A week or two before the Scottish commissioners were selected, Charles issued a commission appointing Lord Weston (High Treasurer of England), the Earl of Arundel and Surrey (Earl Marshal), the Earl of Pembroke (Lord Chamberlain), the Earl of Suffolk (Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports), and eight others as commissioners on behalf of England and Ireland.[419] His object, he said, was to establish a “common” fishing, both to be a nursery of seamen and for the increase of navigation, and “to make the store of fish of all kinds, being a necessary food for the people on fish-days, to be had at reasonable prices, and the overplus thereof to be a principal addition to the staple commodities of our kingdom for the increase of trade.” In order that this common fishing might be extended and freely exercised in “all places by his subjects of each of the three kingdoms,” he appointed them “with full power and authority to confer severally and jointly, and to consider, treat, propose, determine and conclude what they concurrently found fit and expedient for the ordering, establishing, and advancing of the said common fishing.” Power was also given to them to call for any of the records in the Tower or elsewhere which might bear upon their labours. The commissioners from both countries met early in 1631. In March the Privy Council of Scotland received a report from the Scottish commissioners in London, stating that several meetings with the English commissioners had been held, and that the extent of the waters proposed to be reserved “was thought too much,” unless it could be shown that “the intention was only to reserve so much without which the natives could not subsist, and not to hinder the good public work,” and they craved full and particular instructions on this point. The Privy Council at once summoned the Lord Provost and Bailies of Edinburgh before them to furnish the information required, but they replied that it was a subject which concerned all the burghs, and that time must be given to consult them. After some further delay the burghs submitted an elaborate and interesting report to the Council on 21st April, in which, after citing the clause in the Draft Treaty of Union, they proceeded to define the bounds of the waters “without the whiche the countrie can not subsist,” and “whiche trewlie is the bounds whairupon if anie stranger sall resort this countrie sall suffer utter ruine.” These bounds were as follows:--