obliged to become the regular customer of the Scotch merchants.[1] Nor was the great field of profit which lay at the gates of the port allowed to escape the attention of yet more distant members of the fishermen's craft. Vessels from the Low Countries had long been fishing Boston Deeps when a licence was granted by Queen Elizabeth[2] in response to the humble suit of certain of these Netherlands strangers praying that they might be allowed to settle permanently in the port, 'where divers of them, being fishermen, have used the feate and trade of fishing of herring, cod, mackarel, and other fish, after the manner of their country.' In compliance with their petition, forty of the Dutch fishermen, with their families, were permitted to take up their residence in the town. Thus the foundation was laid of that thriving trade in the harvests of the Wash and of the North Sea which the English fishermen, with astonishing supineness, suffered to pass more and more into the shrewd keeping of their foreign brethren, a trade which a century later had grown to such proportions as to provoke not only the wrath but the amazement of Yarranton, Postlethwayt, the writer of Britannia Languens,[3] and others.
For in 1680, we learn from the latter chronicler, the Dutch profit on the English fishery was about £5,000,000 in cod and herring, whilst their fleet numbered 8,000 ships, manned by 200,000 men.[4] The reputation of the Boston herring was especially great, a hundred dollars being considered a small price for a barrel of these fish, cured after the Dutch fashion, the secret of which was so long kept from their English neighbours and rivals. This secret was at length given to the world by some patient observer:
After they have hauled in their nets, which they drag in the sterns of their vessels backwards and forwards in traversing the coast, they throw them upon the ship's deck, which is cleared of everything for that purpose: for they never carry any boats or yawls along with them, as they would be an incumbrance to them in dressing the herrings; they carry many hands on board, even to the number of thirty or forty in each vessel, whom they separate into sundry divisions, and each division has a peculiar task; one part opens and guts the herrings, another cures and salts them by lining or rubbing their insides with salt (which is all done upon the deck), the next packs them, and, between each row or division, they sprinkle handfills of salt; then the coopers put the finishing hand to all by heading the casks, and stowing them in the hold; thus they go on, while barrels and salt last, and, when that is exhausted, then they retire; but the jaggers, or storeships, commonly provide them with everything necessary, so that they seldom or never depart the coast before they are brimful; and really (to give them their due) they are the best fishermen in the world; for they are not only ingenious in every article of their tackling or materials, but also diligent, industrious, and endure the great fatigues to admiration.[5]
As to the salt used in their curing, Yarranton says 'they make salt upon salt, with Portugal and sea-water mixt together; and by this means they have this commodity cheap, which is used so considerably in the fishery.'[6]
Retracing our steps, however, to the beginning of the seventeenth century, the port of Boston was then well maintaining its ancient fishing reputation. Offerings of the spoil of Boston Deeps were at this date frequently sent to notable personages. Thus, in 1613, we learn from the Corporation Records, oysters and fish were sent to 'my Lord of Rutland.' In 1615 the earl of Exeter was presented with a keg of sturgeon and other fish. Sturgeon again figured in a similar gift to the earl of Lindsey in 1622, to Sir Henry Vane in 1652, and once more to the earl of Lindsey in 1664; showing that the town had evidently at this time somewhat rallied from the profound and pathetic despair which in 1607 had driven them to plead that their city might be placed upon the list of 'decayed towns.'[7]
The story of the Dutch invasion in the sixteenth century was repeated in the early part of the nineteenth, though the intruders came in this instance from nearer home. In 1813 the Boston fishermen were petitioning that the Deeps might be forbidden to those of Lynn, Cromer, and Sheringham during the herring season. But the Corporation replied that they had no power to do so, nor to interfere at all in the matter.[8]
It is, however, to the Boston Deep Sea Fishing and Ice Company Limited, that the port owes much of its new era of twentieth-
- ↑ Thompson, Hist. of Boston, 306.
- ↑ Charter Book of the Corporation.
'For the encouragement of the fishing trade, the great nurse for mariners,' Elizabeth ordered the stricter observance of fast-days—not, as the State Papers quaintly record, 'on the ground of conscience, but on the authority of the Prince, for the good of the country,' 'the times needing a supply of mariners, many fishing ports and ships being now decayed, as are the sundry trades connected with the fishing' (Cal. S. P. Dom. 1595–7, p. 540). - ↑ John Smith, England's Improvement Revived, Book 6, pp. 268–9.
- ↑ 'To carry on this great trade,' says a writer of the time, 'they have 700 Strande-Boates, 400 Euars, and 400 Sullits, Drivers, and Tod-Boates.'
- ↑ Postlethwayt, Universal Dict. Trade, i.
- ↑ Yarranton, pt. ii, 134. The trade had not been wholly neglected amongst Englishmen, for a licence was granted to one John Smith for eight years to make and provide white salt in three ports, of which Boston was one (Cal. S.P. Dom. 1599–1601, p. 310).
- ↑ Corporation Records.
- ↑ Thompson, Hist. of Boston, 306.
