Early in 1609 the fishermen of the Cinque Ports, who frequented the Yarmouth fishing in large numbers, sent a petition to the king, in which they recited their grievances. They alleged that the laws prohibiting the purchase from foreigners of fish unless sufficiently salted and casked (laws which, they pointed out, had done great good in the past, and had increased shipping and mariners) were not properly enforced. This complaint was aimed against the Dutch, who sold large quantities of fresh herrings at Yarmouth, and supplied London and other towns with fresh cod. They also complained that fishermen from the Low Countries, with a few from France, came before the fishing season and “preoccupied and environed” the best places with their shipping, enclosing, as in a circle, the shoals of herrings, and preventing the native fishermen from fishing among them. They were thus deprived of one of the best commodities of the land, and the herrings which they were prevented from catching were taken by the Hollanders and sold fresh on the English coast in contravention of the statutes. They said they were threatened with utter decay and impoverishment, and were discouraged from building barks for the Iceland fishing, which had in the past produced numbers of good mariners, to the great honour and defence of the realm. They pointed to the “ingenious dexterity of the Netherlanders, who in the care and pollicy of their State, and for the maintenance of their navigation and fishing,” had imposed a tax of fifteen shillings on every last of herrings imported by foreigners into their country; and they begged the king, by the justice of _lex talionis_, to do likewise, and thus to save the poor fishermen from the multitude of foreigners who oppressed them.[275] About this time complaints began to be made of cruel and harsh treatment of the native fishermen by the Dutch, but they appear to have rested on very slender grounds.[276]