“Also to Yarmouth do they daily (i.e. during the season), come into the haven up to the Key, all the most part of the great fleet of Hollanders, that go in sword-pinks, Holland toads, crab skuits, walnut shells, and great and small yeurs, 100 and 200 sail at a time together, and all the herrings they do bring they sell for ready money to Yarmouth men; and also the Frenchmen of Picardy and Normandy some hundred sail of them at a time, do come hither, and all the herrings they catch they do sell to the Yarmouth herring-mongers for ready gold.” The writer gives the following account of the fisheries carried on by the Yarmouth merchants in their own boats. “To this town belong some 20 Iceland Barks, which they do send for cod and ling, and some 150 sail of North Sea boats. They make a shift to live; but if they had the use of busses and also barrel fish they would excel all England and Holland; for they be the only fishermen for the North Seas, and also the best for the handling of fish that are in this land.” He also gives an account of the trade as carried on at Lowestoft at this time, which you will be surprised to hear spoken of as a “decayed town.” “To the north of Swold Haven (Southwold), three leagues are Kirkley and Layestof, decayed towns. They have 6 or 7 North Sea boats; but they of Layestof make benefit yearly of buying herrings of the Hollanders; for likewise these Hollanders are hosted with the Layestof men, as they are with the Yarmouthians.” The government of Elizabeth had adopted various measures (with one of which you are already well acquainted) for encouraging the employment of English ships and sailors in the fishing trade, and the general commerce of the country. But the English could not successfully compete with the Dutch fishermen even off our own shores. Charles took stronger measures to get these fisheries into the hands of Englishmen. He determined to issue a prohibition against the subjects of foreign countries fishing in what he claimed to be British seas, without a license from the English government. In order to be able to enforce such an offensive measure he took steps for providing a more powerful navy than the country had ever before possessed. Unfortunately he had already quarreled with his Parliament, and he had to obtain the money required by demands authorised only by his Royal Prerogative. However popular the measure would have been, if it had been carried out by constitutional means, the imposition upon the whole country, without the consent of Parliament, of the tax called “ship money,” was the fatal proceeding which brought on the Civil War. He succeeded however at first, and at once issued his prohibition which the Dutch refused to submit to, and in 1536, Hume tells us—