In the midst of the month of May, do the industrious Hollanders begin to make ready their Busses and fisher-fleets; and by the first of their June [i.e., N.S.] are they yearly ready, and seen to sail out of the Maas, the Texel, and the Vlie, a thousand Sail together; for to catch herrings in the North seas.
Six hundred of these fisherships and more, be great Busses some six score tons, most of them be a hundred tons, and the rest three score tons, and fifty tons: the biggest of them having four and twenty men; some twenty men, and some eighteen, and sixteen men a piece. So that there cannot be in this Fleet of People, no less than twenty thousand sailors.
These having with them bread, butter, and Holland cheese for their provision, do daily get their other diet out of His Majesty's seas; besides the lading of this Fleet three times a piece commonly before Saint Andrew['s day, October 24] with herrings, which being sold by them but at the rate of Ten Pounds the Last, amounteth unto much more than the sum of one million of pounds [= £4,500,000 in present value] sterling; only [solely] by this fleet of Busses yearly. No King upon the earth did ever see such a fleet of his own subjects at any time; and yet this Fleet is, there and then, yearly to be seen. A most worthy sight it were, if they were my own countrymen; yet have I taken pleasure in being amongst them, to behold the neatness of their ships and fishermen, how every man knoweth his own place, and all labouring merrily together: whereby the poorest sort of themselves, their wives and children, be well maintained; and no want seen amongst them.
Shetland is the greatest Isle of all the Oreades, and lieth in the height of 60° N. Lat.
And thus North-West-and-by-North hence along they steer, then being the very heart of summer and the very yolk of all the year, sailing until they do come unto the Isle of Shetland, which is His Majesty's dominions. And with this gallant fleet of Busses, there have been seen twenty, thirty, and forty ships of war to waft [convoy] and guard them from being pillaged and taken by their enemies and Dunkirkers: but now the wars be ended, they do save that great charge, for they have not now about four or six to look unto them, for [from] being spoiled by rovers and pirates.
Now if that it happen that they have so good a wind as to be at Shetland before the 14th day of their June [i.e., N.S.] as most commonly they have, then do they all put into Shetland, nigh Swinborough [Sumburgh] Head; into a sound called Bracies [Bressa] Sound, and there they frolic it on land, until that they have sucked out all the marrow of the malt and good Scotch ale, which is the best liquor that the island doth afford: but the 14th day of June being once come, then away all of them go, for that is the first day, by their own law, before which time they must not lay a net; for until then the herrings be not in season, nor fit to be taken to be salted.
From this place, being nigh two hundred leagues from Yarmouth, do they now first begin to fish, and they do never leave the shoals of herrings, but come along amongst them, following the herrings as they do come, five hundred miles in length [along], and lading their ships twice or thrice before they come to Yarmouth, with the principal and best herrings, and sending them away by the merchant ships that cometh unto them, that bringeth them victuals, barrels, and more salt, and nets if that they do need any, the which ships that buyeth their herrings they do call Herring Yagers [now spelt Jagers]: and these Yagers carry them, and sell them in the East [Baltic] Countries, some to Revel and to Riga, and some so far as Narva and Russia, Stockholm in Sweden, Quinsborough [? Konigsberg], Dantsic, and Elving [Elbing], and all Poland, Sprucia, and Pomerland, Letto [Lithuania], Burnt-Hollume, Stettin, Lubeck, and Jutland and Denmark. Returning hemp, flax, cordage, cables, and iron; corn, soap ashes, wax, wainscot, clapholt [? clap-boards], pitch, tar, masts, and spruce deals, hoops and barrel-boards [staves]; and plenty of silver and gold: only [solely] for their procedue [proceeds] of herrings.
Now besides this great Fleet of the Busses, the Hollanders have a huge number more of smaller burden, only for to take herrings also; and these be of the burden from fifty tons unto thirty tons, and twenty tons. The greatest of them have twelve men a piece, and the smallest eight and nine men a piece; and these are vessels of divers fashions and not like unto the Busses, yet go they only for herrings in the season, and they be called, some of them, Sword-Pinks, Flat-Bottoms, Holland-Toads, Crab-Skuits, and Yevers: and all these, or the most part do go to Shetland; but these have no Yagers to come unto them; but they go themselves home when they be laden, or else unto the best market. There have been seen and numbered of Busses and these, in braces [rigged], sound, and going out to sea; and at sea in sight at one time, two thousand Sail, besides them that were at sea without [out of] sight, which could not be numbered.
It is Bartholomewtide [August 24] yearly, before that they be come from Shetland with the herrings so high as [down to] Yarmouth: and all those herrings that they do catch in the Yarmouth seas from Bartholomewtide until Saint Andrew['s day, October 24], the worst that be, the roope-sick herrings that will not serve to make barrelled herrings by their own law, they must not bring home into Holland; wherefore they do sell them for ready money or gold unto the Yarmouth men, that be no fishermen, but merchants and engrossers of great quantities of herrings, if that, by any means, they can get them. So that the Hollanders be very welcome guests unto the Yarmouthian [!] herring-buyers, and the Hollanders do call them their "hosts," and they do yearly carry away from Yarmouth many a thousand pounds, as it is well known.
But these Hollanders, with the ladings of the best, which they make their best brand herrings to serve for Lenten store, they send some for Bordeaux, some for Rochelle, Nantes, Morlaix; and Saint Malo and Caen in Normandy; Rouen, Paris, Amiens, and all Picardy and Calais: and they do return from these places wines, salt, feathers, rosin, woad, Normandy canvas, and Dowlais cloth, and money and French crowns. But out of all the Archduke's countries they return nothing from thence but ready money, in my own knowledge; and their ready payment was all double Jacobuses, English twenty-[five] shilling pieces. I have seen more there, in one day, than ever I did in London at any time.