Note 412 — Chapter VI · CHARLES I. FISHERIES AND RESERVED WATERS.

Acta Parl. Scot., v. 226. Rec. Conv. Roy. Burghs, iii. 322, 323. The Earl of Seaforth, writing to the Earl of Carlisle on August 17th, said that the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Treasurer had left no argument unuttered which might induce their countrymen, and especially the burghs, to concur in the king’s desire about the fishing. The burghs would not admit any association either with countrymen or strangers; “they like not,” he said, “that noblemen or gentry should understand matters of industry,” and they would do what they could to move the king to delay. State Papers, Dom., clxxii. 78. In another account of the proceedings of the Convention, it is said the burghs claimed as “absolutely theirs” the fishing within bays and lochs, and at sea for a distance of “two kennings” from the shore, and stated that they would admit no partners, either natives or strangers; that buss-fishing was distinguished by them to be “without two kennings from the land”; and they would not “on any condition” allow any busses to participate in the “land fishing” within two kennings, or to land at all, but only to “make” their fish (cure them) on shipboard, as the “Flemings” did. It is added that those who would have hazarded some means in the project were “absolutely discouraged” by the attitude of the burghs. Ibid., ccvi. 45.