
1185

1685

212

1383!

1686

I89

639

1687

194

617

1688

2I4

345

1689
1690

117

Its3*

1691
1692

( (Sailed from He
\ being prohibit

imburg and Bi
ed throughout

emen, whaling
the Republic.)

1693

89

175

1694

62

I56?

1695

96

201

1696

100

380

1697

in

1274*

1698

140

1488!

1699

775i

1700

173

907

1701

207

2071!

1702

225

697!

1703

208

646^

1704

130

651*

1705

157

16645

1706

149

4522

1707

131

128

1708

121

525^

1709

I27

194

1710

137

62

584 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

APPENDIX B. — STATISTICS OF DUTCH WHALING— continued.

Years.

Vessels sailed
to Greenland.

Wha'es caught
off Greenland.

essels sailed to
Davis Straits.

Whales caught in
Davis Straits.

I7II

117

630*

1712

108

370*

1713

94

256

1714

108

1234

1715

I34

696*

1716

153

519

1717

1 80

1718

194

llli

1719

182

308

1719-1728

1504

3439

748

1251

1729-1738

858

2198

975

1929

1737

88

149

1 06

355

1738

74

"3

112

360

1739

58

133

676*

1740

. .

1741

1742

48

5°

125

508*

1743

49

74*

137

850*

1744

39

182^

148

1311

1745

31

206£

153

362*

1746

40

341

130

820

1747

37

1351

128

820

I748

93

217

1749

116

4705

206

1750

112

533*

46

62^

1751

117

264^

45

65*

1752

117

4381

42

107*

1753

118

539*

48

IOO

1754

135

36

18

1755

152

685*

29

31

I756

160

529*

26

39

1757

159

4*3*

20

10

1758

7

1759

133

425

22

39

1760

139

376*

15

78

1761

138

287*

23

70

1762

139

124

26

651

1763

127

565

35

132

1764

126

193

38

'765

130

394

35

82

1766

!35

156^

31

32

1767
1768

132
124

IO2j
392

9

83
207*

1769

in

684

43

154*

1770

105

434*

45

85*

1771

1 10

1051

40

38

1772

93

546^

38

239*

1773

91

193^

43

247*

1774

72

281

48

179

1775

88

86

19

1776

84

364*

39

153*

1777

75

2501

42

177*

1778

64

252

47

54*

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA. FISHERIES. 585
APPENDIX B.— STATISTICS OF DUTCH WHALING — continued.

Years.

Vessels sailed
to Greenland.

Whales caught
off Greenland.

Vessels sailed to
Davis Straits.

Whales caught in
Davis Straits

1779

59

132*

45

36

1780

46

383*

36

91

I^gI > No business done on account of the war.

1783

46

3255

9

2

1784

57

I63*

4

8

1785

65

328

i

5

1786

?

?

1787

60

I9»l

7

4i

1788

58

I67

ii

21

1789

53

48lf

8

23

1790

52

iQ3i

14

IO

1791

49

6i|

13

i7i

1792

47

200

14

2

1793

3i

72

i

1794

55

92*

3

I3i

APPENDIX C.

COD FISHERY OFF ICELAND, 1751-1790.

Years.

Number of
vessels.

Average number of
lasts caught by each
vessel.

Years.

Number of
vessels.

Average number of
lasts caught by each
vessel.

1751

73

12

1772

121

7

1752

64

7

1773

107

1753

56

20

1774

83

8

1754

95

II

1775

78

5

1755

76

15

1776

36

9

1756

95

2, 3, or 4

1777

22

16

1757
1758

in

94

a few lasts only.

1778

24

(even better than
\ in 1770.

1759

124

1779

61

16

1760

15

1780

63

20

1761

1762

123

142

20

1782)

Stopped by war.

1763

148

1783

. .

very bad.

1764

H3

1784

49

unfavourable.

1765

140

1785

52

j >

1766

155

10

1786

58

1767

1787

2

1768

1 60

cj

1788

I

1769

137

8

1789

None.

1770

126

4

1790

,,

1771

H5

6

586 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

APPENDIX D.

Text of the Law on Herring Fishery, dated March I2th,
1818 (Staatsblad, No. 15); literally translated.

WE, WILLIAM, by the grace of God, King of the Netherlands,
Prince of Orange- Nassau, Grand Duke of Luxemburg, &c., &c.

To all who shall see these, or hear them read, Our greeting.

Whereas We have considered, that the Grand or Herring Fishery of
this Kingdom has always been an object of the Government's
solicitude and protection ;

That measures have at several times been taken to prevent prejudice
by all such doings and evil practices as might endanger and
diminish the renown of Herring caught and cured by the
Fisheries of this Kingdom ;

That the happy result of these measures yields constant proof of
their suitableness, whence there is reason to forcibly maintain
them ;

Considering, moreover, that the said Fishery is not exercised in the
same mariner in all provinces of this Kingdom, and that care
ought to be taken lest a protection of both fisheries should lead
to their doing each other a prejudice ; the object being, on the
contrary, that both shall contribute to the welfare of this branch
of general industry ;

We have, after taking the advice of the Council of State, and upon
common deliberation with the States-General, decreed, and
hereby do decree as follows :

GENERAL RULES.

Art. i. — Herring-fishery under the Netherlands colours shall be

exercised only for the account of inhabitants of this Kingdom,

and in vessels owned by them.
2.— No one shall, under a penalty of 2000 florins, let any foreigner

have a share in a herring-fishing enterprise, or lend his name

to a foreigner for such enterprise.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 587

3. — All inhabitants of this Kingdom are forbidden, under the same
penalty, to participate, even indirectly, in any herring-fishery
under foreign colours.

4.— Any person who shall undertake either directly or indirectly to
entice inhabitants of this Kingdom to exercise herring-fishery
in a foreign country, shall forfeit a penalty of 2000 florins, or be
imprisoned for one year.

5. — Any fisherman who shall have either exercised herring-fishery
abroad, or engaged there to exercise such fishery, shall be
imprisoned for six months.

6. — No foreign herring, whether fresh, cured, salted or smoked, shall
be imported into this Kingdom, on pain of forfeiture of the
herring, and a fine of 500 florins for every barrel of salted
pickle-herring, or 5 florins per hundred of herrings fresh or
smoked.

GENERAL SUPERINTENDENCE AND POLICE OF THE HERRING
FISHERY.

7. — The external police, or general superintendence of the herring-
fishery, shall be governed by uniform rules all over the Kingdom,
established by law and by Royal Decrees based upon the law.

8. — The internal police, or detailed regulations for these fisheries,
shall be established for each sea-bound Province, by the
Provincial States ; but the said regulations shall not be contrary
to the general rules.

9. — The internal police of the herring fisheries includes : the details
of equipment, the rules relative to applying for, and obtaining,
permission to fish for herring, the mode of preparing, sorting
and salting herring, and the necessary precautions relative to
vessels going for cod-fish and having some herring nets on
board.

10. — In every sea-province where it shall be found useful, the
Provincial States shall, subject to Our approval, appoint a
College to have the direction of all things concerning the
herring fishery.

ii. — In provinces where herring-fishery has not sufficient import-
ance to require a separate College, it shall be lawful for the
Provincial States to confide the care of that fishery to such
Boards as shall have the direction of other fisheries in such
provinces.

588 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

1 2. — Any persons exercising herring-fishery without being authorized
thereto in the manner stipulated by the Provincial States, shall
be liable, viz. the equipper of the vessel to a fine ranging from
300 florins to 3000 florins, and her steersman to imprisonment
for not less than fourteen days and not more than two months.

OF THE SEVERAL HERRING-FISHERIES.

1 3- — The Grand, or Pickle-herring Fishery is exercised in the summer
or autumn, in keeled vessels, off Hitland [Shetlands] and
Edinburgh, and under the coasts of England.

14. — The object of this fishery is, to catch herring of the best
quality, and to cure, salt and barrel such herring at sea, both
for exportation and home consumption.

15. — The Small, or Fresh-herring Fishery is exercised in the high
sea, generally in the so-called Deep Water, about east of
Yarmouth, in flat-bottomed and keelless vessels which
commonly do not enter any port, but go ashore on the sea-
beach.

1 6. — It shall be provisionally interdicted as heretofore, to cure
herring from the latter-named fishery, either at sea or ashore,
under the following penalties, viz. one month's imprisonment
for the steersman, and a fine of 5 florins per hundred of herrings
to be forfeited by the shipowner and all other delinquents,
besides forfeiture of the herring. It shall, however, be lawful
for the King upon advice of the Provincial States to ordain
how, in how far, and at what time herring from the Small Fishery
shall be allowed to be cured and made into pickle-herring,
without prejudice either to the interests of the Grand Fishery
or to the renown of Netherlands herring.

17. — The Pan-herring fishery is exercised, with or without vessels?
in the entire extent of the Kingdom in the rivers, river-mouths,
inner seas, and within one hour's distance from the outer sea-
shores.

1 8. — All fishermen, equippers of vessels, dealers, and persons what-
soever are prohibited, on pain of one month's imprisonment
and a fine of 5 florins per hundred of herrings, besides forfeiture
of the herring, to cure or salt as pickle-herring any herring
from the fishery last named.

19. — All dispositions further required respecting the said fishery
shall be enacted by the States of the several Provinces, who
shall be entitled to comminate penalties against breach of their

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 589

rules, viz. from fourteen days' to two months' imprisonment, and
fines up to 300 florins, whether separately or in cumulation.

FISHERMEN'S DUTIES DURING THEIR VOYAGES OUT AND HOME.

20. — All steersmen of herring-ships shall be obliged to carry the
herring caught by them into this Kingdom, on pain of one
month's imprisonment and a fine of 50 florins.

21. — All herring fishermen, having left their port or place of equip-
ment, shall be bound, time and weather serving, to sail straight
to their fishing water, and likewise to sail straight home thence

22. — They shall not, unless in case of urgent necessity, enter any
foreign port, or port belonging to another province than where
the vessel was equipped.

23. — All fishermen are prohibited, on pain of one month's imprison-
ment and a fine of 100 florins, from selling, bartering, ex-
changing, or giving away at sea, any herring caught by them.

24. — They are prohibited, under the same penalties, from buying
herring either abroad or at sea, for the purpose of bringing such
herring into this Kingdom.

25. — Any shipowner convicted of having, after the close of the
fishery, given his vessel another destination besides the usual
and lawful one, i.e. destined her to buy herring at sea or abroad,
or sell his own in a foreign country, shall be fined 50 florins per
barrel of foreign herring brought home, and 300 florins if he
shall have sold his own abroad.

LIMITS OF THE HERRING-FISHING SEASON.

26. — No inhabitant of this Kingdom shall be allowed to shoot nets
for herring fishery in the open sea earlier than June 24th, at
night, or later than December 3ist. Any steersman contra-
vening this enactment shall be imprisoned for one month, and
fined 50 florins. The vessel's owner shall be fined 1000 florins,
if privy to the transgressions.

27.— The aforesaid prohibition is not applicable to vessels mentioned
in Article 9, sailing for cod-fish and having some herring nets on
board. Dispositions relative to such vessels shall be enacted
by the Provincial States.

28. — Muster-rolls shall be made out, and signed by the steersman
and crew of each herring-fishing vessel ; the forms for such
muster-rolls shall be determined by the Provincial States.

29. — The Provincial States shall be entitled to determine the date

590 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

on which herring fishermen shall be allowed to enter port, cases
of urgent necessity and extraordinary capture excepted.
30. — The Provincial States are likewise entitled to determine the
opening of the Small or Fresh-herring Fishery ; and to comminate
fines not exceeding 100 florins against transgressors of this and
the last article.

OF SALE-HUNTING (Jagery).

31. — It shall be permitted annually to send some vessels out to the
herring fleet, there to take on board herring of the first capture,
in order to bring them speedily into this Kingdom.

32. — The said vessels, known as herring-hunters (haring-jagers),
shall not carry the herring taken on board by them anywhere
but to the port whence they have sailed.

33. — The opening and closing dates of herring-hunting shall be
determined by the Provincial States.

34. — Articles 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25 of the present law shall apply
to the owners and skippers of herring-hunters.

RULES TO BE OBSERVED WHILE IN FISHING WATER.

35. — All herring fishermen from this Kingdom are prohibited from
fishing for herring, at any time, between the sand-bars and rocks
of Norway, Ireland, and Scotland.

36. — Any injury or damage done by one herring-fisher to another at
sea shall be subject to a fine ranging between 10 florins and 100
florins, and imprisonment from 10 days to one month ; without
prejudice to an action for damages and interests.

37- — All vessels and fishing implements shall be marked with
convenient marks, to be determined by the Provincial States.

OF THE ASSAYING OF PICKLE-HERRING, AND BRANDING OF
BARRELS USED FOR SALTING AND PACKING SUCH HERRING.

38.— No pickle-herring shall be sold, or carried from the place
where landed, unless the fish be previously assayed by sworn
assay ers (keurmeesters), and the barrel branded with the name
of the place where such herring was brought ashore.

39- — Pickle-herring transported from one province into another shall
be allowed to be exported abroad in the same barrel, and only
marked with the local brand ; but if repacked into another
barrel, such herring shall not be exported abroad unless branded

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 591

with the name or escutcheon of the province where it was

landed.
40. — No province-brands shall be apposed to barrels unless

previously marked with the peculiar signs to be determined by

provincial regulations.
41. — Any brander who shall have apposed the provincial or local

brand to barrels known by him to contain foreign herring, or

herring from another province, shall be liable to imprisonment

for one year.
42. — All barrels, great or small, used in salting herring, shall be

previously tested by sworn assayers.
43. — The assayers, both of herring and barrels, and the branders,

both of local and provincial marks, shall be appointed and

sworn by the municipal magistrates.
44. — The Provincial States shall draw up the assayers' and branders'

instructions, and determine the peculiar marks , to be apposed

to barrels in order to certify the year when the herring was

caught, its quality and sort.
45. — Any person selling or expediting herring in this Kingdom,

whether to a home or foreign destination, shall be liable to a

fine of 20 florins for each barrel, great or small, not provided with

the prescribed brands.

ADDITIONAL CLAUSES.

46. — The premiums proffered for herring-fishery shall be regulated

by the King in a fair proportion, in consideration of the

expenses of the several kinds of equipment.
47. — All provincial and municipal statutes not in contradiction to

the terms of the present law shall remain in force till ulteriorly

provided for by the Provincial States.
The which We order and command to be inserted into the Statute-

Book (Staatsblad), and that all ministerial departments and

authorities, colleges and officers whatsoever shall see to the

strict execution of the same.
Given at the Hague, on March I2th of the year 1818, the Fifth of

Our Reign.

(Signed) WILLIAM,

By the King's Order,
(Signed} Al R. FALCK.

592 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

APPENDIX E.

STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE "GRAND" OR CURED-HERRING
FISHERY, 1814-1853.

Years.

Number of Busses.

Total number of
lasts of herrings.

Average number of lasts
brought in by each buss.

1814

98

1862

19

1815

137

3558

26

1816

159

3498

22

1817

160

21

1818

1 68

l68o

IO

1819

169

1521

9

1820

153

1380

9

1821

1 68

2856

J7

1822

1 60

I6OO

IO

1823

128

1792

14

1824

123

2214

18

1825

in

2664

24

1826

130

3120

24

1827

130

3250

25

1828

!33

3059

23

1829

'131

1965

15

1830

173

4329

25

1831

132

2178

16

1832

120

2520

21

1833

I07

2568

24

1834

116

2900

25

1835

H3

2260

2O

1836

117

2925

25

1837

117

3550

31

1838

121

3267

27

1839

1 2O

2280

19

1840

122

23l8

19

1841

123

2706

22

1842

129

2964

23

1843

127

1150

9

1844

126

2800

23

J845

»7

1263

10

1846

116

1283

II

1847

"5

2149

19

1848

107

2900

28

1849

iro

2260

20

1850

102

2515

24*

1851

97

2454

25

1852

93

1499

16

1853

92

2284

25

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 593

APPENDIX F.

STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE FISHERY OF SALT HERRING FOR
SMOKING (Steurharing), CARRIED ON IN VESSELS FROM THE
COAST VILLAGES OF SCHEVENINGEN, KATWIJK, AND NOORDWIJK,
1823-1853.

Years.

Number of boats.

Herrings brought
home.

Average number of
herrings per boat.

1823

35

4,202,000

121,200

1824

4i

3,102,000

75,658

1825

43

2,378,000

55,502

1826

40

3,192,000

79,800

1827

45

4,615,000

102,555

1828

47

4,476,000

95,650

1829

43

6,150,000

143,023

1830

5i

3,641,000

7i,4i9

1831

39

1,282,000

32,872

1832

36

930,000

25,833

1833

39

4,199,400

107,677

1834
1835

45
49

2,699,000
3,430,000

59,3"

69,592

1836

52

6,952,200

i33,7oo

1837
I838

7i

83

10,503,000
7,138,000

H7,93o
86,000

1839

93

8,630,000

92,800

1840

IOI

9,539,000

94,445

1841

100

8,215,000

82,150

1842

106

8,942,600

84,364

1843

100

5,695,000

56,950

1844

89

7,632,000

85,752

1845

89

8,932,000

100,358

1846

94

8,716,000

92,723

1847

96

12,398,000

129,146

1848

96

9,520,600

99,166

1849

98

10,906,000

112,204

1850

102

9,767,000

95,755

1851

III

14,000,000

126,207

1852

117

15,918,000

136,569

1853

118

23,433,000

198,585

VOL. IX.— E. 8.

2 Q

594

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

APPENDIX G.

GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE DUTCH HERRING FISHERIES BETWEEN
1834 AND 1853.

Years.

Cure-herring caught.

Salt herring (steur-
haring) caught.

Fresh or "pan herring"
caught.

1834

32,480,000

2,699,000

31,920,000

1835

25,312,000

3,430,000

29,890,000

1836

32,760,000

6,952,200

16,550,000

1837

39,760,000

10,503,000

5,730,000

1838

39,590,400

7,138,000

2,27O,OOO

1839

25,536,000

8,630,000

3,4IO,OOO

1840

25,961,600

9,539,000

4, 590, ooo ^

1841

30,307,200

8,215,000

9,560,000

1842

33,196,800

8,942,600

12,140,000

1843

12,880,000

5,695,000

11,090,000

1844

31,360,000

7,632,000

8,360,000

1845

14,145,600

8,932,000

14,240,000

1846

14,369,600

8,716,000

17,680,000

1847

24,068,800

12,398,000

12,940,000

1848

32,480,000

9,520,000

23,820,000

1849

25,312,000

10,906,000

14,120,000

1850

28,168,000

9,767,000

22,520,000

1851

27,484,800

14,000,000

18,260,000

1852

16,788,800

15,918,000

16,500,000

1853

25,580,800

23,433,000

11,920,000

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 595

APPENDIX H.

ACCOUNT OF THE ICELAND COD FISHERY BETWEEN
1844 AND 1853.

Years.

Number of ships, each making
one voyage.

Total returns. Lasts of salt
cod of clivers kinds.

1844

2

50

1845

2

51

1846

2

58

1847

3

84*

1848

5

I76

1849

6

I76

1850

3

93

1851

3

108

1852

5

155

1853

6

141

596 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

APPENDIX I.

ACCOUNT OF THE NORTH SEA HOOK FISHERY IN WINTER, FOR COD,
HADDOCK, PLAICE, &c. (beugvisscherij), BETWEEN 1844 AND 1853.

Years.

Number of
Ships.

Number of
Voyages.

Total catch.

Barrels of salt cod and
haddock, plaice, &c.

lumbers of cod, haddock,
plaice, &c., brought home
alive.

1844

41

147

7,122

31,141

1845

36

119

4.307

17,132

1846

38

139

7,607

21,946

I847

39

136

6,334

19,062

1848

30

105

4,316

9,919

l849

35

98

4.423

II,897

1850

32

1 10

4,993

9,958

1851

26

97

7,464

15,010

1852

38

144

n,939

16,924

1853

35

112

8,078

14,185

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 597

APPENDIX J.

ACCOUNT OF THE TRAWLING RETURNS OBTAINED BY TRAWLERS OF
KATWIJK, 1821-1850.

Years.

Number of trawl
boats.

Total returns.

Average return per
boat.

1821
1822

38

37

fl. 112,302
79,128

fl. 2955.26
2138.85

1823

34

65,047

1913.15

1824

70,573

' 2276. 58

1825

30

2505.62

1826

78Ul3

2529.45

1827

31

68,678

2215.40

1828

32

55,872

1746.00

1829

33

57,560

1743.63

1830

33

69,577

2108.00

1831

27

49,055

1816.75

1832

27

48,905

l8ll.22

1833

28

51,690

1846.00

1834
1835

29
29

59,091
61,316

2037.62
2114.30

l836

29

55,753

1922.50

1837

27

60,539

2242.20

1838
1839

36

64,400
84,376

2012. 5I5
2343.80

1840

42

79,762

1899. 095

1841

46

6i,793

I343-335

1842
1843

50
50

69,377
86,638

1387. 545
1732.76

1844
1845

49

89,653
73,769

1829.455
1715-56

1846

48

58,162

1211.71

I847
1848

47
50

79,593
8o,437

1693.49
1608. 745

1849

50

76,223

1524.46

1850

48

78,902

1643.78

598 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

APPENDIX

NORTH SEA HERRING FISHERIES
THE REPEAL OF

HERRING BROUGHT HOME.

Years.

Vessels employed.

Cured herring (barrels) by

Fresh herring salted prepara-
tory to smoking (steurharing]
(thousands), by

Keeled
boats.

Bumboats.

Keeled
vessels.

Bumboats.

Keeled
vessels.

Bumboats.

i

2

3

4

5

6

7

1856

82

147

35.924

106

36,295

1857

91

157

21,924

210

29,803

1858

95

175

16,940

548

24,969

I859

79

178

23,226

1,398

27,768

1860

92

174

26,222

295

22,545

1861

91

181

29,260

165

20,568

1862

181

51,108

136

32,011

1863

86

170

35,056

127

38,612

1864

80

1 80

26,946

140

33,535

1865

81

186

29,388

419

57,372

1866

82

195

22,856

3,096t

48,498

1867

89

198

27,664

2,811

46,928

1868

9i

202

38,515

4,714

74,043

1869

104

192

29,900

3,827

i,539

27,323

1870

1871

1 20

122

I89
200

70,868
77,897

4,130

21,544

5,265
5,366

59,025
86,699

1872

108

208

60,442

22,248

i,655

39,35°

1873

102

205

77,412

39,962

2,710

53,295

1874

114

218

66,118

46,519

1,349

27,582

1875

H5

222

59,483

42,478

826

19,439

1876

109

229

50,102

58,221

I,O2I

37,478

1877

U3

244

71,585

69,414

2,013

38,932

1878

127

265

70,355

41,176

2,628

30,465

1879

128

268

78,103

87,750

1,764

44,260

1880

133

284

134,275

83,724

9,989

56,74i

1881

139

269

110,110

88,788

' 3,323

50,279

* Column 9. Smoked herring from the Zuider Zee is comprised in these figures.

f Column 10. A considerable part of these figures, in the earlier years especially, represents
This fraud ceased in later years, when Dutch-brand herring was neither dearer, nor expected

J Column 5. Most, and in latter years the whole, of this pickle herring from the coast was not
luggers, and branded and exported along with such herring.

0 Column 8. The export figures for. 1879 and following years are taken from Custom-house
over Custom-house declarations in it. The figures down to 1879 are collected from the College's
for exportation, and their figures are constantly at variance with Cubtom-house statistics.

THE HISTORY OF. DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 599

K.

IN THE NETHERLANDS, FROM
THE LAW OF 1818.

EXPORTS.

IMPORTS.

HlG
Of"

(a) in kee
after the
hunting tii
contain
herr

HEST AND !

full "-curec

ed vessels,
close of
ne (barrels
ing 800
Jigs).

LOWEST PRICES.
herring brought

(b) in bumboats from
Scheveningen
(barrels containing
620 herrings).

Of cured
herring
(barrels).

Of smoked
herring or
"bucking."
(thousands)*

Of cured herring
for consumption
(barrels).

8

9

iof

ii

12

13

14

H.

L.

H.

L.

fl.

fl.

fl.

fl.

33,099

28,001

17,140

30,919

4,098

69

36

78

20

15,355

27,863

3,787

38

33

34

21

14,490

25,803

about 8,000

48.25

47.50

26

21

15,040

27,244

5,276

83

43-50

88

23

22,236

25,184

6,069

32

21

24

16

22,250

41,310

less than 4,000

42

2O

38

22

14,726

42,698

8,364

50

20

27.50

17.50

17,224

49,404

9,715

45

25

45

16

13,023

66,072

14,822

5i

27.25

27

20

15,098

53,729

12,280

63

20

22.10

17.25

22,152

71,275

5,400

60

19

28

12

15,921

55,086

21,060

66

25

28

'12

39,435

59,032

i6,734

40

24

f.

24

48,437

84,176

2,709

44

25

28

13

46,839

67,916

1,984

76

28

24

15

58,388
68,306

47,645
44,928

3,415
2,080

29-25
39-75

21

27.50

3

!1

68,142

27,486

1,770

45

24.25

36.50

17-50

68,430

23,166

2,830

61

34.75

34-25

26.50

88,843

42,2OI

1,205

98

22

26.50

16

76,004

33,345

475

31-25

18

26

14.50

9o,84i§

45,216

2,033

56

23

33.25

19

138,986

52,470

480

22.75

14.50

32.50

10.50

134,620

41,427

220

35

25

27

17.50

Scotch herring imported and re-exported after being transferred to Dutch-branded barrels.

to be better than Scotch.

branded upon coming ashore, but carried to Vlaardingen and mixed up with herring caught in

statistics, and are probably inexact, as the article is duty free, and there is no sufficient control
reports, who were enabled, before the said year, to state the exact number of barrels branded

6oo THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

APPENDIX L.

EXPORTS OF SALT COD.

Years.

Quantities exported to

Total of exports.

Belgium.

Germany.

Barrels.

Barrels.

Barrels.

1857

456

i,949

2,883

1858

498

2,118

3,274

1859
i860

4O2

2,445
i,474

2,886
3,564

1861

333

2,384

3,774

1862

200

2,494

3,590

1863

244

2,956

3,592

1864

i,53o*

19,980*

21,780*

1865

2,390

2,030

6,630

1866

4,160

2,000

7,55o

1867

1,250

1,810

3,5io

1868

3,480

1,640

5,840

1869

4,260

2,750

7,790

1870

3,9oo

2,530

6,600

1871

2,210

i,540

4,030

1872

about 2,440

1,460

3,9oo

1873

546t

2OOf

764t

1874

about 272

404

676

1875

1876

III

323
415

58o
943

1877

539

434

973

1878

337

263

600

1879

648

245

893

1880

274

202

533

1881

302

223

575

* These figures, although taken from Custom-house statistics, are obviously erroneous,
•f" In consequence of a change in the arrangement of Custom-house statistics, exports of
salt cod are given in thousands of kilogrammes from 1872 downwards.

THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 60 1

APPENDIX M.

EXPORTS OF FRESH SEA FISH.
(In thousands of kilogrammes.)

Years.

Fresh fish exported to

Total of exports.

Belgium

Germany.

1857

983

440

1498

1858

999

802

I863

1859

750

689

1611

1860
1861

716

520

830
526

1653
1163

1862

820

593

1499

1863

1362

406

1915

1864

1394

758

2256

1865

1599

474

2095

1866

1445

152

1914

1867

1617

'57

2IIO

1868

1207

276

1499

1869

1961

327

2302

1870
1871

2745
2614

390
416

3HO

1872

2617

420

3120

1873
1874

4327
4456

1

5459
5584

'875

549i

470

6911

1876
1877
1878
1879

5452
3637
4671

5952

375
375
603
416

6779
4236

5354
6638

1880

6445

443

6959

1881

3943

463

4800

VOL IX.— E. 8.

2 R

602 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES.

APPENDIX N.

ZUIDER ZEE FISHERIES, 1854-1881.

Years.

Pan-herring brought to
sale at Monnickendam
(in thousands).*

Anchovies caught (in
" ankers," or solb.
barrels).

Highest prices of anchovy
caught and sold in the
same year (per anker).

f.

1854

I3,l6o

10,000

12

1855

10,674

2,OOO

16.50

1856

I5»390

2,000

21

I857
1858

I3'>88o

IO,OOO
6o,000

17
9.50

1859

14,920

3O,OOO

II

1860

13.071

6,000

7-50

1861

16,460

5,000

9

1862

16,232

7,000

9-25

£1863

25,755

1,000

20

1864

20,278

2,000

20

1865

16,179

1,000

52

1866

20,326

65,000

20

1867

19,472

10,000

18

1868

17,105

1,000

29

1869

18,657

75,000

15

1870
1871

11,435
15,336

4,000
7,000

17
23-50

1872

6 , 694*

9,000

25-75

1873

9,158

30,000

31

1874

6,106

40,000

27.50

IU875
1876

8,364
5,6o5

55,000
46,000

25.50
22.75

1877

6,496

6,000

22

1878

1,823

1,400

29

1879

4,635

3,000

43

1880

12,566

1,000

78

-1881

7,770

15,000

66

* The total quantities of pan-herring caught in the Zuider Zee are about double the quan-
tities mentioned in this column as regards the earlier years. Since 1872 most Zuider
Zee herring has been carried direct to the inland markets ; and the decline of the sales at
Monnickendam is no sign of corresponding decline in the business.

INDEX.

ABERFFRAW BAY, Anglesey, endeavours made to establish a general fishery,

23 ; need for harbour accommodation, 23

Aberystwith, one of the principal fishing ports on the Welsh coast, 256
Acts of Parliament, comparison of modern forms with those adopted in earlier

times, 281

Agreements between masters and crews of fishing vessels, 252
Alderney Race, 64

Alva, Duke of, his policy in relation to the Dutch sea fisheries, 324
Anstruther, harbour accommodation, 10, II ; grant by Parliament towards

repairs, 10 ; works necessary, 1 1 ; provision of funds, 1 1
Appledore, defects of the harbour there, 24
Apprentices, 204 ; penalties for inciting to breach of engagements, 250 ;

inquiry as to their treatment, &c., 284
Asphaltic masonry and concrete, 98

BAIT beds, regulations for their protection, 255

Bangor, one of the principal fishing ports on the Welsh coast, 256

Barrow-in-Furness, 23

Belgian "devil," 192

Beton or concrete, extensively used in France, 91 ; its increasing use in
England, 96 ; methods of building with concrete, 96, 97 ; its composition,
97 ; iron concrete, 98 ; asphaltic masonry and concrete, 98, 99

Beukelsz, William, his discovery of a method of preserving fish for long
periods, 306 ; his name held in great veneration by his countrymen, 306,
308 ; visit of the Emperor Charles V. to his tomb, 308

Billingsgate fish market, large amount of trade carried on there, 163

Blakeney, need of improved harbour accommodation, 5

Board of Trade, powers conferred upon it by Fisheries Act of 1868, 236 ; its
general control over sea fisheries, 253

Bognor, facilities which exist for construction of a good harbour, 36

Bohuslan, fluctuations of the fisheries there, 212

Booms for excluding waves from harbours, 77

Bounties, growth of the system, 174, 175; bounties on exports of fish, 178,
180; on fishing vessels, 179 ; on imports, 179 ; effect of the system on
the fisheries generally, 180 ; on the herring fishery, 180 ; on the Green-

2 R 2

604 INDEX.

land and Newfoundland fisheries, 183, 184; changes of policy with
respect to bounties, 228 j Act to ensure their abolition, 247, 282 ; appli-
cation of the moneys previously granted as bounties, 283 ; competitors
for bounties debarred from fishing before a fixed date, 287. (See also
Diitch Sea Fisheries.")

Bremner, Mr. C. E., his recommendation as to the direction to be taken by
breakwaters in exposed positions, 19, 57 j his " pontoons," 99

Bridlington, its inaccessibility at low water, 5

British Society, object of its formation, 245
,, White Herring Fishery Commission, 243

Brixham, its importance as a fishing station, 34 ; necessity for a harbour of
refuge, 34 ; improvements in progress, 35 ; character of the fishery
carried on there, 251

Buckie, its harbour accommodation, 16

Bumboats, 196

„ flat-bottomed boats used by the Dutch in the coast fishery, 441

CARDIGAN BAY, deficiency of good harbours, 23

Carleton, Sir Dudley, evidence afforded by his ' Memoirs ' in reference to
the disputes between England and the Dutch respecting the right of free
fishing at sea, 467

Cellular structure for reducing waves in harbours, 74

Certificates of registration, their production by owners of fishing boats when
required, 236

Close time, correct meaning of the term, 272

Clovelly, need for better harbour, 25

Cod-fish (JCabeljauwen), a name applied to a political party in the Nether-
lands in the fifteenth century, 309

Columbia fish market, 164

Concrete or beton, extensively used in France, 91 ; its increasing use in
England, 96 ; methods of building with concrete, 96, 97 ; its composition,
97 ; iron concrete, 98 ; asphaltic masonry and concrete, 98, 99

Convict labour, may be employed with advantage under certain circum-
stances, 1 6

Coopering, 196

Cornwall, character of the fishery carried'on there, 256

Crabs, recent laws regulating their capture and sale, 170 ; experimental
legislation, 209 ; present state of the law respecting them, 220 ; Norfolk
Crab and Lobster Act, 267 ; Act of 1877, 267-269

Currents, their effective velocities, 109

DARTMOUTH, a good natural harbour, 41

De la Court, his estimate of the number of vessels engaged in the Dutch

herring fishery in his time, 359 ; his opinion as to the injury inflicted on

the trade by the laws then in force, 365
Denmark, claim to exclusive fishing rights in the northern seas, 401, 424,

42S> 437 > history of disputes with the Dutch as to the right of fishing in

the open sea, 475-482

INDEX. 605

Dogger Bank, the, an important fishing-ground, 256

" Dominium Maris" disputes between the Dutch and England relative to
the right of fishing in the open sea, 460-475 ; similar disputes between
the Dutch and Denmark, 475-482

Dover, character of the fishery carried on there, 256

Drift-net fishing, dispute between "drifters" and "seiners," 198; between
"drafters" and "trawlers," 199; mode of using the drift-net, 231;
protected by Fisheries Act of 1868, 236, 246 ; sketch of legislation for
protection of drift-net fishing, 279, 280

Dunbar, increased depth of water registered in harbour, 10 ; proposed pro-
vision of necessary funds by means of Government loan, 10,

Dunbar, Victoria Harbour, 51

Duncansby, Bore of, how caused, 64

Dutch Arctic Company, chartered in 1612, in consequence of a collision
between Dutch and British whalers off Spitzbergen, 399 ; monopoly of
fishing for whales granted for three years, 400 ; whalers registered to sail
under convoy and to pay "last money," 400 ; grant of sole right to fish
in the vicinity of any islands discovered by Company, 400 ; similar privi-
lege conceded on conditions to Dunkirkers who had discovered an island,
401 ; attempt of Company to discover N.E. passage to China, 401 ;
measures taken for protection of vessels engaged in the fishery, 401 ;
prosperity of the Company, 402 ; charter prolonged for a further period
of four years, 402 ; secession of the Zealand Chamber from the Company,
and their establishment as a separate corporation, 403 ; renewal of
charter for a further period of twelve years, 403 ; Zorgdrager's account
of the prosperity of the Company, 404, 405 ; Act against infringements
of the Company's monopoly, 405 ; rival company formed in Friesland,
406 ; prolongation of the Arctic Company's charter, 407 ; Prisons allowed
to prosecute the fishery without molestation from Arctic Company, 407 ;
admitted ts> a share in the monopoly, 407 ; decline in the prosperity of
the Company, 408 ; its dissolution, 409

Dutch Sea Fisheries, their antiquity, 304 ; salt used as a means of preserving
fish from the earliest times, 306 ; discovery by Beukelsz of a method by
which fish may be preserved for a long period, 306 ; short description of
the method as applied to herrings, 307 ; manufacture of the first large
herring-net at Hoorn, 309 ; evidences of the early prosecution of the cod
fishery, 309 ; imposition by the sovereigns of the House of Burgundy of
a tax for convoying (" last money"), 310; export of herrings prohibited,
310; evidences of the importance of the herring fishery as early as the
fifteenth century, 310 ; establishment by the Emperor Charles V. of the
system of branding herring barrels, 311 ; regulations as to the kind of
salt to be used in preserving herring, 311, 312; as to the mode of
packing herrings in barrels, 312, 313 ; smoked herring, 313 ; reluctance
of fishermen to pay the tax for conveying, 314; practice of purchasing
safe conducts from enemies, 314 ; injury inflicted on the fishery by French
privateers, 315 ; grant by the States cf Holland towards equipment of
convoying ships, 316 ; continued disputes with the sovereigns of the
House of Austria respecting "last money," 317-319 ; inadequacy of the

6o6 INDEX.

convoying ships provided by Government, 318 ; fishing boats armed for
their own protection, 318 ; loss to the fishery occasioned by frequent
wars, 319 ; regulations as to the mode of working the herring fishery,
320-322 ; as to protection of nets, &c., 322, 323 ; taxes levied on the
herring and other fisheries, 323-325 ; the revolt of the Dutch provinces
against the Austrian dominion, 326 ; its effect upon the fisheries, 326 ;
official recognition of a Herring Fisheries Commission, 326-328 ; powers
conferred on this Committee to enable them to secure the safety of
vessels engaged in the fishery, 329, 330 ; penalties against sale of fish in
foreign markets and against their exchange to foreigners, 330 ; codifica-
tion of the laws respecting fisheries, 330 ; grand or cured -herring fishery
under the Republic, 332-397 ; period of the year devoted to this fishery,
332> 337> 338 J character of the vessels employed, 332 ; its importance as
compared with other fisheries, 332 ; regulations as to the hiring of crews
of fishing vessels, 333 ; period for salting herring fixed by law, 333 ;
measures adopted to prevent tampering with brands, 334-337 ; regula-
tions as to the description of salt to be used at sea, 337 ; and the mode
of packing the fish in barrels, 337, 338 ; legislative powers added to the
other functions of the Herring Fisheries Commission, 339 ; zeal of
Government in checking any foreign interference with Dutch brands,
340 ; energetic prosecution of the fishery at the latter part of the six-
teenth century, 341 ; losses sustained by the fishery during the war of
independence, 342 ; immunity granted to the fishery from excise duty on
salt, 342, 343 ; losses inflicted by Dunkirk privateers, 343 ; measures
taken for protection of the fishing fleets, 344 j stringency of the regula-
tions respecting the herring brand, 346 ; sale-hunting, 347-350 ; vigour
displayed by the College of the Grand Fishery in the exercise of its
functions, 350, 351 ; prohibition against exporting herring barrels, 351 ;
treaty with Hamburg relative to the date at which the sale of herring
might legally commence, 352 ; Fishery College invested with judicial
functions, 353-355 ; continued depredations by Dunkirk privateers, 355
grant of subsidies by the State for convoying, 356 ; Meynert Semeyn's
description of the mode of carrying on the fishery in his days (1639), 357 ;
constitution of the Fishery College described, 358, 359 ; value of the
herring fishery in the early part of the seventeenth century, 359 ; check
given to the trade by the war with England at the time of the Common-
wealth, 362, 363 ; system of convoying the rule at this period, 364 ;
increased stringency of the laws against selling fish at sea to foreigners,
&c., 364, 365 ; such laws frequently inoperative, 365 ; rigid enforcement
of the laws on shore, 366 ; instances of evasion of the laws, 367 j pro-
hibition against fishing in 1665 and 1666, on account of the war with
England, 369 ; losses occasioned to the fishery by this and other wars
between 1652 and 1678, 370, 371 ; grant of subsidies by the State, 371 ;
effects of these wars on internal organization of the trade, 371, 372 ;
falling off in the quality of the herring exported, 372 j improvement in
the prospects of the fishery after the peace of Nijmegen, 372 ; losses
sustained by the fishery during war with France at the close of the
seventeenth and beginning of eighteenth centuries, 373~375 ; the trade

INDEX. 607

prevented from recovering by the pressure of legislative restrictions, 376 ;
instance of this in the increasing supply of fish by Scotch fishermen to
Hamburg, 376-384 ; permission granted to send a limited quantity of
herring to Hamburg direct from the fishery, 383 ; renewal of laws
against export of herring barrels, &c., 384 ; new laws respecting branding
of barrels, 385 ; continued complaints with respect to quality of fish
exported, 385, 386 ; increase of foreign competition, 386-388 ; applica-
tions to the State for subsidies, 388 ; attempts to encourage the fishery
by grant of exemptions from taxation, 388, 389 ; opening of the French
market to Dutch herring, 389 ; and subsequent withdrawal of the
privilege, 390 ; strict exclusion of English herring from the French
market, 390 ; grant of direct premiums by Flushing and other ports,
for the encouragement of the herring fishery, 390, 391 ; increasing
competition of foreigners in the trade with Hamburg, 391, 392 ;
refusal of the Fishery College to rescind the law fixing a date for com-
mencing the fishery, 392 ; grant in 1775 of a bounty for two years to
vessels fishing for herring, 394 ; trade not permanently benefited thereby,
395 ; fishing again prohibited owing to war with England in 1780, 395 ;
owners now first allowed to sell their vessels abroad, '396 ; further appli-
cations for and grant of bounties, 396 ; renewal of laws against engaging
in foreign fishing concerns, and against export of unbranded herrings to
the Weser and the Elbe, 396, 397. FISHERIES UNDER THE REPUBLIC :
WAakJukmg—Date of its origin, 397 ; failure of the first attempts, 398 ;
mode of conducting the early expeditions, 398 ; contentions with the
British at Spitzbergen, 399 ; chartering of the Dutch Arctic Company,
399 ; history of its prosperity and decline, 400-409 ; general participation
in the Arctic fisheries, 410 ; uncertainty of results in the whale fishery,
410 ; comparative freedom of this fishery from Government interference,
411-413 ; injury to the fishery caused by the frequent wars in the latter
part of the seventeenth century, 413-417 ; formation of a committee of
representatives of the fishery, 41 7 ; regulation made by this body with
respect to salvage, 418-420 ; fishery prohibited in consequence of French
war and war of the Spanish succession, 421 ; fitting out by Dutchmen of
expeditions from Hamburg and Bremen, 421 ; removal of the prohibition,
421 ; grant by the States General to the Greenland Fishery Com-
missioners of a control over the fishery, 422, 423 ; extension of the
fishery to Davis Straits, 423 ; pretensions of Denmark to exclusive
fishing rights in the northern seas, 424, 425 ; immunities granted to the
Greenland fishery in the matter of furnishing seamen to man the navy
and in provision of convoyers, 425 ; in exemption from excise duties, 426 ;
advantages taken of this to traffic with natives of the countries visited,
426, 427 ; decline of the fishery, 427 ; grant of bounties, 428 j continued
depression in the whale fishery owing to war with England, 428, 429 ;
owners allowed to sell their ships to foreigners under certain conditions,
429 ; continued grant of bounties, 429 ; general decay of the fishery at
the close of the Republic, 430. The Cod Fishery — Its unimportance
compared with the herring fishery, 430 ; mode of fishing adopted, 431 ;
vessels employed, 431 ; mode of preparing the fish calight in the Iceland

6o8 INDEX.

fishery, 432 ; protection of fishing vessels by convoys, 433 ; contract
between owners for mutual insurance against losses by war, 433 ;
measures taken for protection of fishing vessels from Dunkirk privateers,
434 ; establishment of a representative body, 435 ; evidences of a con-
siderable export trade in cured (fish, 436 ; difficulties with Denmark
respecting the Iceland fishery, 437 ; fluctuations of the trade, 437 ; use
of well boats for preserving fish alive, 438 ; enactment prohibiting export
of such boats, 438 ; decline of the fishery, 439 ; grant of bounties in-
effectual to revive the trade, 440. Coast fishing — Branches of the fishery
comprised under this term, 440 ; description of vessels employed, 441 ;
places engaged in the North Sea fishery, 441 ; smoked herring or
"bucking," 442 ; comparative immunity of the coast fishery from herring
laws, 442 ; coast fishermen prohibited from curing herring, 443-445 ;
prosperity of the coast fishery in the early part of the eighteenth century,
445 ; its subsequent decline, 446 ; grant of bounties, 446 ; legislation as
to the kind of nets to be used in the " fresh fishery," 447-451 ; attempts
to stop trawling, 449-451 ; decline of the "fresh fishery," 452 ; fisheries
of the Zuider Zee, jealousy between fishermen of the various states
bordering the Zuider Zee, 453 ; description of fish caught there, 454 ;
disputes at an early period as to use of improper nets, 454, 455 ; con-
tinuance of these and other disputes after establishment of the Republic,
445-458 ; regulations for the Jherring fishery, 459 ; fitful invasions of
herring shoals of immense size, 459 ; disputes with England as to the
right to fish in the open sea, 460-475 ; similar disputes with Denmark,
475-482. THE FISHERIES SINCE THE END OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC —
Establishment of the Batavian republic, 482 ; abolition of the " College
of the Grand Fishery," and constitution of the "Committee for the
Affairs of the Grand Fishery," 482 ; falling off in the herring fishery,
483, 484 ; strict application of the laws for the protection of the Grand
Fishery, 485 ; general decay of the fisheries, 486 ; codification of the
laws respecting the fisheries, 487, 488 ; provisions of the new law, 489,
490 ; rights appertaining to the different branches of the fishery defined,
490-492 ; constitution and functions of the Grand Fishery Committee,
493 » " hospital ships," 494, 495 ; grant of bounties renewed, 495-497 ;
formation of an African whaling company, 497 ; injury caused to the
fishery by the wars following the peace of Amiens, 498 ; abortive attempt
to establish a Dutch herring company in London, 500 ; abolition of the
Dutch fishery laws at the time of the annexation to France, 500 ; esta-
blishment of the kingdom of the Netherlands, 502 ; revival of the herring
fishery laws, 502 ; grants of bounties and other measures for the pro-
motion of the fisheries, 502 ; attempts to revive the whale fishery, 503 ;
further protective legislation with respect to the cured herring trade,
504-512 ; opposition to the Grand Fisheries monopoly of curing herring,
506-510 ; definition of the different qualities of cured herring, 512, 513 ;
Dutch fishermen prohibited from fishing within a certain distance of the
British shores, 513; organisation of '-'sale hunting" with doubtful
results, 515, 516; effects of foreign competition, 516, 517 ; proposal for
the formation of an association with the monopoly of collecting herrings

INDEX. 609

from fishing vessels, and selling them at prices to be agreed upon, 517-
520; the proposed plan partially adopted, 521 ; restrictive legislation
with regard to the other fisheries, 523 ; laws as to size of mesh for nets,
523 ; restriction and subsequent prohibition of trawling, 523 ; refusal of
certain States to recognise this law, 524 ; fluctuations in the hook and
line and fresh herring fisheries consequent on the grant of bounties to one
or the other of those industries, 524, 525 ; abortive attempt to restrict
the use of shrimp nets, 525, 526 ; resume of the various monopolies
created by preceding legislation, 527 ; effect of the system of protection
on the fishing industry, 529-534 ; the anchovy fishery in the Zuider Zee,
533 ; agitation on the subject of free trade in fishery, 534 ; reduction of
bounties, 540, 549 ; gradual removal of restrictions and monopolies, 542,
544, 545, 549 ; Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire
into the operation of the fishery laws, 546-548 ; establishment of eritire
liberty of sea fishing, and repeal of laws prohibiting importation of sea
fish, 553 ; assays of herring made facultative, 553 ; abolition of duties on
imported fish, 553 ; regulations with respect to the brands for different
qualities of herring, 554 ; increase of the fisheries under the system of
free trade, 555 ; introduction of cotton nets, 556 ; improvement in the
herring fishery retarded by increased foreign competition, and by
fraudulent practices of dealers and other causes, 557-560 ; alteration in
the character of the vessels engaged in the fishery, owing to the use of
cotton nets, 561, 562 ; sea fishery exhibitions, 563 ; practice of sending
out "hospital ships" with fishing fleet discontinued, 563; end of the
monopoly in "sale hunting," 564, 565 ; and of the previous distinction
between the grand and the coast fisheries, 565 ; abolition of the herring
brand and the causes which led to it, 566-568 ; benefit to the trade of
such abolition, 569 ; present state of the hook fishery, 571 ; of the fresh
fishery, 572, 573 ; alleged falling off in the quantity of fish caught, 573 ;
probable revival of prohibitions of trawling, &c., 574 ; restrictions as to
the use of pocket nets in the Zuider Zee, 575 ; establishment of a close
time for seals, 576 ; attempt to revive the whale fishery in recent years,

577 ; extinction of the cod fishery off Iceland, 577 ; desertion of crews of
fishing vessels, 578 ; effect of the plan adopted for payment of wages,

578 ; imposition of penalties for desertion, 579 ; depredations committed
by fishermen of various countries upon each other, 580, 581 ; Convention
of the Hague for the prevention of such outrages, 581 ; laws respecting
the numbering and lettering of fishing vessels, 581 ; statistics of the
fisheries, 582-585, 592-602 ; text of the herring fishery law of 1818,
586-591

Dynamite- Fishing Act, 254

Dynamite, destruction of fish caused by its use in the fisheries, 203 ; legisla-
tion with respect to it, 254

ELECTRIC Telegraphs. See Telegraphs.

England, east coast, principal harbours, 4, 5 ; absence of havens in the

northern portion, 5 ; admirable position of Filey for a harbour of refuge,

5-7 ; North Sunderland, 7-9

610 INDEX.

English Channel, its principal fishing-grounds, 257
Entrances to harbours, 84-86

Eyemouth, improved harbour accommodation necessary, 9 ; proposed plan
for providing funds by means of Government loan, 10

FACTORY Acts, preparation of fish exempted from their operation, 205

Fare Cove, its adaptability for conversion into a harbour, 17 j suggestions as

to provision of necessary funds, 18
Farringdon Fish Market, 164

Fast-days, their abolition by law, 175 j revived under another form, 176
Filey Bay, its suitability as a site for a harbour of refuge, 6 ; breakwaters
should be constructed at national expense, 6 ; fishery harbour by local
efforts, aided by Government loan, 6 ; necessity for adopting a com-
prehensive design for the work, 7

Fisheries, statistics of British fisheries, 141, 142 ; importance of the fishing
industry among the Greeks and Romans, 143; in Venice, 144; in
Norway, 145 ; in Canada, 144 ; in the United States, 144 ; legislation
in reference to British fisheries, 144, 222 ; sea fisheries a nursery for the
navy, 173, 174 ; alleged injurious effects of various artificial causes, 203 j
distinction between sea- and fresh-water fisheries, 206 j dangers of legis-
lating on insufficient data, 209 ; influence of scientific research on their
development, 211 j fuller statistics required, 215 ; state of the law at
present with respect to sea fisheries, 219 ; the future relations of the
State towards the fisheries, 220 ; objects sought to be obtained by legis-
lation, 227 ; modes of prosecuting the fishery, 230 ; trade terms to
distinguish various kinds of fish, 230, 270 ; fishing ports of England,
Wales, and the Isle of Man, 255-257 ; suggestions as to the character of
legislation for the protection of fisheries, 275 ; importance of exact
information as a basis for legislation, 285

Fishermen, frequency of their complaints against each other, 202 ; necessity
of imparting to them scientific knowledge, 218 ; exemption from dues
for use of natural harbours and waste land, 242, 243, 249 ; their right to
exercise restricted trades, 243 \ their exemption from impressment, 175,
241, 242, 249, 250; penalties for breach of contract, 2505 their rating,
254 ; enactments regulating the use of various kinds of nets, 278-280 ;
expediency of Government loans to fishermen discussed, 283 ; state of
law with regard to absconding from employment, 284 j facilities offered
to fishermen by railway companies for travelling at reduced fares, 289
Fishery Harbour Board, formation of such a board advocated, 37 j its

constitution and mode of working, 38

Fishguard, its suitability as a site for a harbour of refuge, 23, 24
Fishing-boats, grant of bounties, 179; lettering and numbering, 192, 237;
their classification, 234 ; production of certificate of registration by
owners, 236 ; definition of term fishing-boats, 237 ; lights to be carried
by fishing vessels, 205, 237, 238, 266 ; international law with respect to
fishing-boats, 238 ; subject to the operation of the Merchant Shipping
Acts, 237, 250, 251 j payment of crews, 251
" Fixed engines " for taking fish, 146, 232

INDEX. 611

Forestallers, laws respecting, 154-156, 158-162, 240, 241
Fourth-cran, established as the smallest legal measure for fish, 248
Fraserburgh, possession by it of a commodious harbour, 16
*' Free trade " in relation to fisheries, 219

Fresh fish, exempt from Customs regulations as to report and entry, 253
Friendly Societies, facilities offered by them to the labouring classes for
insurance, 119, 120

GORDON (of Cluny), Mr., aid given by him towards construction of harbour
at Buckie, 16

Government grants in aid of fisheries, 282

"Grand Intercourse," a treaty between England and the Burgundian Sove-
reign of the Netherlands for securing the right of free fishery in the open
sea, 461

Graswinckel, Dirk, his treatise in refutation of Selden's " Mare Clausum," 473

Gravel, its deposit in harbours, 102

Greenland Company, 184

Grimsby, its importance as a fishing port, 255

Grotius, Hugo, his treatise on "Mare liberum," 460, 464; appointed Com-
missioner from the States-General to England on the subject of the right
of free fishery at sea, 467

HABITS offish, early ignorance respecting them, 170

Harbours, their unequal distribution along the coast-line, 3 ; risks attendant
upon the use of shallow harbours, 3 ; localities possessing good natural
harbours, 4 ; necessity for provision of increased harbour accommodation,
4 ; condition of the harbours on the east coast of England, 4-9 ; Eye-
mouth, 9; Dunbar, 10 ; Anstruther, 10 ; Roome Bay, Crail, II; Peter-
head, 16 ; Fraserburgh, 16 ; Buckie, 16 ; Helmsdale, 17 ; Fare Cove, 17 ;
Lybster, 18 ; Wick, 18 ; N. coast of Scotland, 19 ; Port Sculliance, 20 ;
W. coast of Scotland, 21 ; Isle of Man, 22 ; W. coast of England and
Wales, 22; Cardigan Bay, 23; Fishguard, 23; Bristol Channel, 24;
Bideford Bay, 24 ; N. Cornish coast, 25 ; Padstow, 25 ; St. Ives, 27 ;
Penzance, Mount's Bay, 34 ; Brixham, Torbay, 34 ; Ottermouth Haven,
S. Devon, 35 ; Bognor, 36 ; E. coast of Ireland, 36 ; character of aid
which should be given by Government towards their construction, 37 ;
constitution of the Department by which such aid should be administered,
37 ; mode of dealing with applications for aid, 38 ; requisites of a fishing-
boat harbour, 39 ; a natural harbour described, 41-44 ; general principles
to be observed in the construction of harbours, 38-87, 111-113 ; different
classes of harbours, 45 ; capacities of various kinds of harbours, 87 ;
materials employed, 87-99 \ use °f pontoons in putting in foundations of
piers, 99 ; pierres perdues, 100 ; deposit of silt, &c., 101 ; deposit of
shingle at entrances, 102 ; shoaling of natural bays, 103 ; cause of en-
closed harbours keeping open, 103 ; back-water scouring, 104 ; artificial
scouring, 107; lighting of harbours, no, in ; importance of adequate
harbour accommodation, 187; action taken by the State towards the
provision of harbours, 188 ; suggested amendment of law giving facilities
for construction of harbours, 189

612 INDEX.

Helmsdale, capacity of harbour and its defects, 17 ; suggestions for improve-
ment and provision of funds for carrying out the work, 1 7

Hemp, appointment of trustees for improving its manufacture, 282

Herring "brand," opinions for and against its retention, 181 ; legislation
respecting it, 228, 244, 247, 248 ; abolition of the herring brand in
Holland, 568. See also Dutch Sea Fisheries.

Herring fisheries, laws regulating size of mesh in nets, 171 ; law as to the
description Jof net to be used, 171 ; both restrictions condemned by a
Commission of Enquiry, 172 ; establishment of a close time on W. coast
of Scotland, 172, 248 ; abolition of all restrictions, 172 ; statistics of
Scotch fisheries, 173; the herring "brand," 181, 244, 247, 248;
apparent inexhaustibility of the herring, 201 ; penalties for possession of
herring during close time on W. coast of Scotland, 248; reduction of
close time on W. coast of Scotland, 249 ; legislation with respect to
close time on W. coast of Scotland, 271 ; discovery by Beukelsz, a
Dutchman, of a method of curing herrings, 306 ; Dutch Herring Fishery
(See Dutch Sea Fisheries").

Hitchcock, Robert, his plan for the organization of the British fisheries, 463

*' Hookers," a name given by the Dutch to vessels engaged in the cod fishery,
431

Hooks (floekschen), a name applied to a political party in the Netherlands in
the fifteenth century, 309

Hull, its importance as a fishing port, 255

Humber, the, a great fishing station, 5 ; the " Binks " shoals, 5

Hungerford Fish Market, 164

IMMATURE fish, their capture prohibited, 151, 152 ; means adopted to pre-
vent their capture, 245, 246, 248, 249, 273

Importation offish, restrictions thereon, 176-178; exemptions from loss
respecting imports, 183. See also Dutch Sea Fisheries.

Impressment of fishermen, regulations respecting, 175, 241, 242, 249, 250

Ingrossers, laws respecting, 159-162

Insurance, its importance to fishermen, 118 ; facilities for insurance offered
by Friendly -Societies, 119, 120; insurance of boats and stores, 121 ;
benefits of Mutual Marine Insurance, 121 ; its mode of working, 122-133';
necessity for amendment of law requiring marine policies to be issued
annually, 134 ; insurance of fishing gear, 135

International conventions, desirability of conventions for regulation of fisheries,
!93> 2^7 ; convention regulating seal fisheries, 194 ; the French con-
ventions, 194, 235, 239, 269 ; convention of the Hague, 1882, 197, 581 ;
conditions necessary to secure observance of regulations laid down by
conventions, 288

Ireland, east coast, localities in which improved harbour accommodation is
needed, 36, 37

Irish Channel, character of the fisheries carried on there,

Irish Fisheries, Bill authorising loans to fishermen, 228 ; appointment of
fishery officers, 247 ; benefits likely to result from a system of loans to
fishermen, 283

INDEX. 613

Iron concrete, 98

Iron, extensively used in the construction of piers, &c., 92 ; its destructi-
bility, 92

" KYDELLI," 146, 147, 232

LAWS relating to fisheries. Prohibition of " kidelli " or weirs, 146-148, 151 ;
laws respecting the salmon fishery, 149, 165, 210, 219 ; laws against
taking fry of fish, 149, 151 ; enactments having special reference to the
river Thames, 150 ; to the size of the mesh in nets, 151, 152, 238, 280 ;
to the sale of undersized fish, 152, 153, 170, 267, 268, 269, 273; laws
against forestallers, 154-156, 158-162, 240, 241 ; regrators, 159-162 ;
and ingrossers, 159-162 ; laws with reference to the sale offish, 155-162,
240, 272 ; laws relating to capture of lobsters and crabs, 170, 220, 267,
268, 269, 272 ; laws affecting the herring fisheries, 171, 172, 245, 247-
249 ; abolition of restrictions on sea fisheries, 172, 219, 240, 242 ;
abolition of fast days, 175 ; the re-establishment under another form, 176;
restrictions on imports from abroad, 176-178 ; grants of bounties and
loans, 178-181, 183-185, 282, 287 ; laws as to branding, 181 ; laws
prohibiting settlement of fishermen in Newfoundland, 186 ; repealed,
1 86 ; grants of foreshore for cultivation of oysters and mussels, 186 ;
law as to harbours, suggested improvement, 189 ; laws respecting the
oyster fishery, 186, 220, 249, 253, 260, 261-266, 267, 268, 271, 272;
laws as to outrages on fishermen at sea, 191, 236, 288 ; lettering and
numbering of fishing vessels, 191, 237; French convention of 1843, X95>
235> 239» 2^9 ; convention of the Hague, 1882, 197 ; special laws
respecting the use of drift-nets, 198, 236, 248, 278 ; of trawl-nets, 200,
237, 246, 248, 255, 260, 278, 279 ; regulations as to lights to be carried
by fishing vessels, 205, 206, 237, 238, 266 ; immunity of fishermen from
forced service in the Navy, 241, 249 ; right of fishermen to use waste
lands for drying their nets, the erection of landing stages, &c., 242 ; right
of fishermen to exercise certain restricted trades, 243 ; appointment of
White Herring Fisheries Commissioners, 243 ; constitution of the Board
altered, 246 *, laws respecting breach of contract by fishermen, 250 ; laws
relating to apprentices, 250 ; the Merchant Shipping Acts and their
relation to the fishing industry, 250, 251 ; exemption offish from Customs
report and entry, 253 ; prohibition of the use of dynamite for the capture
of fish, 254 ; rating of fishermen, 254 ; protection of clam and bait beds,
255 ; of spawning beds, 260, 261 ; of mussel beds, 261 j laws with
respect to close time, 149, 165, 172, 245, 248, 249, 270-272

Leicester, Earl of, his administration of the united provinces of the Nether-
lands, 342

Lely, J. van der, his * Recueil of the Grand Fishery,' 354

Leslie, James, his plans for harbour at Roome Bay, 1 1

Lettering of fishing boats, 191, 237, 245

Life-belts, neglect of fishermen to wear them, 120

Life insurance, its importance to fishermen, 118; proposal relative to in-
surance by Government, of fishermen belonging to the Royal Naval
Reserve, 121

614 INDEX.

Lighting of harbours, lighthouses, 1 10 ; leading lights, 1 10 ; mock or
apparent light, in

Lights for fishing vessels, 205, 237, 238, 266

Limenometry, definition of the term, 39

Line fishing, how prosecuted, 232

Liverpool, its importance as a fishing port, 256

Loans to fishermen, their expediency discussed, 282-284

Lobsters, &c., recent laws regulating their capture and sale, 170; experi-
mental legislation, 209 ; present state of the law respecting them, 220 ;
exempt from Customs regulations as to report and entry, 253 ; Norfolk
Crab and Lobster Act, 267 ; Act of 1877, 267-269

Lowestoft, its importance as a fishing port, 255

Lybster, the dilapidated condition of its harbour, and its limited capacity, 18 ;
suggestions for provision of funds for effecting the necessary improve-
ments, 1 8

"MACHINES" for land carriage of fish, their introduction, 164 ; privileges

granted to them, 164, 241
Man, Isle of, condition of its harbours, 22 ; number of boats employed in

fisheries, 22 ; fish caught, 22 ; long subject to laws respecting importation

into England of foreign fish, 185 ; its importance as a fishing centre, 257
Mare clausum, explanation of the term, 226 ; notice of the work of Miiller

thereon, 461

Markets for the sale of fish, their importance to the consumer, 293
Masonry, methods of using it in sea- works, 92-96
Mauricius, his investigations with regard to the right of free fishing in the

northern seas, 480
Merchant Shipping Acts, 250, 251
" Merry men of May," a race so called, 64
Moor-salt, how prepared, 312
Morecambe, a seat of the mussel fishery, 256

Mount's Bay, necessity for breakwater to protect entrances to harbours, 33
Mud, level assumed by it a measure of the exposure of a coast, 53 ; its deposit

in harbours, 101

Miiller, J., notice of his work ' Mare Clausum,' 461
Mussels, necessity for protection by law, 5 ; grants of foreshore for their

cultivation, 186 j their protection possibly a fit subject for legislation, 208

NATURAL History, its bearing upon fishery legislation, 165, 170, 210-212 ;
State aid in scientific research, 215

Netherlands, the, their geographical position, 303 ; large extent of sea coast,
303 ; facilities afforded thereby for prosecution of fisheries, 303

Nets, laws relative to size of mesh, 151, 171, 280; finally repealed, 238;
regulations for the protection of nets, 238 ; salvage of nets, 238 ; right of
fishermen to use land for drying them, 242 ; material used in their
manufacture, 282

Newfoundland, effect of fishery bounties upon its development, 185 ; fisher-
men forbidden to settle there, 186 ; repeal of this law, 186

INDEX. 615

Newquay (Cornwall), harbour capable of extension, 25
Norfolk Crab and Lobster Act, its principal provisions, 267 ; repealed, 267
North Sea, the, great fishing-ground of Northern Europe, 256
Numbering of fishing-boats, 192, 237

ORANGE, Prince of, his policy in relation to the Dutch Sea fisheries, 324,
326, 328, 342

Orders in Council, 236

Ottermouth Haven (South Devon), urgent need for a harbour, 36 ; suggestion
for provision of funds for its construction, 36

Outrages on fishermen at sea, 191, 192, 236, 288

Overbury, Sir Thomas, his opinions as to the rivalry between England and
the Dutch on the sea, 464

Oyster and Mussels Fishery Orders Confirmation Act, 1869 (No. 2), 265

Oysters, grants of foreshore for their cultivation, 186, 187 ; protection of
oysters possibly a fit subject for legislation, 208 ; present state of the law
respecting them, 220 ; Act of 1875, 253 ; position of principal oyster
beds, 260 ; protection of spawning beds, 261-265 '> legislation affecting
the artificial cultivation of oysters, 265, 268 ; as to prohibiting the taking
of oysters in particular localities, 267 ; provisions of Act of 1877 with
respect to close time, 268 ; legislation with respect to close time, 271, 272

PADSTOW, its suitability as a site for a harbour of refuge, 26

Payment of crews of fishing-boats, 251, 252, 253

Peterhead, its importance as a fishery port, 12 ; insufficiency of harbour space,
12 ; superiority over other ports on the E. coast of Scotland, 13 ; re-
commended by Commission of 1858 as a site for a harbour of refuge, 13 ;
its position in regard to the Scotch fisheries, 13, 14; importance of the
fishery carried on in the vicinity, 14 ; recommendation of Commission of
1858 with respect to the provision of funds for constructing a harbour of
refuge, 15 ; decision of the Government thereon, 16

Pickle-herring, origin of the term, 313

Pierres perdttes, 100

Pollution of rivers, 167, 169

Port Isaac (Cornwall), facilities afforded by this place for construction of a
harbour, 25

Portland Race, 63 ; how caused, 64
„ cement, tests for quality, 97

Price offish a subject of contention from very early times, 153-162, 240 ; laws
passed with the view of keeping down prices, 154-162, 240 ; causes
which influence it, 290-293

Protection of fish, legislation with respect to close time, 270-273 ; needless-
ness of such restrictions, 273 ; description of tke various measures
adopted for the protection of fish, 274 ; suggestions for their improve-
ment, 275-278

Private rights, how defined, 226

RACES, roosts or overfalls, how caused, 63 ; their effect in breaking the force
of waves, 64-66

616 INDEX.

Railways, the effect in increasing the trade in fish, 163 ; amount of fish carried

by them, 241
Raleigh, Sir Walter, his estimate of the number of ships and persons

employed in the Dutch herring fishery in his time, 359 ; his book on

trade and commerce with the Dutch, 467
Rating of fishermen, 254
Reductive power in harbours, 44
Registration of fishing-boats, 236, 237, 245
Regrators, laws respecting, 159-162
Rendel, Mr. C. E., the late, his plan for a harbour at Brixham, 35 j his

method of depositing pierres perdues, 100
Roome Bay, its situation and suitability as a site for a harbour, II ; Mr.

Leslie's plans for construction of harbour, 1 1

Rosehearty, N.B., steps taken by Scotch Fishery Board to improve har-
bour, 1 6

Royal Commissions on Fisheries, 284
Royal Commission of 1858, opinion expressed by them as to the part to be

taken by Government in the construction of harbours of refuge, 13
Royal fish, 286

Russell, J. Scott, his law of breaking waves, 70
Rye, character of the fishery carried on there, 256

ST. IVES (Cornwall), extensive fisheries carried on there, 27 ; its importance
as a site for a harbour of refuge, 27-33 "> opinions of eminent authorities
on this point, 30, 32 ; plan for formation of harbour suggested by Cap-
tain Vetch, R.E., 30 ; tidal influences of the locality, 31 ; recommenda-
tion of Select Committee of House of Commons, 32 ; suggestion as to
provision of funds for construction of harbour, 33

St. Tudwall's Road, its suitability for conversion into a harbour, 23

Sale of fish, limitations of size of fish sold, 152, 153 ; laws passed with the
view of keeping down the price offish, 154-162, 240

Salmon fisheries. Close time for salmon first established, 149 ; subsequent
legislation thereon, 165, 166 ; injury to salmon fisheries caused by locks
and dams, 167 ; by pollution of rivers, 167 ; duties of the State in relation
to fisheries, 168 ; principles of existing laws, 168 ; disappearance of
salmon from the Thames, 169 ; inquiry into the state of the fisheries, 169 ;
necessity for protection, 207, 285 ; their preservation a proper subject
for legislation, 207 ; resumt of existing laws respecting them, 219

Salmon Fishery Act of 1861, 210

Saltoun, Lord, aid rendered by him towards construction of harbour at
Fraserburgh, 1 6

Salvage of nets, 238

Sand, its deposit in harbours, 101

Scarborough, its inaccessibility at low water, 5 ; its importance as a fishery
port, 255

Scientific research, its influence on development of fisheries, 211 ; State aid
towards such research, 215, 218

Scotch fisheries. Value of herring fishery in 1880, 21

INDEX. 617

Scotch Herring Fishery Board, 172, 182, 243 ; changes in its constitution,
246 ; functions of the Board, 246, 247

Scotland, north coast, general deficiency of harbour accommodation, 19 ;
suggestions as to mode of providing funds for improvements, 19 j Port
Sculliance, 20 ; Tolmine, 20

Scotland, west coast, possesses good natural harbours, 21

Scouring of channels and harbours, by back waters, 105 ; by artificial means,
107 ; duration of scouring, 109 ; effective velocities of currents, 109

Sea, the, heights reached by it in gales and storms, 52

Sea fisheries, a nursery for the Navy, 173, 174 ; all British free to take part
in them, 174, 240 ; protective legislation unnecessary, 207 ; with some
few exceptions, 208 ; state of the law at present with respect to them,
219 ; fishing ports of England, Wales, and the Isle of Man, 255-257

Sea Fisheries Act of 1843, 239

Sea Fisheries Act of 1868, 210, 235, 261-264, 266

Seal fishery, international convention respecting it, 194 ; protection of seals
probably a fit subject for legislation, 208 ; establishment of a close time
for seals, 287. See also Dutch Sea Fisheries.

Seine-net fishing, Acts passed for its protection, 198 ; disputes between
" drifters " and " seiners," 198 ; mode of using the seine-net, 231 ; pro-
tected by Fisheries Act of 1868, 246, 278

Selden, John, his work on " Mare Clausum," 471

Semeyns, Meynert, his work on the Dutch herring fishery, 345, 356

Shadwell, proposed fish market there, 164

Shingle, its deposit at entrances to harbours, 102

Shoaling of natural bays, 103

Side channels for reducing waves in harbours, 74

Signals, 239

Silt, its deposit in harbours, 101

Smeerenburg, the centre of the Dutch whale fishery, 402 ; its prosperity,
404 ; and decline, 409

South of England Oyster Company, grant to them of a " several " fishery, 265

Spawning beds, definition of the term, 258 ; distinction between spawning
beds and spawning grounds, 258, 260 ; legislation for the protection of
spawning beds of mussels and oysters, 261 j procedure to be adopted
under Sea Fisheries Act of 1868 to establish protection in particular
localities, 261 ; heavy expenses attending it, 262 ; nature of the protec-
tion granted, 262-264 ; regulations for protection of spawning beds in
general, 264

Spawning grounds, their locality uncertain, 257 ; distinction between spawning
grounds and spawning beds, 258 ; examples of spawning grounds, 258 j
futility of past efforts to protect them, 259

Spawning places, how defined, 258 ; examples of localities so designated, 258;
protective legislation, 259, 260

Spawn, incorrect ideas respecting it, 170, 210

Statistics of Scotch herring fishery, 173 ; value of statistics, 183, 215

Statutes relating to fisheries, analysis of them, 296-298

Stevenson, Thomas, C.E., his views regarding the methods of constructing

VOL IX.— E. 2 S

6i8 INDEX.

harbours, with references to the natural conditions on which his opinions
are based, 40, 44-113

Stilling basins, 75

Stone, its destruction by Pholas, &c., 91

Sturgeon included among "royal fish," 286

Sumburgh Roost, 64

Sunderland, North, harbour extension much needed, 7 J fisheries at present
carried on there, 8 ; its favourable position as a fishing centre, 8 ; pro-
posed plan for providing funds for improvements by means '_ of Govern-
ment loan, 10

Surf increased by tides, 66, 67

Swansea, one of the principal fishing ports on the Welsh coast, 256

Swimming, advantages to fishermen of a knowledge of the art, 120

TALUS or spending beach, 82

Tees (the), its inaccessibility at low water, 5

Teignmouth, character of the fishery carried on there, 256

Telegraphs might be rendered of great value to the fisheries, 189

Tenby, harbour needs improvement, 24

Thames (the), special enactments relative to fisheries, 150; causes of disap-
pearance of salmon, 169

Tides (the), their effect in increasing surf, 66, 67

Timber, its use in the construction of harbours, &c., 87 ; its destruction by
worms, 88 ; plans adopted for its protection, 89 ; its advantages as a
building material, 90

Trawling, disputes between " drifters" and " trawlers," 199 ; alleged destruc-
tion of nets by trawlers, 199 ; importance of the trawling industry, 199 ;
the possibility of injury to bait beds by trawling, 200 ; results of experi-
ments as to its effect on the herring fishery, 200 ; alleged destruction of
spawn by the trawl without foundation, 210 ; mode of using the trawl,
231 ; regulations respecting trawlers in Fisheries Act of 1868, 237, 246,
248 ; enactments made at various times for the restriction of trawling,
255, 260, 278, 280

Trespass, law of, fishermen relieved from its operation, 174

VETCH, Captain, R.E., his plan for the construction of a harbour of refuge
at St. Ives (Cornwall), 30

WASH (the), its importance in providing bait for fisheries, 5

Washington, Admiral, his report on the suitability of Padstow as a site for a

harbour of refuge, 26
Waves, their height, 56 ; length, 58 ; force, 59 ; instances of their destructive

effects, 60 ; their force sometimes modified by tides, 63 ; relation between

their height and depth of water, 68 ; Mr. Scott Russell's law of breaking

waves, 70 ; " send " of waves, no
Weirs, prohibited by Magna Charta, 146; other statutes on. the subject of

weirs, 148, 149 ; their subsequent construction for the improvement of

navigation, 150; weirs described, 233

INDEX 619

Wells (Norfolk), need of improved harbour accommodation, 5

Westminster Fish Market, its creation by Act of Parliament, 163 ; attempt

to establish a market proves abortive, 164
Whales, their protection possibly a fit subject for legislation, 208 ; included

among " royal fish," 286

Whale fishery of the Netherlands. See Dutch Sea Fisheries.
Whitby, its inaccessibility at low water, 5
Wick, harbour improvements now in progress, 18
Worms very destructive to timber, 88

YARMOUTH, Great, necessity for formation of deep-water entrance to harbour,
5 ; its importance as a fishing port, 255

Young, Archibald, his view as to deficiency of harbour accommodation on
east coast of Scotland, and the urgent need for assistance from Govern-
ment in remedying it, 20, 21

ZEALAND, the early reputation of its inhabitants as fishermen, 308

LONDON :

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