Here then was a clear case for a navy, when an effective navy did not exist. The Council and the Admiralty took such isolated measures as they could; but the Dunkirkers were almost always too nimble to be caught. “They take ships,” wrote the commander of a man-of-war convoying the Iceland fishing fleet, “and we in sight and cannot come up to help it.” The duty and expense of providing convoys to protect the fishermen were thrown on the fishing ports and the counties. In 1627 the Council ordered four Newcastle ships to be taken up for eight months, to convoy the Iceland fleet, at a cost of £1768, to be paid out of the “loans” in Suffolk. The estimate in the following year for a guard of four merchant ships, of 400 tons each, with 120 men for one month in harbour and 240 men for six months at sea, was £4399; and the Council in authorising the Admiralty to “press, victual, arm, and man” the ships, instructed that if Yarmouth and the other towns wanted convoy in future they should first consult together as to some mode of levying monies for it, either upon the coast towns or upon the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. This was done, in part at least, by levying a contribution of twenty shillings from each fisherman; and fishermen also protected themselves by insuring their vessels in London against the risks of capture by the Dunkirk privateers. The owners and masters of the merchant ships thus pressed to act as guards to the fishing fleets were usually most unwilling to serve, and sometimes “utterly refused,” and the Admiralty had to get an Order in Council to compel them.[449] Provision of a guard for the east coast generally was attempted by levying a duty of two and five shillings a ton on all coal laden at Newcastle or Sunderland for English and foreign ports respectively.[450]