On the all-important question of the reserved waters the king did not grant the “irreducible minimum” of the burghs. The condition which the burghs attached to their surrender of everything except the three great Firths, that is, the exclusion of the Hollanders from fishing on the coasts of Scotland, was in the meantime nominally met by the instructions to the Council mentioned above. In two or three years, as we shall see, when his naval power was greater, he would attempt to carry out their desire in quite a forcible and dramatic way. Charles would not concede the Moray Firth as an exclusive preserve for the Scottish fishermen, but he gave up to them the Firth of Lothian within a straight line from St Abb’s Head to Red Head in Forfarshire, and also the Firth of Clyde within a line drawn between the Mulls of Galloway and Cantyre; because, as he said, the inhabitants of the coasts of these parts were chiefly maintained by the fishing within them and could not well subsist otherwise. These waters were therefore to be reserved to Scottish fishermen, “according to ancient custom.”[436] Everything having been arranged to the king’s satisfaction, he issued a commission providing for the establishment of a Fishery Society under the great seal of both kingdoms, which was approved by the Scottish Parliament on 7th September 1632.[437] The Society was to consist of twelve councillors appointed by the king, six of them to be English or Irish and six to be Scots,[438] and also a “commonalty” composed of a large number of noblemen and other persons. They were empowered to appoint officers, to make laws, and to punish transgressions. In every “province” of the kingdom and in the towns most convenient, “judges” were to be elected by the resident members to settle disputes and make regulations. The members, their servants and fishermen, were favoured by certain immunities and privileges; they and their vessels were exempt from impressment for the king’s service and relieved of certain civil obligations. They were to be free to fish for sea-fish wherever they pleased “within his Majesty’s seas” and dominions, and at the isles pertaining thereto, as well as in the “lochs, creeks, bays and estuaries” wherever herrings or sea-fish were or might be taken, except in such creeks or firths as might be reserved in a proclamation of the king. On the trading side of the enterprise, they were to be at liberty to carry the fish to any place within the kingdom, “as well within free burghs as without them,” to salt, dry, and barrel them, to erect the necessary buildings and magazines, and to dispose of the fish as they thought best, within the realm, or to export them either in their own vessels or in others. Other clauses prohibited any person not a member of the Society from exporting, or causing to be exported, abroad any sea-fish taken within, or brought within, his Majesty’s dominions. Charles and his advisers aimed at no less a thing than to bring the