CHAPTER VI. CHARLES I. FISHERIES AND RESERVED WATERS.

It was during the reign of Charles, into whose hands the sceptre passed in the spring of 1625, that the English pretensions to the sovereignty of the sea attained their most extravagant proportions,—a circumstance which was owing in great measure to the condition of domestic affairs and the king’s assumption of personal government. James had been content to limit his assertion of sovereignty to the question of the rights of fishing and the preservation of the “King’s Chambers” from the hostile acts of belligerents. But Charles, while vigorously pursuing this policy so long as he was able, combined with it the most extreme claims to dominion on the neighbouring seas that had ever been put forward by an English king. The sovereign rights of jurisdiction over the “Sea of England” which were supposed to have been exercised by the early Plantagenets, were now roused from the slumber of centuries and revived in their most aggressive form. The King of England was to be lord of the surrounding seas, and to rule over them as a part of his territory. A beneficent and universal peace was to reign over the waters of the German Ocean and the Channel, unbroken by the sound of an angry shot. No other fleets or men-of-war—be they Spanish, or Dutch, or French—were to be allowed “to keep any guard” there, to offer any violence, to take prize or booty, or to search the merchant vessels of other nations. The blockade of the opposite coasts of the Continent by an enemy’s fleet, as that of Flanders by the Dutch or French, was to be interdicted, because those coasts were washed by the British seas and blockading was a warlike operation. On the other hand the king was to 210 protect the commerce and navigation of his friends and allies. Foreign merchantmen might go on their way in security, undisturbed by fears of pirates or enemies, for “all men trading or sailing within those his Majesty’s seas do justly take themselves to be in pace Domini Regis,”—under the peace of our Lord the King. And as an external symbol and acknowledgment of this absolute dominion, foreign vessels were “to perform their duty and homage” on meeting his Majesty’s ships by striking their flag and lowering their top-sails. If they refused to do so, they were to be attacked and taken or sunk; the vessel was liable to forfeiture as “good prize,” and the offenders carried into port to be tried for their high contempt. Moreover—and it looks but a small thing by comparison,—no foreigners were to be permitted to fish in British waters without first receiving the king’s license so to do, and paying to him a tax in acknowledgment of the permission. In this way Charles hoped to restore the sovereignty of the King of England in the British seas—that “fairest flower of the imperial crown,” as he described it—to “its ancient style and lustre.”

That a scheme so preposterous was seriously entertained and for a time attempted to be realised showed the inherent incapacity of the king for rational government. He was no more able to gauge his strength in relation to foreign Powers than he was to foresee that the contest he had entered into with his own subjects would end in rebellion and the scaffold. It was ridiculous to suppose that other nations would tamely surrender their sovereign rights in the seas off their own coasts and ports, abandon the protection of their commerce and shipping and their rights as belligerents, simply because the King of England wished to be lord of the sea. Had Charles been able to give effect to his selfish and ambitious scheme, he would soon have been confronted with an overwhelming coalition of maritime Powers, to whom the free use of the sea was as necessary as it was to England. As it happened, war was averted by the dexterity of Richelieu and the prudence and patience of the Dutch; and also, it must be added, by the vacillation of Charles himself, who was always trying to arrange some new combination with Continental Governments to carry out the only policy to which he was true—the recovery of the Palatinate for his nephew. 211

It may be supposed that the splendour of the r?le attributed to the early kings of England as lords of the sea, would by itself appeal to the narrow imagination of one so deeply imbued as Charles was with a belief in the divine prerogative of kings; and the dominion of the seas was claimed as peculiarly a prerogative of the crown. But there were other more practical and less exalted inducements. The assumption of the r?le of the Plantagenet kings was intimately related to the state of home affairs and the means taken for the equipment of a fleet. Parliament having refused supply and been dissolved, recourse was ultimately had to the famous ship-money writs, by which it was possible to obtain the necessary ships independently of Parliament, as had been done by the early kings. To declare that these measures were indispensable for the maintenance of the sovereignty of the sea in its ancient style and lustre was well adapted to lessen their unpopularity, if anything could. It was a declaration “exactly calculated for the meridian of England,”394 for the English people in all ages have been prone to maritime glory and willing and anxious to make sacrifices for the sake of the navy, upon which their national safety depends.

It was in connection with the policy of the ship-money writs that the old doctrine of the Plantagenets came again into being. In the writs themselves the very words were copied that Edward III. had used in 1336 in his mandate to the admirals; but some years before they were issued one may trace the growth of the idea. In the period from 1631 to 1633 there was much searching of records with the view of establishing the king’s rights in his seas. Negotiations had been proceeding with Scotland, described below, with reference to a great fishery scheme, and the Scots had been very troublesome and persistent about their “reserved waters,” which the scheme threatened, the “land-kenning,” and the encroachments of the Dutch. They only agreed to give up their exclusive claim to the “reserved waters” for the benefit of the fishery association, provided that Charles would free the Scottish seas of the Hollander busses. In the long series of papers respecting the fishery project, mostly prepared by the indefatigable Secretary Coke, the change referred to may be perceived. In those of 1629 and 1630 there is no 212 suggestion of the sovereignty of the seas, but in 1631 instances become numerous. Coke claims the sea fishings as belonging to the crown; he begins to speak of the king’s “undoubted right of sovereignty in all the seas of his dominions,” and plainly says it will be necessary to exclude foreign fishermen from the British seas once the fishing society is a success. In the next year he goes further. He begins a long and formal document—also on fisheries—in the following words: “The greatnesse and glorie of this Kingdom of Great Britaine consisteth not so much in the extent of his Majesty’s territories by land, as in the souerantie and command of the seas. This command is in peace over trade and fishing: and for warre in the power of his Majesty’s Navie to incounter the sea-forces of anie foren prince.” And he goes on to say that while Spain alone used to oppose it, it was now opposed by France and the Low Countries.395 Still more to the point were the words of Charles himself. A few months after the fishery negotiations with Scotland were concluded, he wrote to the Clerk-Register in Edinburgh saying that, as the fishing business was now completed, he was desirous that it should be known abroad by his neighbours through some “public writing,” and asking him to search the records of the kingdom for authentic evidence to show his rights to the fishings, and to send such evidence to him.396

At this time also the English records were being subjected to search and scrutiny with the same object, but for other reasons. The “homage” of the flag was being hotly enforced in the Channel and disputed by France. Pennington, the Admiral of the Narrow Seas, reported cases in which the French demanded the salute from English merchant vessels, and rumours that it was the intention of the French admirals to wrest the regality of those seas from England on the ground that the Pope had given it to France.397 This news caused Viscount Dorchester—the Sir Dudley Carleton who had represented King James at The Hague, now a peer and Secretary of State—to write to Boswell, Clerk of the Privy Council (soon also to be ambassador at The Hague) for some information, however little, concerning the 213 King’s admiralty in the narrow seas. Boswell sent a few brief notes of little relevancy about the jurisdiction of the admiral and the Cinque Ports; but he added the interesting information that he believed Sir John Boroughs, the Keeper of the Records in the Tower, was able to produce an “original” concerning the first institution of “La Rool d’Oleron” by Edward I., in which the sovereignty of the kings of England in those seas appeared. This, said Boswell, was therefore before the kings of France could pretend to any sovereignty there, having “neither right nor possession of any part, or part of Britany, Normandy, or Aquitaine.”398 This, then, was the famous roll of 26 Edward I. now brought to light, or at least into use in the sphere of practical affairs. The discovery of Boroughs led Nicholas, the Secretary of the Admiralty, to draw up a note about the roll, “by which,” he said, “it is apparent that in those tymes ye soueraignty of those (Narrow) Seas was acknowledged by those princes (of Denmark, Sweden, &c., as mentioned in the roll): and justly, though no man can be said to have ye property of the sea, because a man cannot say this water is myne which runs, yet it is manifest that ye Kings of England have and had ye soueraignty and jurisdiction of those seas; that is, power to give laws and redresse injuries done on the same.”399

The germ of the new pretension of Charles to play the part of Plantagenet on the adjoining seas appears to have been this disclosing by Boroughs of the ancient roll. All the later writers on the English side of the controversy about mare clausum and mare liberum, as Selden, Coke, Prynne, as well as Boroughs himself, laid great stress on it.

It was, however, as we have already hinted, in connection with the fisheries that Charles’s first actions were concerned. He earnestly believed in the common opinion of the age that sea fisheries formed a principal means of developing commerce and navigation and maintaining a powerful navy, and early in his reign, before the new idea of maritime sovereignty dawned upon his mind, he did what he could to promote and foster them. The old laws for the preservation of the spawn and brood of fish, which had fallen into disuse, were put into force; proclamations appeared prohibiting wasteful fishing; a vigorous 214 effort was made to suppress the use of injurious appliances; the strict observance of Lent was repeatedly enjoined. But what proved most attractive was the notion which had haunted men’s minds since the time of the Great Queen, and had always eluded realisation. Charles became convinced that the formation of a grand national fishery association would wrest from the Dutch their predominance in the fisheries, drive their busses from our seas, and transfer to the English people the herring-fishing, with all the blessings which flowed from it—commerce, wealth, and maritime power. The last attempt which had been made in this direction, in 1623, had, as we saw, signally failed, the Lord Mayor and the opulent aldermen of London “absolutely refusing” to have anything to do with it. The scheme was now, however, to be launched by the king himself, who undertook to favour it with important privileges and immunities, and intended at a suitable time to aid it by prohibiting foreigners from fishing on the British coasts.

Shortly after Charles began to reign, the old proposals to tax the Dutch were renewed. In 1626 a petition was presented to the House of Commons praying that a duty of 10 per cent might be laid upon all Dutch or foreign ships fishing in the narrow seas; with what result the records are silent. Two years later the proposal got a step further, for in 1628 a Bill was drafted to empower the king to levy two shillings in the pound on all herrings or fish exported in foreign vessels, and the tenth of the fish taken by foreigners in the British seas, the revenue so obtained to be employed for the king’s use. The latter suggestion looks almost satirical in view of the failure of the many attempts of James to get revenue from that source, and in the midst, too, of the squabbles then occurring between Charles and the Parliament, which refused supplies and was abruptly prorogued; especially as the House “humbly beseeched” him, “in recompense of the great sums which your Commons have thus cheerfully granted,” “yearly to provide and maintain a strong fleet of able ships upon the Narrow Seas.”400

The original plan of the new fishery association was drawn 215 up by Secretary Coke and was submitted to a meeting held at Suffolk House on 29th November 1629. The two main points for consideration were: how they should obtain command of the fishery and be able to supply both themselves and foreign people, and how to find a “vent” for the fish taken and encourage merchants to purchase and export them. With regard to the first point, Coke said that to command and govern the whole fishing so as to make it a foundation of wealth to the kingdom, “equal to the Indies,” as it was then to the Hollanders, would require not fewer than 1000 busses, the cost of which would exceed ￡800,000. This, he admitted, would be a work of time, and he proposed, for a beginning, that timber should be felled in England, Scotland, and Ireland so as to be seasoned for the construction of 200 busses in the following year—40 in Scotland, 40 in Ireland, and 120 in England. Meanwhile, for the year beginning in January 1630, he recommended that ten or twelve busses should be bought in Holland, six Dutchmen to serve in each for the year; and that the necessary salt and timber for casks for curing the herrings should be got at Dunkirk from the prizes taken from the Dutch. As the cost of ten new busses built in England, fully equipped, would amount to ￡8390, including the cost of maintenance for four months, the plan suggested would be the best, and it was proposed to raise the money required by the “contributions of such adventurers as may be persuaded upon hope of the gains and by privileges from his Majesty.” It was intended that the busses should fish along with the Dutch on the east coast, beginning like them at Bressay Sound, Shetland, on 23rd June, and the herrings were to be put ashore to be repacked, after the Dutch method, at Aberdeen, Tynemouth, and Yarmouth. Supplementary to the busses, it was proposed to have six “doggers” to fish for cod and ling at Orkney and Shetland in the spring.

With respect to the second head, the prospect of obtaining markets for the produce, Coke said that English fishermen did not catch above 2000 lasts of herrings in a year, of which not more than 1000 lasts were consumed in England;401 and he 216 calculated that the ten busses would catch another thousand lasts, which he thought might be mostly exported to Prussia and along the German coast. The first step in carrying out the scheme was to form a company to raise a capital of about ￡11,000 or ￡12,000, and a committee was appointed for the purpose.402

Coke’s scheme, which, like all the others, was based upon a close imitation of the Dutch system, met with great favour from the king and the court. Further consideration, moreover, led the promoters to believe that the success of the enterprise would be increased if operations were also undertaken at the Lewes instead of being confined to the east coast, and various schemes were propounded with this end in view. The suggestion appears to have emanated from Captain John Mason, and it was made at a time when the island was a bone of contention between the royal burghs of Scotland and the Earl of Seaforth, who had obtained from the king a charter to “erect” Stornoway into a royal burgh.403 The burghs strenuously resisted the confirmation of this charter and refused to give effect to it, all the more since Seaforth had settled at Stornoway a number of Dutch people who were engaged in the fisheries there. From an interesting report by a Captain John Dymes, who visited Lewis in 1630 at the request of certain members of the Privy Council, and apparently in the interest of the proposed fishery society, we learn that the Dutch had been fishing there with great success. Their four busses, each with twenty-five nets and a crew of sixteen men, caught 300 lasts of herrings in three months, which were sold at Dantzic for 400 guilders or about ￡38 a last, which Dymes calculated would total ￡11,400, showing, after charges had been met, a gain for the 217 three months’ work of ￡7500.404 The Scottish burghs protested against the introduction of the Hollanders, which they said would ruin the whole trade and navigation of the kingdom and completely destroy the native fisheries. They petitioned the Privy Council to restrain strangers from resorting to the North and West Isles, pointing out that from the numbers of the Hollanders, their numerous ships and great commerce, they would draw the whole trade of the country into their hands, as they had done everywhere they had gone; and in a petition to the king they accused them of “great oppressions” in the Isles and on the coasts of the kingdom, and declared that by a “pretendit libertie obtenit of his father” they were “the over-throwes of the haill fischeing of this cuntry.”405

Mr John Hay, the Town-Clerk of Edinburgh, was despatched to London to the king, to ask that the country might be freed of the objectionable Hollanders and the Seaforth charter withdrawn; and to declare that the Scottish burghs would themselves undertake the whole of the fishings at the Lewes and erect a burgh there. Secretary Coke, full of the fishery scheme, took advantage of Hay’s presence to obtain from him a detailed account of Lewis and its fisheries, and of the Dutch fishings on the coast of Scotland, which, it was said, sometimes employed a fleet of 3000 busses; and from the information acquired an “estimate of the charge of a fishing to be established in the island of Lewes in Scotland” was prepared. This document showed that ten Scottish fisher-boats, of from twenty-five to thirty tons each, might be bought for ￡1200, and other ten boats, of twelve to fourteen tons, for a proportionately smaller sum. Each of the large boats was to be equipped with 120 nets of twenty yards in length, and the smaller boats with forty nets of the same dimensions; and it was calculated that 218 with a stock of ￡6743, 6s. 8d. a clear profit of ￡18,270 might be earned in one year.

This alluring prospect was no doubt encouraging to Coke and his friends; but he learned from Hay some further information which must have been disquieting. He was told that the Scottish people would not permit any foreigners to fish within twenty-eight miles of their coast, or within the lochs, the fishings there being reserved for the natives; that by the laws of Scotland any stranger found fishing within these limits was liable to confiscation of goods and loss of life, citing as an example the story of the barbarous treatment by James V. of the Dutch fishermen who had transgressed the “reserved waters” by fishing in the Firth of Forth.406 This point about the reserved waters was indeed the main difficulty which soon confronted the fishery scheme. To be successful, the fishing must be carried on along the Scottish coast and at the Isles, for it was there the great shoals of herrings resorted, but the objections of the Scottish Parliament, Council, and burghs had first to be overcome.407

The first important step was a declaration by the king of his intentions. On 12th July he wrote to the Privy Council of Scotland, laying before them his scheme for a great fishery association. With the advice of his Privy Council in England, he said, he had maturely considered that “als weill in thankfulnesse to Almighty God as for the benefite of all our loving subjects we ought no longer to neglect that great blessing offered unto us in the great abundance of fishe upon all the coasts of these Yllands. To the end we may at lenth injoy with more honnour these rights whiche properlie belong to our imperiall crowne and ar vsurped by strangers, We have considered of a way whiche in tyme by God’s favour may produce this good effect and also increasse our navigatioun and trade. And becaus this worke concerneth equallie all our three Kingdomes and must thairfoir be vndertakin and ordered by commoun counsell and assistance,” he had taken the opportunity of a meeting of the Scottish Parliament to send his 219 “instructions” on the subject by his Secretary for Scotland, Sir William Alexander.408

In his instructions the king, after a preamble reciting the abundance of fish on our coasts, the benefit which was reaped by strangers, “to the great disparagement and prejudice” of his loving subjects, declared his “firm resolution” to set up a “commoun fishing to be a nurserie of seamen and to increase the shipping and trade in all parts of his dominions,” and added—what must have been unwelcome news to the Scottish burghs and people—that as it was to be a “common benefit” to all the three kingdoms, so it could not be “dividedly enjoyed” by any one nation in particular. The Council were enjoined to take the matter into serious consideration, and to give their advice and assistance in bringing it to a successful issue; and as it was necessary to raise a “great stock” from adventurers, who would not be drawn into the scheme except by hope of great and immediate gains, an estimate of the outlays and profits was submitted to the Council, showing that 200 busses would earn a clear profit of ￡165,414 in a single year, after paying all costs.409 220

Sir William Alexander was also requested to ascertain how many busses and how much money might be contributed in Scotland, and he was to urge the Council to confer on the subject with the nobility and gentry, and especially with the burghs. Moreover, as it was not thought to be feasible to manage the whole project by one common joint-stock, the king advised that subsidiary companies should be formed in the principal town or burgh of each province, to be related to one central body or corporation. No foreigners were to be admitted as members of the company, although they might be employed as servants. All the adventurers, whether English, Irish, or Scottish, were to be allowed to fish freely “in all places and at all times”; and the king signified that as the Lewes was “the most proper seate for a continuall fishing along the westerne coasts,” it was his resolve to take it from the Earl of Seaforth into his own hands, as “adherent” to the crown, and to erect one or more free burghs in the Isles. If difficulties arose in the acceptance of the scheme, the Lords of Council were to be asked to appoint commissioners to treat with those he would nominate to act on behalf of England and Ireland.

The king’s proposals were brought before the Scottish Parliament on 29th July 1630, and remitted to a large committee to report upon them.410 They were ill-received in Scotland. The free burghs in particular opposed the scheme with great energy. They had brought about the withdrawal of the charter obtained by the Earl of Seaforth, and were negotiating among themselves for the formation of a company to carry on the fishing at the Lewes and establish a free burgh there. But the charter of the Highland Earl was a small thing to the scheme of the king. They saw in it an invasion of their special rights and privileges in trading and fish-curing, which had been conferred on them and confirmed by many Acts of Parliament, not merely at the Lewes but throughout the country. The “reserved waters,” moreover, 221 sacredly preserved for the industry and sustenance of their own people, were to be thrown open to Englishmen and Irish, whereby the nation would suffer greatly.411

On 9th August a statement was drawn up by the Convention and circulated to all the burghs, in which their opinion was asked as to whether any association with England in the fishings was expedient; whether the English should be suffered to “plant” or settle in any part of the Isles; whether, if the burghs undertook the fishing themselves, they should allow the nobility and gentry to “stock” with them, and if so on what conditions; and if not, whether the burghs should undertake it themselves by a company or by burgesses, and what sums might be subscribed for an exclusive company. On the following day it was complained in the Convention that, though the king had cancelled the patent to the Earl of Seaforth, the “Flemings” still remained in the Lewes; and the burghs thereupon decided that as the Privy Council had appointed commissioners from each of the Estates of Parliament to treat on the king’s proposals, their own commissioner, Mr John Hay, should be empowered to deal with the king in order to have the “Flemings” removed and the fishing “devolvit in thair hands”; to “stay” the proposed association with the English, or the plantation of strangers at any part of the kingdom where fishing was carried on; and to cause the “Flemings” to forbear from fishing on the Scottish coasts, “or not to cum neirer to the schoire of anie pairt of this kingdome than ane land kenning of the said schoire.”

Meantime a smaller committee which had been appointed 222 by Parliament, no doubt under the inspiration of the opposition of the burghs, reported against the association with England in the fishings. Such a course, they said, would be “verie inconvenient to the estait; and tuiching the land fishing, whilk consists in fishing within loches and yles and twenty aucht myles frome the land, and whilk is proper to the natives, and whairof they have been in continuall possessioun and neuer interrupted thairin be the Hollanders,”—a statement inconsistent with the frequent complaints made by the burghs in the reign of James. The burghs, they said, were able and content to undertake the “said land fishing” by themselves, without “communicating” therein with any other nation; and as for the buss-fishing, to which the king’s proposals specially referred, they stated that the season for it that year was passed, and that as it was a matter of great importance, it required time for consideration. The burghs reported to Parliament in the same sense.412

Thus Charles, in endeavouring to carry out his laudable desire to create a great national fishery to oust the Hollander from his seas, had suddenly raised against him a Scottish claim of mare clausum, which he found very provoking. Not only did the Scottish Parliament declare that a great extent of the sea around Scotland pertained exclusively to the natives so far as concerned fishing, but they coupled this with the request that the king should exclude foreigners from fishing within that area. It must be said that, apart altogether 223 from the unwritten law as to the “reserved” waters pertaining to Scotland, the Scottish people had some ground of complaint against the king for his sudden proposal to open up the whole of their seas and lochs to the English; for it was well known that in the Draft Treaty of union which James had caused to be prepared in 1604, and which would also have conferred important privileges on Scotland in matters of trade, words had been inserted reserving to each nation the fishings within all lochs, firths, and bays within land and up to a distance of fourteen miles from the coast. This treaty was drawn up by commissioners appointed by the respective Parliaments, the most active of whom were Secretary Lord Cecil (afterwards Earl of Salisbury) and the illustrious Sir Francis (afterwards Lord) Bacon on the English side, and Lord President Fyvie and Sir Thomas Hamilton (later Earls of Dunfermline and Haddington) on the part of the Scots. It was signed by thirty-nine of the forty-four English and by twenty-eight of the thirty Scottish commissioners; it was approved by the king and adopted by the Scottish Parliament, and it was thus an instrument of high authority with respect to the delimitation of the waters of exclusive fishing. The clause in the treaty dealing with freedom of commerce contained the reservation referred to, which was as follows: “Exceptand also and reserveand to Scottishmen thair trade of fisheing within thair loches, ffirthis, and bayis within land, and in the seas within fourtene mylis of the costis of the realme of Scotland, wheir nather Englishmen nor ony stranger or forinaris haue use to fishe, and soe reciprocally in the point of fisheing on the behalfe of England.”

Unfortunately, the treaty was never ratified by the English Parliament, and therefore did not come into force. But the objection of the English members was not in the least degree founded upon the reservation of fishing rights, but upon the nationalisation clauses, which caused them to dread the influx of an army of “hungry Scots” into England, Scotsmen being at the time very unpopular in London.413 224

The stipulation in the treaty of 1604 was now brought to mind in the negotiations on Charles’s fishing scheme. These negotiations, which were carried on for more than two years, were conducted on the part of Scotland with an ingenuity and refinement of procrastination scarcely surpassed by the Dutch in the previous reign.

After the report above mentioned, a large committee was appointed to discuss the business with the English authorities, and to report to the meeting of Parliament in November. Accordingly, on 3rd November the committee submitted the report of their proceedings with the English commissioners, which was signed by the Earl of Monteith, the President of the Council. They understood, they said, that the general fishing proposed by the king referred only to those fishings of which the benefit was exclusively reaped by strangers (that is to say, to deep-sea buss-fishing), and did not in any way touch the fishings which were enjoyed by the natives of any of the three kingdoms, so that the laws and freedom of every kingdom might be preserved, as indeed was “contained in the said instructions.” It was therefore necessary, they said, in the first place, that such fishings “in everie kingdom whiche ar onely injoyed be the natives be made known,” and that it should be clearly determined what those fishings were which were called “common benefits” that could not be “dividedly enjoyed.” With their eyes probably on the fate of the nationalisation clauses in the Draft Treaty of 1604, they declared it to be desirable that Scottish adventurers in the proposed association should be naturalised in England; and with reference to the commodities brought back for exported fish, they said it was necessary to inquire how the return for the fishes exported out of each kingdom should be made to the kingdom in which they were actually taken. As to founding a burgh in the Lewes, that, they said, would be an infraction of the rights of the existing burghs.

The reply of the English commissioners was somewhat vague 225 and general. It was, however, made clear that the king’s intention was that every member, or “brother,” of the company should be free to fish “in places near and remote, where common fishing is, or may be, used by any of his people,” this “mutual participation being the bond of union and sole means to recover his Majesty’s right and power at sea, and to enrich all his subjects, and those chiefly where the greatest fishings are.” On the other points they said, in effect, that the king would do what was best.

A letter from the king to the Parliament was also read, expressing his desire that the business should be advanced, as it would be “a worke of great consequence for the generall good of our whole kingdome, and more particularlie for the benefite of that our ancient kingdome” by the improvement of its trade and shipping. So anxious was Charles for the success of his enterprise, that he added a postscript in his own hand, in which he said: “This is a worke of so great good to both my kingdomes that I have thought good by these few lynes of my owne hand seriouslie to recommend it unto yow. The furthering or hindering of whiche will ather oblige me or disoblige me more then anie one business that hes happened in my tyme.” He also sent a letter to the burghs to mollify them, saying that it was in no ways intended that they should be wronged in their ancient privileges or benefits; and he requested Parliament to appoint commissioners charged with absolute powers to settle the matter with the English commissioners, so that there should not be undue delay.414

The Parliament thereupon appointed commissioners, on 11th November 1630, to treat with those of England.415 Nominally they were given full powers to treat, but their instructions, dated 23rd December, were so detailed and remarkable that it must have been obvious to every one that rapid progress was not intended. Nothing was to be done prejudicial or derogatory to the liberties and privileges of the kingdom, the crown, 226 or the laws of Scotland; special care was to be taken that the natives of Scotland were to be preferred in the choice of the best places for establishing “magazines” for the fishery, and that the places appointed for the English should be such as would not prejudice the “land fishing” of the Scotch; the Scottish members of the association were to have the same privileges and immunities, with power to erect magazines, in England and Ireland; English members who settled in Scotland were to be debarred from fishing in the reserved waters, or from buying fish from the natives, except for their own sustenance, as well as from any trade or commerce, unless for the same purpose; they were to be prohibited from importing or exporting commodities except fishes taken by their own vessels, and they were to pay customs and other duties for the fish they cured in Scotland and exported—and many other conditions were laid down which showed how little the Parliament had been moved by the personal appeal of the king.416

With respect to the fundamental question, the limits of the territorial seas pertaining to Scotland, the demands of the Parliament went much further than any previous claim. The old principle of division by the mid-line, which was held by some lawyers in the reign of Elizabeth, was now put forward. The commissioners were instructed to take care that a clause was inserted in the treaty to make it clear, “that the seas foreanent the coasts of this kingdome and about the Yles thairof and all that is interjected betuix thame and that mid-lyne in the seas whilk is equallie distant and divyding frome the opposite land, ar the Scotish Seas properlie belonging to the crowne of Scotland, and that the English hes no right nor libertie to fishe thairin, nor in no part thairof, bot be vertew of the association and not otherwayes.” But while these were the Scottish seas ideally regarded, English members of the 227 association were to be permitted to fish in them, except in the waters which were reserved to the Scottish people in the Draft Treaty of union of 1604—namely, bays, firths, and lochs within land, and a belt of fourteen miles along the coast. These waters were to be strictly preserved for the native fishermen.417

The instructions which the burghs gave to their representative, Mr John Hay, although less ample, were equally to the point. He was to agree to the proposal for the establishment of an English settlement at the Lewes, provided they did not fish in the reserved waters, and had no magazines or settlements in any of the other West or North Isles, or north of Buchan Ness or Cromarty, and not at Aberdeen if they wished any south of Buchan Ness; and the burghs were also to have the right to establish colonies at the Lewes. In “retribution,” as they said, for these privileges to be granted to the English in Scotland, they required the “liberty” of the pilchard-fishing in England and Ireland, with equal privileges regarding it. The king was also to remove the “Flemings” from the Isles, and to prohibit them and all other strangers from fishing within a “land-kenning” (that is, within a distance at which the land was visible from the sea), and power was to be conferred upon the burghs, with the assistance of the Sheriffs and other officers to prevent their fishing nearer. “Hamburgers, Bremeners,” and all other strangers, were also to be removed furth of Shetland, Orkney, Caithness, and other places.418

A week or two before the Scottish commissioners were selected, Charles issued a commission appointing Lord Weston (High Treasurer of England), the Earl of Arundel and Surrey (Earl Marshal), the Earl of Pembroke (Lord Chamberlain), the Earl of Suffolk (Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports), and eight others as commissioners on behalf of England and Ireland.419 His object, he said, was to establish a “common” fishing, both to be a nursery of seamen and for the increase of navigation, 228 and “to make the store of fish of all kinds, being a necessary food for the people on fish-days, to be had at reasonable prices, and the overplus thereof to be a principal addition to the staple commodities of our kingdom for the increase of trade.” In order that this common fishing might be extended and freely exercised in “all places by his subjects of each of the three kingdoms,” he appointed them “with full power and authority to confer severally and jointly, and to consider, treat, propose, determine and conclude what they concurrently found fit and expedient for the ordering, establishing, and advancing of the said common fishing.” Power was also given to them to call for any of the records in the Tower or elsewhere which might bear upon their labours.

The commissioners from both countries met early in 1631. In March the Privy Council of Scotland received a report from the Scottish commissioners in London, stating that several meetings with the English commissioners had been held, and that the extent of the waters proposed to be reserved “was thought too much,” unless it could be shown that “the intention was only to reserve so much without which the natives could not subsist, and not to hinder the good public work,” and they craved full and particular instructions on this point. The Privy Council at once summoned the Lord Provost and Bailies of Edinburgh before them to furnish the information required, but they replied that it was a subject which concerned all the burghs, and that time must be given to consult them. After some further delay the burghs submitted an elaborate and interesting report to the Council on 21st April, in which, after citing the clause in the Draft Treaty of union, they proceeded to define the bounds of the waters “without the whiche the countrie can not subsist,” and “whiche trewlie is the bounds whairupon if anie stranger sall resort this countrie sall suffer utter ruine.” These bounds were as follows:—

“Vpon the east side of Scotland, frome Sanct Tabsheid [St Abb’s Head] in the shiredom of Beruick directlie north to the Reidhead in Angus whiche comprehends the coast of the Merce, Lothiane, the Firth, Fyfe and ane part of the coast of Angus, and 14 myles without the course frome the said Sanct Tabsheid to the Reidhead. Frome the Reidhead north north-east alongs the coast of Angus, Mernes, Mar and Buchan to Buchannesse, northwards and be north to Dungisbeyheid 229 [Duncansby Head] in Caithnes, comprehending thairin the coast of Bamf and Murrey upon the south side, Murrey firth and the coast of Rosse, Sutherland and ane part of Caithnes vpon the north, and fourtene myles without the course frome the said Buchannesse to the said Dungisbiehead, and frome the same Dungsbie in Caithnes west alongs the coast of Caithnes and Strathnauer to Farrayheid in Stranauer [Cape Wrath], and fourteine myles aff the said coast, with fourtene myles round about the yles of Orkney and Yetland. Frome the Farrayheid alongs the coast of Stranauer to the head of Stoir of Assint [Stoir Head] and 14 myles aff the said coast, and frome the said heid of Stoir Assint directlie west north-west to the eastmost point of the yle of the Lewes, comprehending thairin the haill seas interjected betuixt the said heid of Stoir of Assint and eastmost point of the said yle of the Lewes, with all the yles and loches within the same, and 14 myles without the course frome the said heid of the Stoir of Assint to the said east point of the Lewes; frome the said eastmost point of the Lewes south about the haill yles of the Lewes to the westmost part of Barra, and 14 myles without the samine; frome the said westmost part of Barra n-west, south, south-east to southmost part of the yle of Yla [Islay], frome the said southmost part of yla south-east to the mull of Kintyre, frome the said mull of Kintyre n-west, south-east, to the mull of Gallouay: Whiche bounds frome the said heid of Stoir Assint west north-west to the eastmost point of the Lewes and frome thence south to Bara be Yla, and mull of Kintyre to the mull of Gallouay, comprehends the haill west yles and loches within the samine with the loches vpon the mayne of Stranauer, Tarbet, Lochaber, Kintyre, Argyle, Renfrew, Cuninghame, Kyle, Carrick, Gallouay, Quhithorne; alongs the coast of Gallouay eastward to Solloway [Solway] sands and 14 myles aff the said coast. Quhilk bounds above designed being so necessar both for the haill lieges living vpon the saids coasts and yles, as if these sould be exhausted be strangers of fishes, they sould be depryved of all benefite of living and so be tyme bring ane vtter desolatioun vpon the land, as lykeways so necessar for ws of the borrowes [burghs] as without the said fishing the most part of our inhabitants sould be brought to extreem miserie. Quhairfoir we of the burrowes doe humbelie beseeke your Lordships to recommend the bounds abone designed to the saids commissioners in suche maner as they give not way that strangers be permitted to fishe within the saids bounds vpon anie conditioune.”420 230

A glance at the accompanying chart, indicating the boundary of the “reserved” waters as claimed by the burghs, will show how large an extent of the neighbouring seas was considered to be necessary for the subsistence of the people. Not only were all the great firths included, and the waters of the Minch and within the Isles, but it will be observed that the fourteen-mile limit around a very great part of the coast was drawn, not from the shore, but from an ideal straight line uniting the headlands.

When this report from the burghs was submitted to the Privy Council, they professed to find it “to be of too large an extent”; and they therefore, as they said, “out of their desire to his Majesty’s contentment and for the advancement of the great work,” proceeded to “retrench and restrict the universality of the exceptions” made by the burghs. The true spirit of the Council was, however, shown by the fact that their alternative scheme was practically the same. They rearranged the description of the lines at the Orkneys and Shetlands without diminishing the extent of the enclosed sea, and they carried the boundary down the east instead of the west side of the Hebrides, and so on to Islay. They thus reduced the area of the waters proposed to be reserved by omitting only the strip of fourteen miles to the west of the Hebrides. The Council declared that they had reserved an area of fourteen miles off such coasts as were well peopled, and where the inhabitants lived mostly by fishing, and could not possibly subsist and pay their rents and duties without it. They also stated that if a buss-fishing had been established in Scotland,421 the fishing would have been reserved for the use and benefit of the country people, “seeing it cannot be qualified that ever any Hollanders or other strangers fished in these waters.”

In transmitting the two schemes to the commissioners in London, on 31st April 1631, the Council observed that at first the burghs had “stood very punctually” on the instructions at first issued to the commissioners, saying there was no need to particularise the reserved waters, since they had been included in the Act of union, but that they had been persuaded to abandon this attitude and condescend to particulars. If this was not a stroke of Scotch humour, it would indicate that the 231 232 measurement of the fourteen miles mentioned in the Draft Treaty was to be understood as expressed in the report of the burghs.422

Fig. 9.—Showing the limits of the “Reserved Waters” claimed by Scotland.

This kind of zeal for the “great work” on the part of the Scottish Council and burghs was naturally displeasing to the king and the English commissioners. Coke fumed at the obstacles raised by the Scottish commissioners against the realisation of his pet scheme. They disclaim not the name of association, he said, but they decline the only way of establishing it; we propound a government, and they say their laws are against it; we desire freedom to fish in all places where, by his Majesty’s license, it may be lawfully granted to us, and they reply by the “reserved waters” which “would leave no more scope to the company than strangers now enjoy.” Nay, they even propound a further limitation, and request that bounds may now be set to the seas of England and Scotland; “which debates,” he adds, “tending to division, we labour to avoid.” At this time the minds of English statesmen had not yet become saturated with lofty ideas of the king’s sovereign prerogative in his seas, and Coke did not then, as he did a little later, make use of high arguments of that kind. But he believed that the opposition of Scotland would be prejudicial to the scheme, and that further negotiations would be vain; and he proposed that an English company should be formed without waiting for the concurrence of Scotland.423 But Charles was more patient. In June he again sent Sir William Alexander, the Secretary for Scotland, to Edinburgh, and despatched a letter to the burghs assuring them that he would be careful to preserve their privileges and liberties, and another to the Privy Council in which he expressed his astonishment that they had reserved so many places, and likewise “fyftene myles [sic] within the sea distant frome everie shoarr, where it would seeme expedient 233 that these of the association for this generall fishing, as they have libertie to land in any place, paying the ordinarie dewteis, sould lykewayes be free to fish where ever they ar to passe.” He plainly told the Council that while he was willing to reserve for the natives all such fishings without which they could not well subsist, and which they of themselves “have and doe fullie fishe,” he would not allow anything to be reserved which might hinder the general work which was so important for all the kingdoms; and he enjoined them to give their best attention to everything that would conduce to the accomplishment of his desire. In a later letter to the President of the Council, Charles expressed his fears that if the places proposed were reserved the great business of the fishing would be put in hazard.424 On receipt of the king’s letter, the Council, on 28th July, summoned before them the representatives of the burghs, who on being asked if they were yet resolved on their answer, said they were not; they were thereupon requested to consider the matter and to report at the meeting on 21st September.

The resolute attitude of the king was not without its effect. The burghs now modified their demands, but they still declared that it was necessary to reserve the “Firth of Lothian” within a line between St Abb’s Head and Red Head; the Moray Firth within a line between Buchan Ness and Duncansby Head; the Firth of Clyde between the Mulls of Galloway and Cantyre, and also the waters within fourteen miles along the coast between Red Head and Buchan Ness. They further desired that a space of fourteen miles outside the boundary lines of the Firths should be reserved, but on this point they stated their willingness to submit themselves to the king.425

The modified proposals of the burghs were submitted to the Privy Council on 22nd September by certain noblemen, gentry, and commissioners of the burghs, and an additional reason for reserving the fourteen miles along the coast between Red Head and Buchan Ness was now brought forward. If this space were opened to buss-fishing, it would, they said, ruin the salmon-fishings 234 of the Dee, Don, Ythan, and the two Esks, “to the great prejudice of the whole kingdom.” The question of the reserved waters at the Isles and on the west coast had not been dealt with by the burghs, and the Council asked them to report on these. The burghs thereupon modified their original demands, specifying certain places that should be reserved, where the fishings had been continually carried on by Scottish fishermen and merchants, who were able, they said, to undertake and fish the same “to the full,” and within which no stranger had ever been admitted to fish. These places were as follows: (1) all lochs on the mainland between Farryhead (Cape Wrath) and the Kyle, together with Loch Hourn on the south side of Kyle; (2) the east side of Lewes, Uist, Barra, and “Muggersland” (? Mull), and the lochs of the same, together with the Broad Loch and the “Bybleheid” on the north-east part of the Lewes; (3) “Lochusherd” (? Loch Eishort) in Skye; (4) between the islands and the mainland, from “Farayhead” to the north-east point of Lewis, and for fourteen miles without the line between them it was “absolutely necessary,” for the good of the fishings in the lochs above mentioned, that no buss-fishing should be permitted. All the salmon-fishings were to be wholly reserved for the natives, and the burghs expressed the wish that fourteen miles around the Orkneys and Shetlands should also be reserved, but they referred this to the king. The question of the remaining lochs on the mainland between the Kyle and the Mull of Cantyre, and of the waters on the “backside” of Lewis, Uist, Barra, “Muggersland,” and Skye, except those previously mentioned, was to be “remitted” to the king’s consideration.426

The Council forwarded these propositions to London, and the burghs instructed their own commissioner in a like sense, but with an important qualification as to the Hollanders fishing on the coast of Scotland. The king was to be informed of the great oppressions and wrongs suffered by his subjects from the encroachment of the Dutch on the seas and coasts of the kingdom, at Shetland and Orkney, and lately at the Lewes. If these encroachments were allowed to continue, the burghs declared that the rich fishings would be made quite unprofitable, and they appealed to the king “to free the seas of Scotland and the Isles of the busses of the said Northlands (Netherlands),” 235 and of other strangers, from Hamburg and Bremen, resorting to Orkney and Shetland. At the very least, they said, he ought to free the seas of the Dutch busses or fishing-boats “for the space of twenty-eight or fourteen miles, and to discharge them to have any fishing near the coasts of the said mainland or isles.” If the king would do this, the burghs promised to further to the utmost of their power “his Majesty’s most royal work of fishing,” to supply the proportional number of busses that might fall to their part, and to consent that liberty should be granted to Englishmen and Irishmen to fish in all the waters around Scotland, except the Firths of Lothian, Moray, and Clyde, and those reserved for salmon-fishing; but they would only agree to this on the condition stated and not otherwise. They also asked that the buss-fishing should not be allowed at the Lewes, that it should begin on the east coast on 24th June and the fishing at the Isles on 1st September, and that they should receive equal liberty to fish in the seas of England and Ireland for pilchards and white fish.427

In the debates between the Scottish and English commissioners in London, at most of which the king was present,428 Coke exerted himself to reconcile the differences that existed. He adroitly pointed out that, as the complaints from Scotland showed, strangers now possessed their fishings, and said they would be able to oust them only by degrees and by making the most of the natural advantages on the sea which both nations had. And while claiming that all the fisheries in the British seas (and even in America) belonged to the crown, and that there could not therefore be, strictly considered, any right to “reserve” certain of them, still the king, by the undoubted right of sovereignty he had in all his seas, had power to give license of fishing within them, either to subjects or foreigners as he might think fit, and by his royal prerogative alone he could establish the proposed company “whereby all his subjects which are brethren thereof may enjoy that fishing by right which strangers have by usurpation in our seas.”429 By this time the Scottish commissioners were becoming reconciled 236 to the proposal of forming the society on very much the original plan, and their opposition, perhaps partly from the presence of Charles at the conferences, was beginning to give way. They had been told, too, in answer to some of their objections, that while it was the king’s intention to maintain existing rights, all their liberties depended wholly upon the king’s grace, and he had expressed his purpose that his Council in both kingdoms should advise them in anything that required further consideration. It was much to be desired, they were told, that his Majesty’s clear intentions should prevail with them as they had done with the English commissioners, not to question, but to advance and settle so needful a work.430

Charles himself came forward to help them with an alternative plan to that of the “reserved waters.” The ground upon which the claim to the latter was based had gradually shifted. The initial argument that the surrounding seas pertained to Scotland as an independent kingdom—that they were the “seas of Scotland”—had been disposed of by the declaration that the right to the sea and to its fisheries was a prerogative of the crown; and it could not be denied that though no union of the kingdoms had taken place, there certainly had been union of the crowns. The question of the prerogative was a thorny one, which the Scottish commissioners had to avoid; and the claim to the reserved waters was now made solely on behalf of the poor inhabitants of certain parts of the coast, who subsisted mainly by their fishing in the sea, and would, it was said, be reduced to poverty and indigence unless these waters were reserved for their exclusive use. To meet this objection, Coke proposed a resolution at one of the meetings that the king should be asked to lay down a regulation to guard against interference with the poor fishermen at the places where the fishing of the company would be carried on, and at the next meeting a draft in the king’s handwriting, perhaps laid on the table by Charles himself, was read as follows: “The English commissioners desire to take away all showes of wordes that may show diffidence between the two nations, and hauing heard that the Scots commissioners are to desire some places to be reserved from the company or association, it is conceived this to be the fitter way:—That 237 instead of those reservations, that the association should appoint the same fishermen that now fishe in them, [so that they] may continue as particular company of the said association, and to be subject [to] the law of the same, and are willing that no others should fish in those places, [unless] it be found upon examination that those places may admit more fishermen than those that now fish in them, and in that case the great committee of the association shall add such to them as they shall think fit, desiring them always to remember that the said committee is compounded equally of both nations.”431 The king’s proposition was in keeping with the intention of Coke, “to bring all private fishing vessels under the company,” and though it was obviously impracticable, it furnished a plausible argument against the claim to reserved waters.

After further conferences a number of articles were agreed to: That an association should be established, with no joint-stock except that received from those who voluntarily joined the undertaking; that a standing committee of the two nations in equal numbers should be formed, some of whom were to be appointed, also equally from both nations, to judge of controversies amongst the busses according to regulations to be made, with the right of appeal to the standing committee. Two hundred busses were “propounded” for the first year; “whereof,” said the Scots commissioners, “wee gott to advise what number we would undertake, but our answer was never yet sought; always we intend, God willing, to sett out 100 busses.” The main point, in regard to the reserved waters or fishing-places, was left for the king’s consideration. Finally, the king was to be asked to give order for drawing up the charter of association.432

In July 1632 Charles was able to announce that the difficulties were overcome and the negotiations completed, to his “great contentment,” and with the mutual consent of both parties. Desirous of removing as soon as possible the causes of the complaints which had been made by the burghs, he wrote to the Privy Council at Edinburgh about the great wrongs done by the Dutch inhabiting the Lewes and fishing 238 there “against the laws of that our kingdom,” instructing them to put in force a decree which had been previously issued at the request of the burghs, to prevent all strangers from trading or fishing there or at Shetland.433 He also requested the Council to prohibit unseasonable fishing for herrings at Ballantrae Bank near the mouth of the Clyde, which, he had been informed, was very injurious to the herring fisheries on the west coast of Scotland, the Isles, and the neighbouring coast of Ireland, by destroying the fry of herrings at unseasonable times, which, he was informed, if they were spared, might produce such plenty in all these coasts as might very much advance the intended work of fishing. At the same time he declared that it was necessary to establish settlements for the fishings at the Isles, and the Council were asked to take sureties from the landlords of the Isles, and of the lochs of the mainland, against violations or oppressions on those of the association engaged in fishing there, and from exacting any duties or impositions from them. The Council was also invited to take into serious consideration the Act of the Scottish Parliament “of 4 James IV.” respecting the building of busses by the noblemen, and to use their best means to put it into execution.434 The nobility and gentry of Scotland were apparently expected to build forty busses for fishing on both coasts, at an estimated cost of ￡10,960; and in addition to equip them with nets, salt, casks, and victuals.435

On the all-important question of the reserved waters the king did not grant the “irreducible minimum” of the burghs. 239 The condition which the burghs attached to their surrender of everything except the three great Firths, that is, the exclusion of the Hollanders from fishing on the coasts of Scotland, was in the meantime nominally met by the instructions to the Council mentioned above. In two or three years, as we shall see, when his naval power was greater, he would attempt to carry out their desire in quite a forcible and dramatic way. Charles would not concede the Moray Firth as an exclusive preserve for the Scottish fishermen, but he gave up to them the Firth of Lothian within a straight line from St Abb’s Head to Red Head in Forfarshire, and also the Firth of Clyde within a line drawn between the Mulls of Galloway and Cantyre; because, as he said, the inhabitants of the coasts of these parts were chiefly maintained by the fishing within them and could not well subsist otherwise. These waters were therefore to be reserved to Scottish fishermen, “according to ancient custom.”436

Everything having been arranged to the king’s satisfaction, he issued a commission providing for the establishment of a Fishery Society under the great seal of both kingdoms, which was approved by the Scottish Parliament on 7th September 1632.437 The Society was to consist of twelve councillors appointed by the king, six of them to be English or Irish and six to be Scots,438 and also a “commonalty” composed of a large number of noblemen and other persons. They were empowered to appoint officers, to make laws, and to punish transgressions. In every “province” of the kingdom and in the towns most convenient, “judges” were to be elected by the resident members to settle disputes and make regulations. The members, their servants and fishermen, were favoured by certain immunities and privileges; they and their vessels were exempt from impressment for the king’s service and relieved 240 of certain civil obligations. They were to be free to fish for sea-fish wherever they pleased “within his Majesty’s seas” and dominions, and at the isles pertaining thereto, as well as in the “lochs, creeks, bays and estuaries” wherever herrings or sea-fish were or might be taken, except in such creeks or firths as might be reserved in a proclamation of the king. On the trading side of the enterprise, they were to be at liberty to carry the fish to any place within the kingdom, “as well within free burghs as without them,” to salt, dry, and barrel them, to erect the necessary buildings and magazines, and to dispose of the fish as they thought best, within the realm, or to export them either in their own vessels or in others. Other clauses prohibited any person not a member of the Society from exporting, or causing to be exported, abroad any sea-fish taken within, or brought within, his Majesty’s dominions. Charles and his advisers aimed at no less a thing than to bring the whole of the sea fisheries and fish-curing industries of the country, as well as the foreign exports, under the control of the Council of the Society. The whole business was then to be organised and developed in such a manner that the Dutch fishermen would be driven from the British seas, and the nation to which they belonged deprived of the commanding position which, it was believed, their fisheries had been the chief means of conferring.

But the patience and perseverance of Charles in wearing out the opposition of Scotland to his scheme, and in giving it the semblance of a national design, were most inadequately rewarded. Like almost everything to which he put his hand, the fishery association failed miserably. The Scottish burghs promised to equip sixty busses for the fishing in the following year, but in point of fact the Scottish people took scarcely any part in the operations of the Society. The London merchants, canvassed personally by Sir Thomas Roe and appealed to by Pembroke, also held aloof. They gave “fair answers,” but kept their money. The subscriptions, or stock, came almost exclusively from persons about the Court, from naval officers and others desirous of preferment. The first meeting of the Council was called for 24th January, but so few members attended that the meeting had to be adjourned until 19th February, when it took place in the Star Chamber. Oaths 241 were administered, two silver seals were ordered (and never paid for) at a cost of ￡12, and Captain John Mason was made “Admiral of their fleet” of busses. Differences of opinion soon arose in the Council, and the Society split up into two branches or associations, one under Weston (now Earl of Portland),—that “man of big looks and of a mean and abject spirit,” as Clarendon describes him,—and after his death, under the Earl of Arundel; the other branch under the Earl of Pembroke, the Lord Chamberlain, who appears to have been almost the only one, besides the king and Coke, who took a sincere personal interest in the Society. Portland’s society had its headquarters at Lewis, while Pembroke’s was more particularly designed to carry on operations at Shetland and the east coast, but also had a station in the Lewes. The total amount of the subscriptions to the Society up to 3rd February 1636 was ￡22,682, 10s., of which only ￡9914, 10s. was paid up, and the company had been forced to borrow ￡3550 at interest to set the scheme afloat. The stock of Portland’s association amounted altogether to ￡16,975 up to and including the year 1637, while the losses in the same period reached ￡21,071, 5s. 7d.

Ground was acquired and houses and magazines for salt and casks erected at the Lewes,439 and several busses were purchased in Holland by both associations, ready for fishing and manned entirely by Dutchmen. Agents despatched to Shetland and Lewis sent favourable reports of the prospects. “We hope,” said the one at Lewis, “to furnish London with some plenty against the hard times of winter”; yet the total quantity of herrings cured at the island in that the first year of the Society’s fishing was only 386 lasts, and the price obtained for them was so low that the loss amounted to ￡4261. This, according to the agents, was due to want of proper means of curing them (salt, casks, hoops, &c.), otherwise they said they might have obtained 1000 lasts or more. A great effort 242 was therefore put forth in the following year. Preparations were made to deal with 1500 lasts, and vessels were chartered to carry them from Stornoway to various Continental markets. But less than 443 lasts were cured in the second year; some were sent to Dantzic and fetched “mean prices,” the rest reached London “when Lent was wellnigh over,” and were sent on to Dunkirk and Dantzic, the vessels coming back in ballast, and the loss in this year was ￡8163, 19s. 4d.440 In this way the operations of the Society went on. The herrings then failed to come into the lochs, and the Society turned its attention to the salting and exportation of beef, salmon, cod, and coal-fish,—a course fraught with less disastrous financial results, but not well calculated to carry out the objects for which it was founded.

Ill-fortune was encountered in other directions. Both the islanders and the Scots from the east coast treated the English adventurers badly. The Bishop of the Isles and the heritors insisted on their tithes and dues in spite of the king’s charter. The busses were attacked by bands of Highlanders, armed with “swords and bows and arrows and other warlike weapons,” who took various articles from them in lieu of dues. The Lowlanders, under the leadership of “one Thomas Lindsay, a fisherman of Crail,” who pretended to be the deputy to the deputy of the Vice-Admiral of Scotland, were still less considerate. Lindsay “villified” their certificates, declared that King Charles had nothing to do with the Lewes, and vowed that “he would be the death of every Englishman on the island.” He forcibly seized one of the vessels laden with 243 herrings which had gone ashore, on the ground that it was wreck, and wreck belonged to the Admiral of Scotland, and committed other hostile actions. The grievances of the Society became so acute, and redress from the Privy Council and the Admiralty Court so tardy and imperfect, that Charles in May 1635 appointed a commission, consisting of Archbishop Laud, the Earl of Pembroke, Sir Thomas Edmonds, and Secretaries Coke and Windebank, as judges, according to the charter, to deal with cases as they thought fit.

Disasters at sea were even more injurious to the Society than the troubles ashore. Again and again the busses were taken by Dunkirk privateers, who threw the crews into prison and held them for ransom. When those freebooters came across a Dutch-built buss, with a Dutch crew on board, they did not quite see why they should relinquish it because they were told it belonged to an English society; and the letters of “denization” which were provided by the king did not avail them much.441 Notwithstanding strong protests, prolonged negotiations with the Cardinal Infanta, and reprisals made by English men-of-war on Dunkirk shipping, the Society suffered great loss in this way.

The misfortunes of the Society caused many of those who had promised subscriptions to withhold them. Then followed drastic measures: summonses before the Star Chamber, warrants for apprehension, threats of imprisonment, and most of the subscriptions were squeezed from the unwilling adventurers. On the other hand, creditors sued the Society for goods supplied and money lent; seamen sued it for wages; even the clerks had to petition the king for theirs, appropriately suggesting that they might be paid from the license-money that Northumberland’s fleet had extorted from the Dutch herring-busses.442 As 244 Charles’s domestic troubles thickened and his power on the sea began to wane, Pembroke and his associates became more and more importunate for help. Petitions were conveyed to him, and then “remonstrances.” He was pointedly reminded that he was the originator and “Protector” of the Society; unless he “really” helped them the work must stop. But Charles was then unable either to compel the restitution of the captured busses or to induce his subjects to subscribe to the Society’s funds. He did what he could. Pennington and the Warden of the Cinque Ports were ordered to seize Dunkirk ships to be sold for the benefit of the Society; he granted them a standing lottery, and issued a proclamation enjoining the strict observance of Lent, which might possibly help them by increasing the consumption of fish, and could at least do them no harm. Almost his last act in connection with the fishery association was to issue an Order in Council in which, somewhat irritably, he blamed the Dutch for the failure, and remitted to an influential committee to consider some means by which the fishery in the north seas might be “advanced and settled,” and particularly whether the Dutch should not be deprived of English lampreys for bait, which were necessary for their cod-fishing.443 It was a great fall for Charles as Lord of the Seas, with a policy as sketched at the beginning of this chapter, to use the lampreys of the Thames as a weapon against the Dutch rather than a 245 powerful armada. But by this time his power at sea had vanished. The Dutch lorded it in the Channel.

When the Order in Council was penned, Tromp had hemmed in the Spanish fleet in the Downs and was ready to pounce on it the moment it quitted English waters, or to destroy it there if he only could get a plausible excuse. Charles and his Council were trembling with fear lest the best known of all the “King’s Chambers” should be flagrantly violated by the impatient Dutchman, with all the world looking on. And twelve days after the Council meeting this is just what Tromp did, and Charles’s sovereignty of the seas vanished for ever. And the fishery scheme, “the Royal Fishery of Great Britain and Ireland,” set agoing after so much patient labour, heralded by so many promises of profit and success, designed to be a great instrument for the development of naval power and commerce, was extinguished in the following year, with no tangible result save that those who had given their money to it were left “great losers.”