Evidently the Council in Scotland were at this time as cautious as the Council in England in doing anything contrary to the treaties with the Netherlands. Had they sanctioned offhand the request of the Duke to exact the assize-herrings from the Hollanders, they would have taken the responsibility, without direct authority from the king, of an act which they knew might have serious consequences. They had no sympathy with the foreign fishermen, for complaints regarding them from the burghs were frequent. In 1611 the city of Edinburgh represented to them the “inconvenience” which was sustained by the whole realm and by the merchants in particular through the non-observance of the Act of 1581, “anent the comming of schippis to burrowis in the west and north Isles be Flemings and uther nations”; and in the following year the “mater of the fischeing of the Flemins in the West and North Isles” was again brought up, and it was remitted to the burghs of Edinburgh and Dundee to draw up a supplication to the Privy Council to have the fishing by the Flemings in those places repressed.[313] In view of the decision of the Privy Council, the Duke of Lennox did not at this time attempt to collect the tribute from the foreign fishermen at the North Isles. But two years later the political relations between this country and the Netherlands having become strained, the opportunity was seized to raise once more the question of the fishery and the exaction of the assize-herrings. Serious disputes involving retaliatory measures had broken out respecting the trade in cloth. In England strong resentment was aroused by an edict of the States prohibiting the importation of English dyed cloth. Winwood, now Secretary of State, wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton, who had taken his place at The Hague, that it was the opinion of “every true-hearted Englishman” that the king “ought to forbid all manner of intercourse between the Kingdoms and the United Provinces, and forbid the Hollanders, by a fresh reviving of former proclamations, to continue their yearly fishing upon our coasts.”[314] The influence of this feeling was soon apparent. The Duke of Lennox was now instructed by the king to levy the assize-herrings from foreigners fishing at the North Isles, the grant, under the great seal of Scotland, being dated in June 1616; and to render his task more easy he obtained from Sir Noel Caron in the same month a letter of recommendation (“aanbevelingsbrief”) to the captains of the Dutch convoying-ships. This letter was innocently given by Caron in the belief that it concerned the payment of dues on land at Shetland, which the busses had been accustomed to pay, and which were then payable to the Duke,[315] but it was made use of by the Duke’s agent to cover the collection of the assize-herrings. The duty of collecting the tax was assigned to Mr John Brown, one of the Duke’s deputies. The detailed instructions he received in 1616 do not appear