[1579/10/39]¹

Concerning packing, peeling, forestalling and transporting of herring and white fish, chapter 20

²Forasmuch as diverse acts have been made by our sovereign lord's most noble progenitors in time past ordaining that the slayers of herring and white fish should bring the same to the adjacent burghs and towns where the persons, slayers thereof, dwell, to the effect that our said sovereign's lieges may be first served, and, if abundance occurred, that they might be sold and transported by free burgesses; and that the said acts, through negligence and oversight, have not received execution, through which our sovereign lord has been greatly defrauded of his customs, and his highness's lieges wanted the fruits of the sea appointed by God for their nourishment, and the burgesses and freemen of burghs disappointed of their traffic and commodity; therefore our sovereign lord and three estates of parliament ratify and approve all the said acts and constitutions made concerning the said herring and white fish and using thereof, especially the acts made in the time of the his highness's late dearest great-grandfather King James IV, of good memory, and by his majesty the time of the regiment of his right trusty cousin James [Douglas], earl of Morton, lord of Dalkeith, regent to his highness, his realm and lieges for the time, and ordain all and sundry the said acts to be observed and kept in all points after the form and tenor thereof and the contraveners of the same to be punished according thereto, and that all sheriffs, stewarts and bailies, lords of regalities, provosts, aldermen and bailies of burghs and judges ordinary whatsoever put the said acts to execution upon the contraveners thereof, and to that effect grant and give to them power and commission of justiciary, every one within the bounds of their own liberties and jurisdiction, and to take up the escheats of the contraveners being convicted, two parts to the king's majesty's use, and to make account thereof yearly in his highness's exchequer, and the third part of the same to the said judges, executors, for their travail and labours.