It does not appear that any treaty concerning liberty of fishing was made in the warlike reign of Henry V. (1413-1422); but, as stated above, this king confirmed the Burgundy treaty in 1417. In the succeeding reign of Henry VI., in 1439, a treaty was concluded for three years with Isabel of Portugal, as representing her husband, Philip, Duke of Burgundy, which provided for liberty in fishing in much the same language as in the treaty of Henry IV. It was stipulated that all the fishermen of England, Ireland, or Calais, as well as of Brabant and Flanders, should be free to go all over the sea for fishing, without any hindrance or molestation on either side, and that they should have free access to the ports of either, under theusual conditions. Although the Duke of Burgundy was also Count of Holland and Zealand, these states were not specifically included in this treaty, which was renewed in 1442 for other five years, and again, at Calais, in 1446, for a term of twelve years, in precisely the same terms, and the commonalties of Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, and of the French dominions promised to observe it.127In the renewal of the treaty of intercourse at Brussels, in 1468, by Edward IV. and the Duchess of Burgundy on behalf of her husband, Duke Charles, in addition to the mention of Brabant, Flanders, and Mechlin, words were added128which brought Holland and Zealand into the treaty, and thus formally gave them that liberty of fishing on the British, or at least the English, coast which they struggled so hard and so successfully to retain in the seventeenth century. The article on the fishery also declared that the fishermen should be at liberty to fish without being required to obtain any license, permission, or safe-conduct,129which appears to indicate that the practice of obtaining such letters for their security had been previously in vogue. In 1468, in the treaty of peace, at Péronne, between Louis XI. of France and Charles, Duke of Burgundy, a similar clause was inserted providing for the freedom of the herring fishery;130and in the ten years’ truceagreed upon in 1471 between Edward IV. and the King of France mutual liberty of commerce and fishing was stipulated during the continuance of the truce.131The treaty of 1467, above referred to, which included Holland and Zealand, was to last for thirty years, but by the death of Charles the Bold, and the marriage of Mary of Burgundy to Maximilian of Austria, it was deemed necessary to renew it with the new Duke; and this was done, and the compact declared to be perpetual, in 1478, the clause providing for the liberty of fishing remaining unaltered.132
It is thus clear from those numerous treaties that in the fifteenth century the liberty of fishing in the sea was so generally recognised by England that the principle might be regarded as having become a part of her international policy and custom. Towards the end of the century the Burgundy treaties were superseded by the great treaty of peace and commercial intercourse which was concluded in 1496 between Henry VII., the first of the Tudor sovereigns, and Philip, Archduke of Austria and Duke of Burgundy. This treaty, which became so well known later as the Great Intercourse (Intercursus Magnus, le Traité d’Entrecours, ’t Groot Commercie-Tractaat), was the sheet-anchor of Dutch policy in relation to England in the seventeenth century, and was constantly appealed to by them in their diplomatic struggles with the Stuarts and with Cromwell. It was the price paid by Henry for the expulsion of Perkin Warbeck from Flanders, the provisions in regard to whom, when slightly modified by St John in 1651 to apply to the “rebels” of the Commonwealth, so startled the Dutch Government (see p. 387). The treaty was to be perpetual, and it actually endured for a century and a half. The article dealing with the liberty of fishing was couched in almost the same language as in the preceding treaties. The fishermen of both nations were to be at liberty to go in security to fish anywhere on the sea, without requiring any license or safe-conduct, and to have free use of one another’s ports under stress of misfortune, weather or enemies,on paying the ordinary dues.133As conservators for this treaty of peace and commerce, which was received with much rejoicing in the Low Countries, Henry appointed, among others, the mayors and aldermen of London and of a large number of towns, including Southampton, Sandwich, Dover, Winchelsea, Boston, Yarmouth, and Berwick; and the Archduke, on his side, appointed the burgomasters of Ghent, Bruges, Dunkirk, Antwerp, Dort, Delft, Leyden, Amsterdam, Briel, and others.
Several supplementary treaties dealing with commercial subjects were concluded between Henry VII. and Henry VIII. on the one side, and the Archduke of Burgundy on the other—viz., in 1499, 1506, 1515, and 1520.134While they confirmed in general terms the previous treaty, the clause referring to the freedom of fishery was not specifically mentioned, a circumstance which, considering the nature of the matters dealt with—the staple at Calais, the cloth trade, the Zealand tolls,—was not surprising. Nevertheless, the fact that treaties of commerce had been made with the Low Countries subsequent to the Intercursus Magnus, without containing a clause expressly renewing the liberty of fishing, was used later by English statesmen, as by Lord Bacon, as an argument that the provision of that treaty had thereby been rendered inoperative. But the policy of Henry VIII., and indeed of all the Tudor sovereigns, proved the contrary; liberty of fishing on the English coast was not called in question till James came to the throne.
We have already seen that Margaret of Savoy appealed to Henry VIII. in 1512 to protect the herring fishermen of the Low Countries from the attacks of the Hanseatic towns, and apparently with success. The same regard for the herring fisherywas shown in a marked manner in 1521 in the negotiations between the Emperor Charles V. and King Francis I. of France. Cardinal Wolsey, who was the “mediator” between them, strongly urged the need of allowing the herring fishery to be free, safe, and unmolested. He made this stipulation one of the chief points of the proposed treaty. It is stated in a despatch which was sent to Charles V. by his ambassadors at Calais, where the negotiations were being conducted, that the Cardinal declared his intention to propose, among other things, security for the fishermen and cessation of hostility on the sea between England and Flanders, and that either party should be free from attack by the other in English ports. There was no difficulty about the fisheries, the ambassadors said, as they knew the Emperor wished it, and that his subjects would more willingly go to sea in that event than they then did under the protection of ships charged to defend them.135The French ambassadors also informed Francis that Wolsey pressed the point on them, and that they had ultimately agreed in order “to conciliate him, considering it can be revoked at pleasure, and will be profitable to those living on the coast of Normandy and Picardy, and without it they will not be able to pay their taxes.”136It is clear from the political events that followed, that the great Cardinal, in stipulating for the security of the fishermen, had principally in view the interests of the Emperor, to whom the Netherlands belonged; but it was in perfect accord with established English policy. The agreement for the security of the herring fishery was embodied as a leading article in the formal treaty concluded between the two potentates in October of the same year, it being provided that until the end of the following January, even though the war should continue between the two countries, the fishermen of both parties should be allowed to fish unmolested and to go home in safety.137In the war which ensued, the French admirals did not push the advantage they had on the sea to extremes, but sold safe-conducts to the fishermen of the Netherlands, and allowed them to pursue their fishing. In several treaties and truces made in thenext few years between the Powers named, it was provided that the herring fishery should be carried on freely and in security on both sides, even during the existence of hostilities. One of these, to last for eight months, was concluded in 1528 between Charles V., Francis I., Henry VIII., and Margaret of Austria, who represented Holland, Zealand, and Friesland, as well as Flanders.138It may perhaps be surmised that in the common concern about the winter herring fishery the influence of the Church was not without effect, so that the fish for Lent might not be wanting.
From the foregoing it is apparent that the kings of England, so far from claiming an exclusive right to the sea fisheries along the English coast, entered into a series of treaties with their neighbours, extending over a period of nearly two hundred years, by which freedom of fishing was mutually recognised and guaranteed. Throughout the reigns of the Plantagenet and Lancastrian kings, as well as under the Yorkists and Tudors, foreign fishermen were at liberty to fish freely in the English seas without requiring any license or paying any tribute. Not only so, but up to the middle of the sixteenth century, and especially in the time of the Plantagenet kings, they were encouraged to take part in the fisheries off our coasts, and to bring into the realm and freely trade in fish, both fresh and cured; and, in point of fact, a large proportion of the fish consumed in England was caught and sold by foreigners. It was not until after the Reformation, when the English fisheries began to decay, that protective measures were adopted in favour of the native fishermen; and it was not until the reign of James I. that any attempt was made to place restrictions on the liberty of fishing immemorially enjoyed by foreigners along the English coasts.
But when we turn to Scotland we find there was not only in that country an absence of the toleration which was extended in England to foreign fishermen, but that restrictive measures were in force from an early period. The claim made by theScottish kings in the twelfth century for the exclusive fishing in the sea around the Isle of May on behalf of the monks of the priory there, strikes the keynote of their policy in later times. This difference between the policy in England and Scotland might to some extent be due to the nature of the fishings. In the northern kingdom the herring fishery was confined almost entirely to the firths and lochs “within land”: the native fishermen did not compete with the foreign vessels which carried on the fishery at a greater or lesser distance from the coast from the neighbourhood of the Shetlands to the Thames. The encroachments of the foreign fishermen, which sometimes occurred from the vagaries of the shoals, were thus resented. On the English coast the native fishery was carried on for the most part alongside the foreign fishermen, and the English fishermen were thus accustomed to the presence of the foreigners. In Scotland, moreover, the sea fisheries, and in particular the herring fishery, were of greater relative importance to the people than was the case in England, which possessed rich pastures and was essentially agricultural. Fishing was much more of a national pursuit, and besides supplying what was required for home consumption, Scotland was able to export large quantities of fish to other lands: in the fifteenth century the title “Piscinata Scotia” was referred to as an “old proverb.” The fisheries, besides forming a not unimportant source of revenue to the crown, supplied a chief staple of the trade and commerce of the “royal burghs,” which were always extremely jealous of their rights and privileges, and possessed great power. Hence the Acts of the Scottish Parliaments which dealt with sea fisheries—and they are numerous—breathe a much more exclusive spirit than those of England. Hence also the treaties and conventions between Scotland and the Netherlands did not extend to foreign fishermen the generous treatment which was so evident in the south. The earliest of those commercial agreements seems to have been made in 1291; others were concluded in 1321 and 1323, in the reign of Robert the Bruce, by which free ingress and egress were given to merchants to pass with their merchandise to any parts of the kingdom, “with their ships and goods”; and similar freedom of commercial intercourse was stipulated in 1371, 1401, 1407, 1412, 1416, and on numerous occasions subsequently.139These early agreements contain no provision about the fisheries, and nothing to indicate a desire on the part of the Scottish king or people to allow fishermen from the Low Countries to fish in the adjacent waters. The feeling of the coast population towards the foreigners was usually jealous and aggressive; attacks by the one and reprisal by the other were of frequent occurrence, especially in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Earl of Holland complained in 1410 that the Scots had attacked the fishermen of that province “when they went to sea to catch herrings in their fishing vessels and to gain their living like honest men”; and by way of reprisal he gave permission to the people of Brouershaven to attack and injure their “enemies,” the Scots, wherever they could find them, on sea or land.140There is much testimony to show that in those times the Scottish fishermen were of a fierce and forceful disposition, and little inclined to tolerate the intrusion of foreign fishermen within what they claimed as their “reserved waters,”—that is, the firths and bays and a distance along the coast described as “a land kenning,” which extended to fourteen miles or to twenty-eight miles from the shore. An indication of their treatment of those who intruded is afforded by a story told in one of the English State Papers on the authority “of the old Bishop of Ross, who came in with King James to England.” He said that in the time of King James V. (A.D.1513-1542) the Hollanders, who had only a verbal license to fish at twenty-eight miles off, came near the shore within the mouth of the Firth of Forth, “and there fished in despite of the king’s command.” James thereupon set out men-of-war and took so many of them that “he sent a baril ful of their heads into Holland, with their names fixed to their foreheads on cards,” as a warning to their fellows.141This taleof savagery, probably apocryphal, no doubt originated in the conflicts and reprisals between the Dutch and the Scots which are known to have occurred in the reign of James V., and led to the treaty of 1541, in which, for the first time, there is a stipulation concerning the fisheries. For some years previously the relations of the Emperor Charles V. (in whose dominions the Low Countries were included) and the King of Scotland had been strained, owing to the renewal of the old alliance between Scotland and France. A number of armed vessels, under the command of Robert Foggo of Leith, cruised about and captured many Dutch herring-busses, especially those belonging to Schiedam and Briel. The States of Holland retaliated by seizing Scottish goods in Holland, and then James V. threatened that he would put an entire stop to their herring fishing on the coast of Scotland.142Owing to the war with France and the depredations of privateers, the Netherlands at that time had much difficulty in protecting their herring-busses, and the threat of the Scottish king speedily brought about negotiations. The States of Holland petitioned the Emperor to interfere,143alleging that the prohibition of their herring fishing by the King of Scotland was inconsistent with the freedom of navigation, and even with the treaties subsisting between them—which, however, as has been said, did not include the question of fishing. In the treaty which followed between James V. and the Emperor,144it was, amongst other things, agreed that means should be devised for reparation of the damages done on both sides “to merchants, fishers, and other traders or subjects,” or to their ships and goods, in time of peace; and that mutual protection should be afforded to the fishermen against pirates. It contained no fishery clause like those in the English treaties, and not a word about the liberty of fishing. It can scarcely be doubted that the omission was deliberate, and that those conducting the negotiations on behalf of the Dutch wished to have a guarantee of the kind. We learn from the treaty that the last article in the instructions of the Scots ambassador containedsome proposal about the fishery. Its nature does not appear; but from the fact that it was not agreed to, and was reserved for further consideration on the part of the Emperor, it is not unlikely that it referred to the fixing of a limit within which the Dutch were not to fish.145The Scottish lawyer, Welwood, early in the next century referred to the “notorious covenant” which had been made with the Dutch, that they should not fish within eighty miles of the coast of Scotland, a statement that may have been a reminiscence of this proposal.
The peace was not of long duration. The Scots again attacked the Dutch fishermen on the coast of Scotland; the goods of Scotch merchants were in turn seized in the Netherlands, and their ships and seamen arrested, and arrangements were made by the Dutch to convoy their herring-busses with many ships of war.146On the representations of Rotterdam and Schiedam—towns which had a great stake in the herring fishery on the Scottish coast—a request was made to the Emperor, in the name of the States of Holland, asking him to arrange in his negotiations with the Scots for the restitution of the goods taken by them from the Hollander fishermen; and early in 1545 he was petitioned to conclude a truce with them on account of the herring and dogger (cod) fishing.147It was not until 1550 that another treaty was signed between the two countries,—also at Binche, on 15th December, on behalf of the Emperor Charles V. and Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland. It confirmed all previous treaties, and contained provisions for mutual freedom of commerce and navigation without the need of any safe-conduct or license, general or special, and with liberty to make use of one another’s ports, and also mutually to protect one another’s subjects, including fishermen, from the attacks of pirates. The part referring to the fishery did not, however, differ from that in the previoustreaty, which it merely confirmed. “With regard to the fishery and the free use of the sea,” it said, “that which was made, concluded, and agreed upon by the foresaid treaty made at Binche on the 19th February 1541, between the Most Serene Queen Mary (of Hungary and Bohemia) and the aforesaid ambassador of the King of Scotland, shall be truly and sincerely observed.”148This treaty, which was called in the Netherlands “celebre fœdus,” may be regarded as the Scottish counterpart of the Intercursus Magnus, concluded with England in 1496. The older Dutch writers, as Wagenaar and Plegher, professed to regard it as having guaranteed freedom of fishery on the coasts of Scotland in the same way; and it was cited by the Dutch ambassadors in the negotiations concerning the fishery in the seventeenth century in this sense. But in the English treaty freedom of fishing all over the sea was expressly covenanted in the most plain and explicit language, while the treaty with Scotland in 1550 merely confirmed a previous treaty which certainly did not confer liberty of fishing, though the phrase “the free use of the sea,” now introduced in the preamble, might at first sight imply the contrary. Nothing more appears to have been heard of the proposal of the Scottish ambassador in 1541, which had been deferred for further deliberation.149
A treaty which took a still more important place in the subsequent disputes and negotiations respectingmare clausumand unlicensed fishing, and upon which the Dutch relied even more, at least in the reign of James, than they did on the Intercursus Magnus, was concluded with King James VI. in1594, fifteen years before he issued, as king of England as well as of Scotland, his famous proclamation forbidding promiscuous and unlicensed fishing. On the occasion of the baptism of his son, Prince Henry, which took place at Stirling on 30th August 1594, the States-General despatched two ambassadors, Walraven van Brederode and Jacob Valck, laden with costly gifts, to take part in the ceremony, and also to do a little business with the king. The two previous treaties between Scotland and the Netherlands had been concluded at a time when the whole of that country had been under the rule of Charles V. In the interval it had passed into the possession of Philip of Spain, and then the northern provinces had revolted, thrown off the Spanish yoke, and formed the famous federal commonwealth of the seven United Provinces of Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Gelderland, Over-Yssel, Friesland, and Groningen. It was thought to be desirable by the prudent Dutchmen to renew if possible on their own behalf the treaties with Scotland, especially as it was then recognised that James would succeed to the English throne. The ambassadors therefore brought with them a long draft treaty, in which the previous treaty of 1541 was recited and that of 1550 was given in full. James agreed to the confirmation of the previous treaties, and the ratification was signed at Edinburgh on 14th September 1594. In his declaration he stated that he had “seen, read, and examined” the treaty of peace and alliance made at Binche in 1550 between Charles V., Emperor of the Romans, in the capacity of sovereign of the Low Countries, and Queen Mary, “his honoured dame and mother,” and having found it very desirable, good, and beneficial for him and his country, it was to be observed inviolably for the good of the traffic and commerce of the subjects of the two nations; and he sincerely promised to observe the treaty and every clause and article in it. Then the easy-going monarch appears to have forgotten all about it. The document itself was lost, and when it was urgently wanted for the negotiations in the next century it could not be found, and nobody in this country seemed to know what it contained; it was even regarded by some—as the English ambassador at The Hague—as apocryphal. Although the Dutch relied much on this treaty, it contained no stipulation regarding liberty of fishing.The treaty of 1550 was confirmed, by which it was provided that commerce and navigation were to be free; merchants were to be at liberty to pass safely and freely with their goods by land and sea, and to buy and sell; pirates were to be chased from the sea, and the subjects of either state, including fishermen, were to be mutually protected from their attacks; but the fishery clause was precisely the same as before.150
It is thus evident that there was a great difference between the English and the Scottish treaties with the Netherlands respecting the right of fishery. The former contained a separate clause, conceived in a broad and liberal spirit and again and again renewed, providing for mutual freedom of fishing everywhere on the seas, while no such agreement or anything like it was made on the part of Scotland. The Dutch fishing on the coast of Scotland was more important to them than their fishing on the English coast, and there is no doubt they strove to obtain the same privileges for it as they received in England. The omission of a corresponding clause in the Scottish treaties was in accordance with the long-settled policy of the Scottish kings and Parliaments, and it was that policy that James carried with him to England when he attempted to reverse the established practice with regard to the fisheries, and opened up the claims tomare clausum.
There is, unfortunately, little contemporary evidence as to the precise extent of the claim to the fisheries which was anciently put forward in Scotland. The Acts of the Scottish Parliaments do not help us very far, although they reveal the jealous and conservative spirit previously referred to. Many statutes were made prohibiting strangers from buying fish except such as were salted and barrelled, and then only at free burghs; concerning the “assize-herring,” of which so much was to be heard; and the payment of customs by foreigners exporting fish. The language of some of the Acts implied a certain control over foreign fishermen on the sea,151and all that we know ofthe practice and customs in Scotland makes it highly probable that these enactments were in point of fact enforced against foreign fishermen as far as they could be. The Scots were always particularly jealous about the fishings in the firths and lochs “within land.” An important herring fishery of this kind was carried on in the lochs on the west coast, especially in Loch Broom and Loch Fyne, in autumn and winter, by fishermen from the Clyde, the Ayrshire coast, and Fifeshire, who built timber houses on shore where they cured the herrings; and this fishing was attended by Frenchmen, “Flemings,” and English, who purchased the cured herrings or bought the fish and cured them themselves.152Wishing to catch the herrings for themselves, these “divers strangers” most earnestly petitioned Queen Mary in 1566 for “license to fish in the said lochs.” But the Council, to whom the petition was referred, after consultation with the burghs, refused the request, and ordained that “no stranger of whatever nation they be come in the said lochs, nor use the commodity of the said fishing in any time to come, but the same to be reserved for the born subjects and natives of the realm,” under pain of confiscation of ships and goods.153Some of the old Scots Acts, of the reign of James III. (1460-1488) and later, refer to previous statutes, which seem to be lost, respecting the herring fishery in the western seas; and they indicate that “letters” had sometimes been granted by the king favouring foreigners in some way, but whether by allowing them to fish there is unknown.
On the east coast, where the Dutch carried on their great herring-fishing from busses, there is evidence that a limit was early fixed within which they were not allowed to fish, but no contemporary records relating to it appear to have been preserved. It is probable that an arrangement was come to between them and the Scottish fishermen, possibly in the reign of James V. or even earlier, by which they were not to fish within sight of land. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, when the question of unrestricted fishing was raised inan acute form, there was a remarkable unanimity of opinion in Scotland that the ancient and established custom was that foreigners were not allowed to carry on their operations within a “land-kenning” of the coast,—that is, not nearer than where they could discern the land from the top of their masts. This distance was usually placed at fourteen miles, but sometimes a double land-kenning, of twenty-eight miles, was claimed; and we shall see that the former distance was embodied in the Draft Treaty of Union with England in 1604, as well as proposed to the States-General as a provisional limit in 1619 (see p. 192), and declared by Parliament and the Privy Council of Scotland to be the bounds of the “reserved waters” belonging to Scotland. Welwood, a Scottish lawyer who wrote at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries, states that before his time, after “bloody quarrels” about sea affairs between the Scots and the Hollanders, the disputes were arranged on the understanding that in future the Hollanders were to keep at least eighty miles from the coast of Scotland, which, he says, they did for a long time. If they were driven nearer by stress of weather they paid a tax or tribute at the port of Aberdeen, where a castle was built for this and other reasons. This tax, he adds, was paid until by frequent dissensions at home and the audacity of the Hollanders the right was lost.154There is no very satisfactory evidence to show in how far the statements of Welwood were in accordance with the facts. In the records of the Privy Council a case is mentioned which might be interpreted in another way. In 1587 two English ships belonging to Shields, coming from the “easter seas” laden with fresh fish and bound for England, were seized and brought into port by one Thomas Davidson of Crail, apparently on the plea that they had been fishing too near the shore. The owners contended that the fish had been caught “upon the main sea, outwith his Majesty’s dominions, where not only they but the subjects of all other princes had had a continual trade and fishing in all times bygone past the memory of man.” Buteven, it was argued on their behalf, if the fish had been caught within his Majesty’s waters, still, in respect of the “continual trade” which strangers had had there in all time past, “there being no inhibition made or published to the contrary as yet,” no such treatment should have been meted out to them.155This was in the reign of James VI.; and the most likely explanation, in the absence of information as to the decision taken by the Council, is that while no official proclamation forbidding fishing by foreigners had been promulgated, and no recent measures carried out to prevent them from doing so, it was believed that a certain part of the sea was reserved for the use of the Scottish fishermen, apart from the waters of firths and lochs.
The difference in the national policy of England and Scotland concerning foreigners fishing along our coasts prevailed until the Union of the crowns, when James introduced the Scottish ideas into England and soon endeavoured to transform them into practice. Meanwhile, under the Tudors, certain changes were slowly and silently taking place which paved the way for the new policy, and that too although, very shortly before, the freedom of the seas had been proclaimed and vindicated by Queen Elizabeth.
The policy of freedom of commercial intercourse, navigation, and fishery which was enunciated in the Intercursus Magnus and the treaties which preceded it, was faithfully observed throughout the sixteenth century. No attempt was made by any of the Tudor sovereigns to interfere with the liberty which foreigners enjoyed of fishing on the English coast; nor was any claim put forward by them to the dominion or lordship of the surrounding seas. On the contrary, throughout the greater part of the century, facilities were given for the peaceful exercise and encouragement of sea-fishing, even in time of war; while on several occasions the last and greatest of the monarchs of the Tudor line actively contested the old pretensions of Denmark to the sovereignty of the northern seas, and the more recent claims of Spain and Portugal to the exclusive right of navigating the great oceans. It was nevertheless during this century that changes occurred which made it easy for James early in the next to initiate a new policy ofmare clausum, and to repudiate the provisions of the so-called Burgundy treaties. The most important of these changes was perhaps the decay which overtook the sea fisheries. Apart from their commercial and economic value, the fisheries were looked upon as indispensable for the maintenance of maritime power, and probably at no previous time had greater efforts been made to foster maritime power than under the Tudors. The hardy fishermen who navigated their barks to distant seas—to Iceland, to Wardhouse, round the North Cape, and now to Newfoundland—were trained in a school of seamanship which fitted them admirably to take their place for the naval defence of the country. Even the herring-smacks and thedogger-boats that fished in the North Sea and the Channel turned out mariners by no means to be despised,—men acquainted with the coasts and the tides, able to manage sails and educated to the sea. It was this aspect of the fisheries which was mostly regarded by the statesmen of those times, and for which the “political lent” and the protective legislation were designed.
The causes which led to the decay in the English fisheries were no doubt various, but perhaps the chief one, and the one on which most stress was laid in the latter part of the century, was the Reformation. The very large consumption of fish due to the observance of Lent and the numerous days of fasting, or fish-days, has been referred to (see p. 58). The suppression of the monasteries (1536-1539) and the dispersal of the inmates and dependants must alone have had considerable influence, but the relaxation of ecclesiastical rule among the laity which followed was much more detrimental to the fisheries. The decay of the sea-coast towns, so frequently spoken of in the reign of Elizabeth, was mainly attributed to this cause. Another influence which operated in the same direction, most markedly towards the end of the century, was the great growth of the fisheries and commerce of the Dutch. After the assertion of their independence of Spain (1581), commonly called the “abjuration of Philip,” their fisheries developed with great rapidity. One of the first acts of the new Republic (1582) was the codification of the fishery statutes; and about this time they applied to the deep-sea herring fishery the name of Great or Grand Fishery (Groote Visscherye), as being “the chief industry of the country and principal gold-mine to its inhabitants,” in contrast to the real gold-mines of Spain. They furnished the greater part of Europe with cured herrings and other fish, and the fish supply of England, and more particularly of London, fell to a large extent into their hands. Their herring fishery was carried on along our east coast, and the spectacle of great fleets of foreign fishing vessels frequenting our waters, while the native fisheries were falling to decay, roused envious and jealous feelings in the breasts of patriotic Englishmen.156
Under the Tudors the efforts made to foster the sea fisheries did not, as has been said, take the form of interfering with theforeign fishermen. They were rather directed, on the one hand, to increase the consumption of fish by restoring the strict observance of Lent and fish-days, and, on the other hand, to check the importation of fish caught by foreigners. In this way it was hoped that the native fisheries would be stimulated to supply at least the home markets. As early as 1541—a year or two after the suppression of the monasteries—an Act was passed which apparently indicates that the decline in the fisheries had already set in, and that it was customary for the English people to purchase fish from foreigners rather than catch them for themselves. Heavy penalties were imposed on any person who should bring into the realm for sale fresh fish (except sturgeon, porpoise, and seal, which were then included in the term) which they had purchased from strangers in Flanders, Zealand, Picardy, France, or elsewhere beyond the sea, “or upon the sea between shore and shore”; but the buying of fish at Iceland, Scotland, Orkney, Shetland, Ireland, or Newfoundland—to all which places English vessels went—was not prohibited.157This statute was re-enacted four years later, and again by Edward VI. and Queen Mary.158In the reign of Elizabeth a number of similar statutes were made, with the object of favouring the native fishermen in their competition with foreigners.
About the same time as the first Act of Henry was passed we begin to get evidence of laxity in the observance of Lent and of measures taken to deal with it. Many persons, including noblemen, were brought before the Privy Council charged with having eaten flesh in Lent, and were committed to the Fleet. The mayor and aldermen of London were commanded to make inquisition throughout all the wards of the city as to the households in which flesh was used in Lent, and the butchers were required to furnish information as to the quantity of flesh sold by them, and to whom, in the same period.159This activity of the Privy Council foreshadowed the new policy of the “political lent” which was inaugurated a few years later in the reign of Edward VI., and with which the name of Cecilwas associated. By this time it was clearly recognised that the religious changes that had taken place were prejudicial to the fisheries by lessening the consumption of fish, and in 1548 an “Act for Abstinence from Flesh” was passed, by which fines were imposed on those who did not observe the usual fast-days. The object of the measure was clearly explained. “One day or one kind of meat of itself,” it said, “is not more holy, more pure, or more clean than another, for that all days and all meats be of their nature of one equal purity, cleanness, and holiness;” but “considering that due and godly abstinence is a mean to virtue, and to subdue men’s bodies to their soul and spirit, and considering also especially that Fishers, and men using the trade of living by fishing in the sea, may thereby the rather be set on work,” it was enacted that no person should eat flesh meat on Fridays, Saturdays, Ember-days, Lent, or on any other day which was accustomed a fish-day, under a penalty of ten shillings fine and ten days’ imprisonment without flesh food.160
By this statute the political lent was established, and the policy of compelling the people to eat fish for the good of the fisheries and the navy was continued with more or less vigour for a century and a half. Sir William Cecil was especially active in its favour. He caused careful inquiries to be made into the condition of the decayed havens and sea-coast towns and the state of the fisheries. He was informed by the London fishmongers, to whom he had submitted a series of questions, that there was not so much fish then consumed “by a great quantity” as used to be the case, and that the number of vessels engaged in the fisheries had greatly decreased. On the latter point they referred to a return made about the twentieth year of the reign of Henry VIII., which showed that seven-score and odd ships then went to the Iceland fishery, about 80 crayers to Shetland, and about 220 crayers from Scarborough and other towns to the North Seas fishing, making a total of about 440 fishing vessels; while at the time they wrote—in the reign of Edward VI., and probably in 1552 or 1553—the number had fallen to about 133, of which 43 went to Iceland, 10 crayers to Shetland, and 80 to “the North Seas,” showing adecrease in the twenty-four or twenty-five years of about 307 “ships and crayers.”161A similar story of the decay of the fisheries came from the east-coast towns. At Lynn, which was maintained chiefly by the Iceland and the herring fisheries, and which twenty or thirty years before sent out about thirty vessels to those fisheries, there were then only two Iceland barks, and no herring-smacks at all. It used to be able to furnish 300 mariners for the king’s service, while now it could not supply more than twenty or thirty. And so at Burnham (where the fishing-boats had decreased from 26 tonil), Wells, Clee, Cromer, Yarmouth, and other Norfolk ports—all had greatly decayed. The fisheries and the shipping had fallen off, the “men of substance” had lost their money or left, the population had diminished, and even the houses were falling down. To a statesman like Cecil, who knew the value of the mariners bred at the fishing ports for manning the navy if need arose, and how a flourishing fishery multiplied shipping, such information must have been disquieting. He calculated that while within twenty years back there had been 150 ships for Iceland, 220 for the north seas, and 78 for “Shotland” (Shetland), the numbers had fallen when he wrote to 43 for Iceland, 75 for the north seas, and 9 for Shetland; and that the number of fishing vessels had decreased from 448 to 127.162
In replying to Cecil’s second question as to the cause of the decay in the fisheries, the fishmongers said it was first of all due to the diminished consumption of fish, since the fish-days were not “duly observed as heretofore,” which “took away such hope of gain as in time past they have had” in carryingon the fisheries. A second reason they gave was the greater love “for ease and pleasure” than in former times, people now preferring to buy their fish from strangers rather than to “travail and venture for it themselves,”—a very common charge against Englishmen then and for a long time afterwards. As a third reason, they said the price of fish was regulated in various towns by the mayors and other officers in such a way that they were often forced to sell without sufficient profit, while Government purveyors made them part with their fish at nominal prices. It is to be noted that they made no complaint against foreign fishermen or the importation of foreign fish.
During the brief reign of Mary (1553-1558) Cecil was in the shade, but shortly after the accession of Elizabeth he again devoted attention to the decay of the fisheries and tried to apply fitting remedies. Among the State Papers of the year 1563 is a long and elaborate document, copiously revised by Cecil himself, which deals with the condition of shipping and fisheries, and obviously formed the basis and argument for the great Act made in the same year.163In this paper the decay of the navy both in ships and mariners was traced by Cecil to a variety of causes: the piracies of Turks and Moors on the Levant trade, the transference of the spice trade from the Venetians to the Portuguese and Spaniards, the Spanish law of bottomry, the augmentation by the King of Denmark of the tolls at the Sound and his recovery of Iceland, and the decay of the English fisheries. Herrings and other sea fish, he said, were now taken upon our coast by strangers, who brought them into the realm and sold them “to the very inhabitants of the parts that were used to be fishermen,” while Englishmen had themselves been prohibited from exporting fish.164The remedies which Cecil proposed were that the importation of wines and woad should be allowed only in English ships; that Englishmenshould be prohibited from purchasing fresh herrings which had been caught by strangers; that they should be free to export and sell sea fish out of the realm; and, principally, that Wednesday should be made an additional fish-day. The decay of the fisheries, he said, was manifest on all the sea coast in the decay of the port towns, which soon would be “remedeless,” and it was caused by diminished consumption of fish at home and the want of foreign markets.165On the other hand, Scotland, Norway, Denmark, Friesland, Zealand, Holland, and Flanders caught not only sufficient fish for themselves, but exported it to other countries, including England; while Spain provided herself by her fisheries on the south coast of Ireland, and France “aboundeth with fishermen” from her great fisheries at Newfoundland and Iceland.166Cecil’s conclusion was that there was no likelihood for a long time of developing a flourishing export trade in fish, and that it would be necessary to institute another fish-day to increase the demand at home. On this part of his proposals he entered into a long argument, showing that in 1536 the 500 monasteries which paid tithes to the king, with a minimum number of 25,000 inmates, must have required a great supply of fish, as fish was then eaten on at least seventy-six days a year more than at the time when he wrote.167
By the great Act passed in 1563, “Touching certain Politic Constitutions made for the Maintenance of the Navy,” Wednesday was added to the two fish-days previously enjoined by the statute of Edward VI., but only after long debate and opposition on the part of the “puritans.”168The Act also containedprovisions to restrain foreign importation of fish, to encourage the export of English-caught fish by subjects, and to remove the complaints as to the action of purveyors and burdensome impositions—points on which the fishmongers had laid some stress. Herrings and other sea fish taken by Englishmen in English ships were to be freely exported without paying custom; no tax, toll, or restraint was to be imposed on fish taken and landed by subjects; it was made illegal to buy from strangers any herrings unless they were “sufficiently salted, packed, and casked”; only English vessels were to be allowed to carry coastwise any fish, victuals, or other goods; the cultivation of flax for fishing-nets was to be encouraged; and on the plea that there was “much deceitful packing” of cod and ling brought into the realm by aliens, the importation of these fish was forbidden, except only “loose, in bulk and by tale.” Most of these provisions and prohibitions would operate against the Dutch, who had not only a large part of the trade in herrings with England, but practically the monopoly in supplying barrelled cod and ling.169
From this time forward the policy of protecting the native fisheries by checking the competition of foreigners went hand in hand with the encouragement of the consumption of fish by the compulsory observance of fish-days. Interfering as it did with established practice and conflicting trade interests, the Act aroused opposition in various quarters, especially on the part of those who were interested in the important commerce in cured cod-fish. In the year after it passed, the Queen’s purveyors were unable to obtain in England sufficient supplies of fish for the navy and the royal service, and they were licensed to import cod-fish, lings, and green-cod, in barrels or casks, notwithstanding the prohibition in the Act,170—a privilege which had to be extended to all English subjectsa few years later with respect to fish caught in their own vessels “with cross-sails.”171On the other hand, it was claimed that the Act had done good. The coast people of Norfolk and Suffolk informed the Council in 1568 that it had increased the trade in fish in these counties; and as the Act had been passed for four years only and continued at the Queen’s pleasure, they petitioned that it should be renewed, and that provision should be made to put a stop to the importation by strangers of cod and ling in bulk, which were dried and sold under the name of Iceland fish, to the detriment of those engaged in the Iceland fishery, and also to ensure that fish-days should be better observed.172In the same year the Council instructed the magistrates of London, Hull, and Southampton, and the justices of various shires, to commit to jail any persons fraudulently dealing with foreign imported cod and ling as Iceland fish;173and three years later another Act was passed, giving effect to the wishes of the fishermen, and continuing the former Act for other six years.174It contained a new provision showing that complaints had been made about the vessels, some of them foreign, which came “pretending” to buy fresh herrings on the coast of Norfolk. To avoid “lewd outrages” by these “catches, mongers, and Picardes,” in cutting and damaging the drift-nets of the fishermen, they were prohibited from anchoring between sunset and sunrise during the fishing season in the places where the boats were accustomed to fish.
Up to about this time no complaint seems to have been made against the foreign fishermen either by English fishermen or by statesmen or writers. The men from the Low Countries appear to have pursued their occupation in peace side by side with the Englishmen. But in 1570 the first note was heard of what became later almost a continuous lamentation. A petition was presented to the Privy Council asking that “letters” should be sent to Zealand and Holland, or ships of war despatched to protect the English fishermen from the evil doings of the Low Countrymen. “Otherwise,” the petitioners said, “both wee and all others that entend fysshing in all partes ofthis realme shall be utterly undone, for that the fishermen Flemynges this yeire have so spoyled and mysused all the coaste men, that it hath so discomforted them” that they feared “the whole avoyadaunce of fysshing both for herring and other fysshing upon all the north coast of this realme.”175Whether or not this complaint referred to the outrages described in the Act quoted above is uncertain, but probably it did not, as the Hollanders and Zealanders fished for themselves, and they were now becoming rather numerous. It does not appear that any special action was taken regarding the petition. It was Cecil’s aim to increase the use of fish within the realm and to foster the native fisheries, but he had no desire to interfere with the liberty of fishing enjoyed by the Hollanders. Such action would have been contrary not only to the treaties but to the international policy of England at that time. On political and religious grounds the aid of the Dutch was needful in the struggle against the common enemy, Spain.
That the English people had become interested in the condition of the fisheries and somewhat jealous of the fleets of foreign vessels which fished along their coast may be inferred from the appearance at this time of two works—one by Captain Robert Hitchcock, and the other by the learned and unfortunate Dr John Dee. It is a curious circumstance that those authors, who wrote at the same period, should each have advocated one of the two lines of policy adopted in the next century. Hitchcock was all for freedom of fishing, for strangers and natives alike. His remedy was the creation of a great English fishery organisation to oust the Dutch from our seas. Dee, on the other hand, was emphatic in claimingmare clausumand an exclusive fishing for Englishmen, and in urging heavy taxation of foreigners who fished in the British seas.
Hitchcock was a gentleman and a soldier who, in 1553, as he himself tells us, while serving the Emperor Charles V. in his wars in the Low Countries, had observed with astonishment that the wealth and shipping of Zealand and Holland were due to their sea fisheries. Pondering on his discovery, he thought out a plan some years later by which a great national fishery might be established in England to supplantthe Dutch, so that the wealth acquired by them in the British seas might go to profit his own countrymen. It was the first of the innumerable schemes of the kind which are to be found scattered over the economic literature of the next two centuries. Having reduced his plan to writing, he submitted it about the year 1573 to the Earl of Leicester, in 1575 to Queen Elizabeth, and in the following year he distributed copies to men of influence, in the hope “that God would stir up some good man to set out this work.” It appears even to have been brought to the notice of Parliament by Sir Leonard Digges, but its consideration was deferred “for want of time.”176The copy presented to the Queen is preserved among the Burghley Papers in the British Museum,177and the completed work, somewhat enlarged,—now very rare,—was published (in black-letter) on 1st January 1580 as “A New Year’s Gift to England.”178
The plan of Hitchcock was to borrow £80,000 for three years, when the whole amount would be repaid from the proceeds of the fish sold. The shires were to be arranged in eight groups, each group providing with its £10,000 fifty fishing vessels of not less than 70 tons burthen, or 400 altogether. These were to be built after the manner of “Flemysche Busses” and distributed at eighty ports around the coast; and at eight of the chief ports (London, Yarmouth, Hull, Newcastle, Chester, Bristol, Exeter, and Southampton) two “honest and substantial men of credit” were to be appointed chief officers, to act as treasurers, purveyors, and directors. Hitchcock estimated that each ship when ready for fishing would cost £200; the crews were to consist of a skilled master, twelve mariners or fishermen,and twelve “strong lustie beggers or poore men taken upp through the land.”179The scheme proposed that the busses should first fish for herrings on the coast of England and Ireland during the fourteen or fifteen weeks this fishing lasted, the herrings being cured and branded after the “Flemish” fashion. The busses were also to visit Newfoundland for cod and ling; or some were to go to Iceland, “Wardhouse,”180the north seas of England and Scotland, or to Ireland. It was intended to employ some of them in winter in exporting the surplus of cured fish to France, “or elsewhere.” As for the all-important question of earnings, it was calculated that each buss would catch at least 50 lasts, or 600 barrels, of herrings, worth £10 a last; altogether £200,000 from this item,181and if two voyages were made, the amount would be doubled. It was supposed that each buss would bring back from Newfoundland 20,000 of the best “wet” fish and 10,000 dried—together worth £500; the same value was placed upon the 15,000 cod and 10,000 ling to be procured at Iceland, Wardhouse, or the north seas; and besides the fish, each ship was estimated to return with £50-£60 worth of cod-liver oil. Then with regard to the “vent” or sale of the fish, it was assumed that about half of the herrings, or 120,000 barrels, would be required for home consumption—not an exaggerated idea, for from other accounts it appears that London and the parts around it consumed about this time 60,000 barrels. Markets for the surplus herrings, it was believed, would be found at Normandy, Nantes, Bordeaux, and Rochelle. The profits were to be divided into shares, and besides paying off the borrowed capital and the interest (at 10 per cent), a stock of £8000 was to be formed at the eight chief ports,and £400 at the “225 decayed towns” in England and Wales for the philanthropic purpose of giving work to the poor. Nay, there was more. At the chief ports the surplus earnings were to provide a salary for “an honest, virtuous and learned man,” who was to travel constantly about the coasts preaching to the people, “as the Apostles did.” Among the indirect benefits to the nation Hitchcock included the transformation of idle vagabonds, of whom there were plenty, “daily increasing,” into good subjects—some of the Members of Parliament thought this part of the scheme alone entitled it to national support,—the addition of 9000 mariners for manning the navy, the saving of coin spent on foreign fish, the increase of the Queen’s customs, of commerce and navigation, and the repair of the decayed towns.
Such was the dream of this enthusiastic but thoroughly sincere old soldier: to expel the Hollanders from our seas by means of a national fishery organisation and to win back for England the wealth they gathered from her waters. At the time when he wrote, foreign fishermen were not nearly so numerous on our coasts as they became later. The herring-busses from the Low Countries which fished on the east coast numbered, he says, between 400 and 500, and the Englishmen “for feare of them,” and of tempests, fished in small vessels near the shore, as he shows in a “similitude,” here reproduced (fig. 2). Besides these, between 300 and 400 ships and barks from Biscay, Galicia, and Portugal fished off the south-west coast of Ireland from April to July, “near to Mackertymors country”; and also on the west and north-west coasts of Ireland for cod and ling from about Christmas to March. Hitchcock makes no complaint against the foreign fishermen for fishing in “her Majesty’s seas.” With a fine catholic generosity he indeed expressly says that all men of what country soever should be free to do so; that there was enough fish in the northern seas for all, even if there were 1000 sail more than there was. He believed that the English, by being so much nearer the fishing grounds, ought to be able to undersell the foreigner and get the markets and the trade.182