Making every allowance for the spirit of exaggeration adopted, doubtless with the laudable intention of inciting English merchants and shipowners to greater exertions, “so that our ships and mariners might be trebled,” there is, nevertheless, in the paper he presented to King James a very large amount of valuable information with regard to the merchant shipping of the period, and much still more valuable advice. It is manifest from what he states that in consequence of the laws which even then greatly favoured foreign shipping, the English stood no chance of competing with the Dutch. But though the shipowners of England were loud in their complaints against the privileges granted to foreign nations, neither their rulers nor they themselves were disposed to entertain Raleigh’s liberal policy. They preferred that of one “Tobias, gentleman fisherman and mariner” [what a number of Tobiases we have had since then!] who afterwards published a pamphlet entitled “The best way to make England the richest and wealthiest kingdom in Europe,” in which he recommends the construction of one thousand busses upon a “national design,”—“each ward in London to provide one Busse, every company, and, if needs be, every parish, one,” in order to compete with the Dutch. To encourage these investments he furnishes an estimate of the capital required and of the probable profits. [Sidenote: His estimate of the profits of busses.] A busse, measuring from sixty to eighty tons, complete for sea, with her fishing implements and appurtenances, would cost, he estimates, somewhere about 500_l._ sterling, and such a vessel, he calculated, would hold good for twenty years with very little expenditure in the way of repairs, and only about 80_l._ annually for the wear and tear of her tackle, ropes, masts, and sails. Presuming that the busse caught herrings equal to one hundred last of barrels, which he values at 10_l._ per last, she would earn in the gross 1000_l._; and as he calculates that her expenses, exclusive of tear and wear, would not exceed 335_l._,[161] he shows a large and tempting profit to those corporations, companies, and parishes who might be induced to act on his advice. Having satisfied, as he conceives, all pecuniary considerations, he appeals to their patriotism by showing the advantage to the nation of having ready for its service in the hour of need “lusty-fed younkers bred in the Busses, who could furl a top-sail or sprit-sail, or shake out a bonnet in a dark and stormy night, and not shrink from their duty like the surfeited and hunger-pinched sailors who made the southern voyages.” Nor were the proverbial remarks of the Dutch forgotten, who taunted the English with the sneer, “that they would make them wear their old shoes.” [Sidenote: The effect of these publications.]