England's Treasure by Foreign Trade [34]
it self (which is the Fishing in His Majesties Seas) that gives Foundation, and is the very Foundation of their strength and happiness: The United Provinces (we know) are like a fair bird suited with goodly borrowed plumes; but if every Fowl should take his feather, this bird would rest neer naked: Nor have we ever seen these Netherlanders as yet in their greatest occasions to set forth neer so many ships of war at once as the English have often done without any hinderance of their ordinary traffique; It is true indeed, they have an infinite number of weak Ships to fish with, and fetch Corn, Salt, &c. for their own victualling and trading, the like to fetch Timber, Plank, Boords, Pitch, Hemp, Tar, Flax, Masts, Cordage, and other Ammunitions to make those multitudes of Ships, which unto them are as our Ploughs to us, the which except they stire, the people starve; their Shipping therefore cannot be spared from their traffique (as ours may if occasion require) no not for a very short time, without utter ruin, because it is the daily maintenance of their great multitudes which gain their living but from hand to mouths upon which also depends the great excises, and other publique revenues, which support the State it self: Neither indeed are those Vessels strong or fit for war; and in their proper use of Fishing and trade they would become the riches, or the purchase of a potent Enemy by Sea, as they partly find by one poor town of Dunkirk, notwithstanding their great charge of Men of war, strong Convoys, and other commendable diligence, which continually they use to prevent this mischief: but if the occasion of a more powerful enemy by Sea should force them to double or treble those charges, we may well doubt the means of their continuance, especially when (by us) their fishing might nevertheless be prevented, which should procure the maintenance. These and other circumstances make me often wonder, when I hear the Dutch vain-gloriously to brag, and many English simply to believe, that the United Provinces are our Forts, Bulwarks, Walls, out-works, and I know not what, without which we cannot long subsist against the Spanish forces; when in truth, we are the main fountain of their happiness, both for war and peace; for trade and treasure, for Munition and Men, spending our bloud in their defence; whilst their people are preserved to conquer in the Indies, and to reap the fruits of a rich traffique out of our own bosoms; which being assumed to our selves (as we have right and power to do) would mightily encrease the breed of our people by this good means of their maintenance, and well enable us against the strongest enemy, and force likewise great multitudes of those Netherlanders themselves to seek their living here with us for want of better maintenance: whereby our many decayed Sea-towns and Castles would soon be re-edified and populated in more ample manner than formerly they were in their best estate. And thus these forces being united, would be ever more ready, sure, and vigorous than a greater strength that lies divided, which is always subject to delays, divesion, and other jealousies, of all which we ought not to be ignorant, but perfectly to know, and use our own strength when we have occasion, and expecially we must ever be watchful to preserve this strength, lest the subtilty of the Dutch (under some fair shews and with their mony) prevail, as peradventure they lately practised in Scotland, to have had a Patent for the possessing, inhabiting, and fortifying of that excellent Island of Lewis in the Orcades; whose scituation, harbours, fishing, fertility, largeness and other advantages, would have made them able (in short time) to offend these Kingdoms by suddain invasions, and to have defened the aforesaid Fishing against his Majesties greatest power, and also to send out and return home their Shipping prosperously that way, to and from the East and West Indies, Spain, the Straights, and other places, without passing through his Majesty's narrow Seas, where in all occasions this Kingdome now hath so great advantage