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
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.
It may be supposed that the splendour of the _rôle_ 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 _rôle_ 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 “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]
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, 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 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
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]
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 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, 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 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,
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 [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]
* * * * *
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 measurement of the fourteen miles mentioned in the
Draft Treaty was to be understood as expressed in the report of the
burghs.[422]
[Illustration: 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
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 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),” 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 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 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
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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.”