Catalogue description THE PROJECT OF FISHING.

This record is held by Lincolnshire Archives

Details of 8ANC8/31
Reference: 8ANC8/31
Title: THE PROJECT OF FISHING.
Description:

--Suggestions for the erection of a " corporation " of such as do vent 'pilchers' taken upon the coasts of his Majesty's dominions, to include all such of his Majesty's subjects as choose to come in, and do underwrite by a given date. Giving :--

 

1. Reasons to show the necessity thereof, viz.: to keep up the price of fish (the nature of English men being to cloy the market), to secure the provision of ships strong enough to defy pirates, and to assist the fisherman in times of difficulty, when he cannot perform his bargains with the merchants, as for instance this last year, when Rochelle was besieged, and salt rose to such a price that many fishermen became beggarrs, and towns in the west country that were wont to take a thousand tuns of pilchers, took only one barrel. If the fisherman refuse the offer, he is not to be allowed to sell his pilchers in the place where they are taken, but the Corporation will be bound to give him the usual price for it.

 

2. " The inconvenience in selling their fish to any other than the Corporation." The Hollanders and Italians usually disburse money beforehand to the fishermen of the West Country and take the pilchers to sell, commonly in Holland shipping, returning the profit into Holland, whereby " they make the English fishermen their servants, to labour and travail for their gain with little benefit to his Majesty's subjects or increase of navigation." The Corporation will do so as much or more than the strangers have done, and as no interlopers will be admitted, the price of pilchers abroad will be rather increased than diminished, " for it is an unanswerable reason and happiness we have that all the world cannot afford pilchers to serve those countries but his Majesty's dominions."

 

3. How to build busses in Ireland and Scotland. Before next June, ten or twenty should be provided in Holland to fish among the Hollanders, that we may learn the use and manner of their busses by the time our own are finished. Next March timber enough for two hundred should be felled and seasoned for a year, and meanwhile, by our trade of France and Biscay, we shall have all other necessaries in readiness to finish the busses. It is computated that a hundred busses will cost 65,000l., taking them at 650l. each, when ready for sea.

 

4. How to employ the busses. They must repair to Shetland on the 11th or 12th of June, and there fish in company with the Hollanders, and then put in to Dunbar, Scarborough or Hull, in which three ports ships shall be provided to take in their herrings and carry them direct to the Sound, which we shall thus reach almost as soon as the Hollanders can be at home. The busses, having taken in salt, victuals and cask, " must pursue the Scull; for in their second fishing they take their best herrings, which I will assign for London and England," always provided that the bringing in of herrings be prohibited if we ourselves cap serve the kingdom with sufficient at easy rates, this being no more than the Hollanders do now, in prohibiting strangers. The third fishing is the worst, and so long as the wind is southerly or westerly we must apply ourselves to the taking of herrings about the coast of Yarmouth, selling them to those of Yarmouth to make red herrings ; and, being furnished then of provisions, " we will take the first Easterly wind, which wind carrieth the herrings through the narrow seas, and still keep company with the Scull, until we load some part of our busses and send into some harbours of France and England . . . and hasten for Ireland, where the rest of the busses shall be fishing in the meantime. And these herrings we will assign for Wales, Bristol and that part of England, and the overplus we will send for France."

 

The Irish fishing being ended, some of the busses must follow the herrings to the island of the Lewis, where there shall be provision of boats, nets, salt, cask and victuals, " for they use to take them in loughs, and the busses shall in the mean time fish for cod and ling, where there is as good and as great store as in any part of the sea. The herrings that shall be there taken, we will assign for the Sound at the spring, upon the opening of it, and they shall be better than the Hollanders, by how much they shall be four months the newer, The ships of Glasgow, Erroine [Arran] and the West part of Scotland will serve very well for this employment . . . thus shall we circuit his Majesty's dominions, and have five or six fishings of herrings for the Hollanders' three."

 

The busses must then return to winter at Broadhaven in Ireland, there to be trimmed and fitted for the next June, and the men to be employed in making nets &c.

 

In this project, I say nothing of the venting of cod and ling, conger, hake, ray, salmon, dog or buckhorne, all of which will bring an inestimable gain, being esteemed in several countries, so that there is no fear of overloading the trade (for the taking is not to be so much doubted as the venting) ; and therefore I will boldly say there is no king or kingdom so happy in respect of fishing as ours ; and by this project, his Majesty's subjects may take as much as will serve his kingdoms, if he prohibits the bringing in of fish, and commands the observation of fish days according to the statutes of the realm. Closely written.

 

+ The date is given by the allusion to Rochelle. And see Sec. Coke's prospectus S. P. Dom. Charles I., Vol. 152, No. 57.

Date: [1629+]
Held by: Lincolnshire Archives, not available at The National Archives
Language: English
Physical description: 3 pages.

Have you found an error with this catalogue description?

Help with your research