In disposing of their catch, the fishermen were handicapped by the almost complete lack of transport facilities from the coast inland. Their produce would be distributed by pack-horse, so that fresh fish would be practically unknown beyond a distance of a few miles from the coast. Consequently, all fish for inland markets were salted. The fish were pickled in brine, as the art of dry-salting was then unknown in this country. To develop a successful fishing industry, it was necessary, then, as it is to-day, either to dispose of the catch quickly on the spot, or to preserve the fish so that it could be transported to distant markets. In 1347, a Dutchman, William Beukels, of Biervelt, invented an improved means of curing and pickling herring, which was essentially the modern process of gutting the fish and packing them in dry salt. At this time the Baltic herring fishery, carried on by the Hanseatic League, dominated the markets of Europe. But the new method of curing, exploited by the Dutch, improved the quality and keeping powers of the fish to such an extent that, by the end of the fifteenth century, the Dutch fishing industry was supreme, and had become a powerful and valuable national enterprise. In the sixteenth century, as many as two thousand Dutch herring “busses” (as the boats were called) would gather on St. John’s day at Brassa Sound, in the Shetlands, to begin the summer herring fishery. The fish were caught with drift nets, were salted and packed in barrels, and carried home by the fast-sailing, attendant “yaggers.” Ashore they were repacked in fresh salt in new barrels. Over a million barrels were packed in a year. When caught, the fish would be worth about a million pounds, and when retailed about two million pounds. Contemporary illustrations of the methods of curing and salting then in use reveal the astonishing fact that even to the smallest detail the methods that were employed in Holland in Elizabeth’s day are identical with those that are employed at Yarmouth to-day. As a direct result of the great development of their trade in salted herrings, the Dutch gradually gained a naval and maritime supremacy in Europe which they maintained until it was wrested from them by the English. English sea-power in the early years of the sixteenth century was in a decadent condition. The ports and harbours had been neglected, and had become silted up, so that the condition of the shipping industry in general, and of the Navy in particular, had reached a very low ebb. In 1561, Mr. Secretary Cecil, alarmed by the growing menace of the Dutch naval ascendancy, proposed three remedies for restoring the strength and importance of the navy. He proposed: (1) That the fishing industry be promoted, as it provided a valuable recruiting ground for the navy; (2) That merchandise be extended, and so provide increased employment for the shipping industry;