Note 434 — Chapter VI · CHARLES I. FISHERIES AND RESERVED WATERS.
Reading edition
The Act specified by the king was passed in 1491, but he seems rather to have been referring to the Act 6 James III., c. 48. “That Lordes, Barrones and Burrowes gar make Schippes, Busches, and greate Pinck-boates with Nettes,” which was passed in 1471, “for the common good of the realm and the great increase of riches,” to be brought from other countries in exchange for fish exported. The Act of James IV., “Anent the makeing of Schippes and Busches on the quhilk all Idle Men suld Laboure,” was an early attempt to carry out the policy advocated by English writers in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. It enacted that ships and busses, not under twenty tons burden, should be built in all the burghs and towns of Scotland, provided with mariners and nets: and power was given to compel “idle men” to man them.