The Navigation Act of 1651 was confirmed by that of nine years later, and thus the English Mercantile Marine had its future settled on sure foundations. In a word, the disputes as to where fishermen could shoot their nets to get herrings were the indirect means of giving the merchant ships their unique opportunity. Holland’s carrying trade fell into our hands, prosperity came to our country, the sailing ships of our nation penetrated everywhere, and, as you can see by the seventeenth-century architecture in the leading Dutch cities, the wealth obtained overseas suddenly ceased to flow in a big way. It is for those who have eyes a veritable story in stones, which ends suddenly and dramatically. It is to the credit of the rulers of our country in the seventeenth century that they realised what the fisheries meant to us. The Act of 1651 was of great assistance in providing that no fish should be brought into England or Ireland, or exported thence to foreign parts, or even carried from one English or Irish port to another, except fish caught by English and Irish fishermen in English and Irish ships. In 1661 the Parliament of Scotland also passed navigation laws for the encouragement of their native shipping, and one Act for founding companies to extend the fishing industry. Very subtle, too, was the proclamation of James I in 1621 against eating flesh in Lent or on other “fish days,” the reasons given being “the maintenance of our navy and shipping, a principal strength of this island, and for the sparing and increase of fresh victuals.” This and similar proclamations considerably helped the fishermen. In order fully to appreciate all that the fishing meant to the Dutch, it is necessary to mention also that not merely did they seek the herring as far away as the Thames estuary, the Orkneys, Shetlands and the Irish coast, but, owing to the ingenuity and enterprise of one Beuckels, they had learned how to cure and barrel this fish. In this way they enjoyed a wonderful monopoly in supplying Catholic central and northern Europe. In the year 1560, for instance, the value of the year’s fishing trade to Friesland, Holland, Zeeland and Flanders amounted to the enormous sum of £300,000. Just as to-day the steam fish-carriers go out to fetch the catch home from the fleets fishing off the Dogger Bank and elsewhere, so the Dutch in the seventeenth century were using a fast-sailing type of craft, called “vent-jagers,” to hurry into port the fresh herrings caught by the slow, round, tubby “busses.” This practice was in vogue certainly by 1604.