The proposal most commonly mooted was to build a fleet of herring-busses for ourselves, and, in short, to imitate the Dutch system in all particulars. The natural advantages we possessed were made the most of. The fishing-grounds were at our doors, while the Dutch had to sail long distances. We had numerous harbours and sheltered beaches for the wintering of the busses. We had all the materials for building and equipping the busses except pitch and tar, whereas the Dutch had to import everything save hemp; and abundance of men to man the vessels could be got from the “decayed towns.” It was on the other hand admitted that we laboured under one disadvantage. The Dutch fishermen were more frugal, more industrious and painstaking, than the English. They were content with plain fare--with bread and butter, cheese, a little pork, and fish,--while the English required beef and beer, and much of both.[262] And while the Dutch worked hard, “labouring merrily together,” the English fishermen “sat day and night drinking in the ale-houses.”[263] But any scheme for establishing a great national fishery had little chance of financial support from the public unless it could be shown to be profitable, and there was no lack of calculations and computations to prove the great profits that might be made. Gentleman estimated that the clear gain from one buss, allowing for wear and tear, would amount to £565 in four months, and from a pink for cod-fishing to £158 in two months. The author of _Britaines Buss_ calculated that the yearly profit from one herring-fishing and one cod-fishing of a single buss would amount to £897, after all expenses had been paid. This writer proposed that a corporation should be formed, consisting of noblemen, gentry, and citizens “of ability,” each of whom should provide one buss; that the corporation should receive from the king certain powers, privileges, and immunities; and that a joint-stock should be raised like that of the East India Company, the annual profit on which was estimated at 75 per cent. Those schemes resembled the one put forward by Hitchcock in the previous reign and frequently advocated since. Sir Walter Cope indeed told King James, in 1612, that “this royal work,” within his own knowledge, had been in project for thirty years, but that in Queen Elizabeth’s time it had been “ever silenced” in favour of the Netherlands, who then maintained war against a common enemy.[264]