Dutch of antipathy to them--wrote several papers in the same strain. He dwelt upon the danger to England of their increase in shipping commerce and power, all derived from the fisheries in the British seas. They had already got the Irish and Russian trade, as well as that to the Mediterranean, so that while twelve years before there were twelve English ships to one Hollander in that sea, there were now ten Hollanders to one English; they even transported the red-herrings from Yarmouth and the pilchards from Cornwall and Ireland, which was previously done by English vessels. Monson’s remedy was to obtain possession of the fisheries and build a fleet of English busses.[272] There is no doubt James was inclined to listen with a favourable ear to the proposals to establish a native herring fishery at the expense of the Dutch. A year or two earlier he had, indeed, induced the Parliament of Scotland to pass an Act providing, among other things, that the royal burghs should equip busses for the herring fishery,--a suggestion frequently made and never well received. When the burghs were called upon to state the number of busses they were prepared to set forth, they declared that some of the coast towns already had vessels engaged in this fishery, especially in summer, “att the back of the Isles besyid the Flemeingis”; that on the coast there was more shipping for fishing than “substance” to furnish them with or mariners to serve in them; and that the most profitable and “easy” fishing was at the Isles and lochs on the west coast, though they were hindered there by the barbarous conduct of the natives. It was therefore, they said, “in vain” to ask them to fish “in the mayne sea” when they could get this easy and profitable fishing at the lochs and near the shore at all seasons, in great abundance, both summer and winter.[273]