haven, and therefore were blameable in either refusing or evading them; what, therefore, rendered the burgesses of Yarmouth so very culpable was, their unjust and illegal attempts above mentioned (about the 37th of Elizabeth, and again in 1659) wholly to exclude the town of Lowestoft from the herring fishery, and to monopolise it to themselves. The proceedings relative to these designs will appear in the subsequent part of this section. The first complaint against the Yarmouth men was that made to the lords of the privy council, in the year 1595, by the bailiffs and other inhabitants belonging to the several towns of Ipswich, Colchester, Dunwich, Orford, Aldborough, Southwold, and Manningtree, in behalf of the ketchmen, who resorted to Kirkley road and parts adjacent to buy herrings; signifying the many hardships and inconveniences which they laboured under from being deprived by the burgesses of Yarmouth of the ancient privilege they enjoyed, and the great injury they were liable to, in consequence thereof. The ketchmen were those vessels which frequented these coasts in the fishing season for the purpose of buying and selling herrings, which they transacted in the open sea; but now Yarmouth men were for compelling them to resort to Kirkley road, in order that they might receive the customs, grounding their claim upon a grant of Queen Elizabeth. THE COMPLAINT OF THE KETCHMEN AGAINST YARMOUTH. Whereas there is a certain grant passed from her majesty to the township of Great Yarmouth, in the county of Norfolk, as we are credibly informed, and as the township of Yarmouth aforesaid have given out speech and reported, That no fishermen, after the feast of St. Michael, by the space of forty days, should utter or sell any herrings within the compass or limit of seven miles of the said town, to any person or persons; but that the said fishermen should be constrained and urged to utter and sell all such herrings as should be by them taken within the time before limited at the town of Yarmouth aforesaid, and there to take and abide their market and utterance of the same herrings, and not elsewhere. We, therefore, which hereunder have subscribed, having had due consideration of the premises, and seeing and proving not only the great damage and inconvenience that the same will bring to the whole commonwealth of this realm, but also the utter ruin and destruction that will fall upon a number of poor ketchmen which be in trade with the said fishermen, whereby the said ketchmen, their wives and families, as also a great number of others who are thereby supported, sustained, and upholden, do think the said grant to be very unprofitable and inconvenient. The reasons that do move us thereto are these; that is to say, If the fishermen, after the taking of the said herrings, shall be constrained to repair, abide, and make their market and