It was a statute of 1663, for the encouragement of our fisheries, which forbade any fresh herrings being imported into England except in English-built ships, and no ship could sail for Iceland from England until March 10, thus protecting the fish at breeding time. The Act of 1666 prohibited the importation of herrings caught by foreigners. And, having done all this, the time came when those Englishmen who owned capital thought they saw an opportunity for getting richer. Thus in 1677 a Royal Fishery Company was incorporated, the Duke of York and many peers and gentlemen being partners, with a capital eventually increased to £12,580. This was spent in the construction of seven busses, but some of these were captured by the French, who were now growing up as maritime and commercial people, and were rivals to us in our fishing. The remainder of the busses were sold off in 1680 and the company ended in debt. Three years later another fishing company was started, and this failed also, whereas the Dutch were doing well with their nets, employing 8000 vessels and 200,000 hands, thus amassing the enormous sum of £5,000,000 a year. During the time of Charles II the Dutch fishermen had brought great prosperity to Great Yarmouth, sometimes as many as 1000 busses and fish-carriers being off that port, and buying bread, beer, flesh and butter from the East Anglians. They used to come ashore and dry their nets, and the town would find 10,000 of these foreign sailormen in their neighbourhood. To assuage their thirst, forty brewers were kept busy in the port. Any one who has any experience of human nature and of fishermen, will readily understand that there were many feuds and quarrellings. Ever since 1540 the Dutchmen had been herring-fishing off that port, and the Englishmen were none too pleased at this visitation; nor were the Scotch, who in 1532 attacked the Dutchmen and captured many of their busses, and for nine years prevented them from using Scottish waters.