But besides the shipping engaged in the East Indian, West Indian, American, Spanish, Mediterranean and North Sea routes, the Mercantile Marine was being built up by the fishermen and coasters, and we should be providing an inaccurate picture if we did not consider them. In an earlier chapter we saw how important were the fishing fleets down to the end of the seventeenth century, and what a backbone they have always been to the navies and Mercantile Marine. In 1704 Queen Anne reorganised the various laws relating to the herring fishery and permitted the use of all harbours and shores for landing fish on payment of reasonable dues. A certain number of foreigners were being employed by the British to help with the fishing, but in 1747 the Dutch still had 3000 herring vessels and were employing 40,000 fishermen. This was a great falling off since 1679, but still it was a considerable industry, and bringing in £5,000,000. Not without reason these Hollanders called their herring fisheries their gold mine, and in the mid-eighteenth century they were employing over 1000 Englishmen in their craft. Thus each nation learned a good deal of each other’s methods, and this standardisation has continued to this day. Somehow the English fishery companies continued to be unsuccessful, for in October of 1750 one more was incorporated, but the craft and gear were purchased at expensive rates, more fish were obtained than could be sold, and thus the company failed. But it was not merely the Dutch who were rivalling the English and Scottish fishermen. During the latter half of the century the Swedes and the Danes were very active. In fact, British men-of-war had to be requested to afford protection against the encroachments of foreigners. The British fishing craft were often badly built, of ill design and not well-found, but legislation was introduced to assist them. In 1771 a bounty of thirty shillings a ton for seven years was granted to all decked vessels of from twenty to eighty tons, provided they were of British origin and ownership and engaged in the herring fishery. These craft were to meet for fishing at Yarmouth, Leith, Inverness, Bressay Sound, Kirkwall, Oban, Campbelltown and Whitehaven. But it is rather curious that the Scottish fishing was abandoned to foreigners, who brought in the catches, and then the fish were exported to the British West Indies as food for slaves; but from 1809 the Scottish fishing began to prosper once more. During the nineteenth century the rights of the European States over their territorial waters were defined, for the constant quarrels between the French and British fishermen as to where they could dredge for oysters off the coast were somewhat of a nuisance.