[396] 17th October 1632. The Earl of Stirling’s Register of Royal Letters, ii. 627.
[397] State Papers, Dom., cxcix. 51.
[398] State Papers, Dom., cc. 5.
[399] Ibid., ccviii. 27.
[400] State Papers, Dom., dxxiii. 74, dxxix. 73. The proposal to utilise the tenth herring for maintaining a navy had been long before put forward by Dr Dee. [See p. 101].
[401] The other half were exported as red-herrings.
[402] State Papers, Dom., 1629, clii. 57.
[403] Mason, who was intimately associated with the fishery scheme, proposed that the island should be purchased by a company of naturalised Scotsmen, and fishing stations established; and later he recommended the purchase of the island by the king, leaving complete freedom of fishery to all Scotsmen. Sir William Monson urged that a “government” should be established in the island as well as in Orkney and Shetland, and also a principal town; and that the children of the islanders should be taught English, and “correspondence” between the inhabitants and the Highlanders hindered, “considering the danger of their too great friendship.” State Papers, Dom., 1629, clii. 66, 67, 68. The subject of the Earl of Seaforth’s lease and the fishings is dealt with by Mackenzie, History of the Outer Hebrides, 290 et seq.
[404] State Papers, Dom., clii. 63, 71; clxxx. 97. Dymes’ report is printed in full by Mackenzie (op. cit., 591). The master of one of the Dutch busses, who transported Dymes from Lewis to the mainland, told him that the herrings were in such great abundance that they were sometimes constrained to cast them into the sea again, they having more in half their nets than they were able to save, “and he was of opinion that if there had bene a thousand Busses more there was fish enough for them all.”
[405] Rec. Convent. Roy. Burghs Scot., iii. 257, 259, 291. The arguments against the Dutch were elaborated in a long document, which concluded thus: “Lastly, theis Netherlanders greatnes, strength, wealth, arts, and every happines doe originally proceede from their fishing in his Majesty’s seas of England, Scotland, and Ireland.”