Nashe on the Yarmouth Herring Trade

Artifact Summary
Artifact type
Creator/author	Nashe
Date	1599
Period
City and country of origin	Great Yarmouth, England
Abstract

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• Longitude: j.6071742, 1.7314845
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[FromNashe's LentenStuffe, inTheComplete Works of ThomasNashe, ed. A. B. Grosart (1883-84), Vol. V., pp. 237-41, 257-58, 307-8.]

That English marchandise is most precious which no country can be without : if you aske Suffolke, Essex, Kent, Sussex or Leinster, or Cotswold, what marchandise that should be ? they will answere you, it is the very same which Polidore Virgill cals Vere aureum vellus, the true golden fleece of our woll and English cloth and nought else: other engrating vpland cormorants will grunt out it is Grana paradisi, our grain or corne that is most sought after. The Westerners and Northerners that [it] is lead, tinne and iron. Butter and cheese, butter and cheese, saith the farmer. But from every one of these I dissent and wil stoutely bide by it, that to trowle in the cash throughout all nations [of] christendome, there is no fellowe to the red herring. The French, Spanish, and Italian haue wool inough of their owne whereof they make cloth to serue their turne, though it be somewhat courser then oures. For corne, none of the East parts but surpasseth us ; of leade and tinne is the most scarcity in forraine dominions, and plenty with vs, though they are not vtterly barraine of them. As for iron, about Isenborough and other places of Germany they haue quadruple the store wee haue. As touching butter and cheese, the Hollanders cry by your leaue wee must goe before you, and the Transalpiners with their lordly Parmasin (so named of the citty of Parma in Italy where it is first cloutcrushed and made) shoulder in for the upper hand as hotly; when as of our appropriate glory of the red herring, no region twixt the poles articke and antartick may, can or will rebate from vs one scruple.

On no coast like ours is it caught in such abundance, no where drest in his right cue but vnder our Horizon ; hosted, rosted and tosted heere alone it is, and as well poudred and salted as any Duchman would desire. If you articulate with me of the gaine or profit of it, without the which the newe fanglest raritie, that no body can boast of but ourselues, after three dayes gazing, is reuerst ouer to children for babies to play with: behold it is euery mans money, from the King to the Courtier; euery housholder or goodman Baltrop, that keepes a family in pay, casts for it as one of his standing prouisions. The poorer sort make it three parts of there sustenaunce; with it for his dinner the patchedest Leather piltche laboratho may dine like a Spanish Duke, when the niggardliest mouse of biefe will cost him sixpence. In the craft of catching or taking it, and smudging it, Marchant and chapmanable as it should be, it sets a worke thousands, who liue all the rest of the yeare gayly well, by what in some fewe weekes they scratch vp then, and come to beare office of Questman and Scauinger in the Parish where they dwell: which they could neuer haue done,but would haue begd or starud with their wiues and brattes, had not this Captaine of the squamy cattell so stoode their good Lord and master : Carpenters, Shipwrights, makers of lines, roapes and cables, dressers of Hempe, spinners of thred, and net weauers it giues their handfuls to, sets vp so many salt-houses to make salt, and salt vpon salt ; keepes in earnings the Cooper, the Brewer, the Baker, and numbers of other people, to gill, wash and packe it, and carrie it and recarrie it.

In exchange of it from other Countries, they returne wine and Woades, for which is alwaies paide ready Golde, with salt, Canuas, Vitre, and a great deale of good trash. Her Maiesties tributes and customes, this Semper Augustus of the Seas finnie freeholders augmenteth and enlargeth vncountably, and to the encrease of Nauigation for her seruice hee is no enemie.

Voiages of purchase or reprisals, which are now grown a common traffique, swallow vp and consume more Saylers and Marriners then they breede, and lightly not a slop of a ropehaler they send forth to the Queenes ships, but hee is first broken to the Sea in the Herring mans Skiffe or Cock-boate, where hauing learned to brooke all waters, and drinke as he can out of a tarrie Canne, and eate poore Iohn out of swuttie platters when he may get it, without butter or mustard, there is no ho with him, but once hartned thus, hee will needes be a man of warre, or a Tobacco taker, and weare a siluer Whistle. Some of these for their haughtie climbing come home with woodden legges and some with none, but leaue body and all behinde; those that escape to bring news tell of nothing but eating Tallow and yong blackamores, of fiue and fiue to a Rat in euery messe, and the shipboy to the tayle, of stopping their noses when they drunke stinking water that came out of the pumpe of the ship, and cutting a greasie buffe ierkin in tripes and broiling it for their dinners. Diuers Indian adventures haue beene seasoned with direr mis- haps, not hauing for eight dayes space the quantity of a candlesend among eight score, to grease their lippes with, and landing in the end to seeke food, by the canibal Sauages they haue bene circumuented and forced to yeeld their bodies to feed them. There are that number of Herrings vented out of Yarmouth ...

euery yeare (though the Grammarians make no plurall number of Halec) as not onely they are more by two thousand Last then our owne land can spend, but they fil all other lands, to whome at their owne prises they sell them; and happie is he that can first lay hold of them. And how can it bee otherwise, for if Cornish Pilchards, otherwise called Fumados, taken on the shore of Cornewall, from Iuly to Nouember, bee so saleable as they are in Fraunce, Spaine, and Italy (which are but counterfets to the red Herring as Copper to Golde, or Ockamie to siluer), much more, there elbows itch for ioy, when they meete with the true Golde, the true red Herring it selfe. No true flying fish but he, or if there be, that fish neuer flies but when his wings are wet, and the red Herringflyes best when his wings are dry : throughout Belgia, high Germanie, Fraunce, Spaine and Italy hee flyes , and vp into Greece, and Africa South, and Southwest, Estritchlike walkes his stations, and the Sepulcher : Palmers or Pilgrims, because hee is so portable, fill their Scrips with them; yea no dispraise to the bloud of the Ottamans, the Nabuchedonesor of Constantinople, and Giantly Antæus, that neuer yawneth nor neezeth but he affrighteth the whole earth, gormandizing muncheth him vp for imperiall dainties, and will not spare his Idol Mahomet a bit with him, no, not though it would fetch him from heauen fortie yeares before his time.

Alas poorehunger starued Muse, wee shall haue some spawne of a goose-quill or ouer worne pander quirking and girding, was it sohard driuen that it had nothing to feede vpon but a redde herring? But let none of these scumme of the suburbs be ..

too vineger tarte with mee: for if they bee, Ile take mine oath vppon a redde herring and eate it, to prooue their fathers, their grandfathers, and their great grandfathers, or any other of their kinne, were scullions dishwash, and durty draffe and swil, set against a redde herring. The puissant red herring, the golden Hesperides red herring, the Meonian red herring, the red herring of red Herrings Hal, euery pregnant peculiar of whose resplendent laude and honour, to delineate and adumbrate to the ample life, were a woorke that would drinke drie fourescore and eighteene Castalian fountaines of eloquence, consume another Athens of facunditie, and abate the haughtiest poeticall fury twixt this and the burning Zone and the tropike of Cancer. My conceit is cast into a sweating sicknesse, with ascending these few steps of his renowme ; into what a hote broyling saint Laurence feuer

would it relapse then, should I spend the whole bagge of my winde in climbing vp to the lofty mountaine creast of his Trophees ! But no more winde will I spend on it but this : Saint Patrike for Ireland, Saint George for England, and the red Herring for Yarmouth !