III. UNDER THE TUDORS…

III. UNDER THE TUDORS

The policy of freedom of commercial intercourse, navigation, and fishery which was enunciated in the Intercursus Magnus and the treaties which preceded it, was faithfully observed throughout the sixteenth century. No attempt was made by any of the Tudor sovereigns to interfere with the liberty which foreigners enjoyed of fishing on the English coast; nor was any claim put forward by them to the dominion or lordship of the surrounding seas. On the contrary, throughout the greater part of the century, facilities were given for the peaceful exercise and encouragement of sea-fishing, even in time of war; while on several occasions the last and greatest of the monarchs of the Tudor line actively contested the old pretensions of Denmark to the sovereignty of the northern seas, and the more recent claims of Spain and Portugal to the exclusive right of navigating the great oceans. It was nevertheless during this century that changes occurred which made it easy for James early in the next to initiate a new policy of mare clausum, and to repudiate the provisions of the so-called Burgundy treaties. The most important of these changes was perhaps the decay which overtook the sea fisheries. Apart from their commercial and economic value, the fisheries were looked upon as indispensable for the maintenance of maritime power, and probably at no previous time had greater efforts been made to foster maritime power than under the Tudors. The hardy fishermen who navigated their barks to distant seas--to Iceland, to Wardhouse, round the North Cape, and now to Newfoundland--were trained in a school of seamanship which fitted them admirably to take their place for the naval defence of the country. Even the herring-smacks and the dogger-boats that fished in the North Sea and the Channel turned out mariners by no means to be despised,--men acquainted with the coasts and the tides, able to manage sails and educated to the sea. It was this aspect of the fisheries which was mostly regarded by the statesmen of those times, and for which the “political lent” and the protective legislation were designed.

The causes which led to the decay in the English fisheries were no doubt various, but perhaps the chief one, and the one on which most stress was laid in the latter part of the century, was the Reformation. The very large consumption of fish due to the observance of Lent and the numerous days of fasting, or fish-days, has been referred to (see p. 58). The suppression of the monasteries (1536-1539) and the dispersal of the inmates and dependants must alone have had considerable influence, but the relaxation of ecclesiastical rule among the laity which followed was much more detrimental to the fisheries. The decay of the sea-coast towns, so frequently spoken of in the reign of Elizabeth, was mainly attributed to this cause. Another influence which operated in the same direction, most markedly towards the end of the century, was the great growth of the fisheries and commerce of the Dutch. After the assertion of their independence of Spain (1581), commonly called the “abjuration of Philip,” their fisheries developed with great rapidity. One of the first acts of the new Republic (1582) was the codification of the fishery statutes; and about this time they applied to the deep-sea herring fishery the name of Great or Grand Fishery (Groote Visscherye), as being “the chief industry of the country and principal gold-mine to its inhabitants,” in contrast to the real gold-mines of Spain. They furnished the greater part of Europe with cured herrings and other fish, and the fish supply of England, and more particularly of London, fell to a large extent into their hands. Their herring fishery was carried on along our east coast, and the spectacle of great fleets of foreign fishing vessels frequenting our waters, while the native fisheries were falling to decay, roused envious and jealous feelings in the breasts of patriotic Englishmen.[156]

Under the Tudors the efforts made to foster the sea fisheries did not, as has been said, take the form of interfering with the foreign fishermen. They were rather directed, on the one hand, to increase the consumption of fish by restoring the strict observance of Lent and fish-days, and, on the other hand, to check the importation of fish caught by foreigners. In this way it was hoped that the native fisheries would be stimulated to supply at least the home markets. As early as 1541--a year or two after the suppression of the monasteries--an Act was passed which apparently indicates that the decline in the fisheries had already set in, and that it was customary for the English people to purchase fish from foreigners rather than catch them for themselves. Heavy penalties were imposed on any person who should bring into the realm for sale fresh fish (except sturgeon, porpoise, and seal, which were then included in the term) which they had purchased from strangers in Flanders, Zealand, Picardy, France, or elsewhere beyond the sea, “or upon the sea between shore and shore”; but the buying of fish at Iceland, Scotland, Orkney, Shetland, Ireland, or Newfoundland--to all which places English vessels went--was not prohibited.[157] This statute was re-enacted four years later, and again by Edward VI. and Queen Mary.[158] In the reign of Elizabeth a number of similar statutes were made, with the object of favouring the native fishermen in their competition with foreigners.

About the same time as the first Act of Henry was passed we begin to get evidence of laxity in the observance of Lent and of measures taken to deal with it. Many persons, including noblemen, were brought before the Privy Council charged with having eaten flesh in Lent, and were committed to the Fleet. The mayor and aldermen of London were commanded to make inquisition throughout all the wards of the city as to the households in which flesh was used in Lent, and the butchers were required to furnish information as to the quantity of flesh sold by them, and to whom, in the same period.[159] This activity of the Privy Council foreshadowed the new policy of the “political lent” which was inaugurated a few years later in the reign of Edward VI., and with which the name of Cecil was associated. By this time it was clearly recognised that the religious changes that had taken place were prejudicial to the fisheries by lessening the consumption of fish, and in 1548 an “Act for Abstinence from Flesh” was passed, by which fines were imposed on those who did not observe the usual fast-days. The object of the measure was clearly explained. “One day or one kind of meat of itself,” it said, “is not more holy, more pure, or more clean than another, for that all days and all meats be of their nature of one equal purity, cleanness, and holiness;” but “considering that due and godly abstinence is a mean to virtue, and to subdue men’s bodies to their soul and spirit, and considering also especially that Fishers, and men using the trade of living by fishing in the sea, may thereby the rather be set on work,” it was enacted that no person should eat flesh meat on Fridays, Saturdays, Ember-days, Lent, or on any other day which was accustomed a fish-day, under a penalty of ten shillings fine and ten days’ imprisonment without flesh food.[160]

By this statute the political lent was established, and the policy of compelling the people to eat fish for the good of the fisheries and the navy was continued with more or less vigour for a century and a half. Sir William Cecil was especially active in its favour. He caused careful inquiries to be made into the condition of the decayed havens and sea-coast towns and the state of the fisheries. He was informed by the London fishmongers, to whom he had submitted a series of questions, that there was not so much fish then consumed “by a great quantity” as used to be the case, and that the number of vessels engaged in the fisheries had greatly decreased. On the latter point they referred to a return made about the twentieth year of the reign of Henry VIII., which showed that seven-score and odd ships then went to the Iceland fishery, about 80 crayers to Shetland, and about 220 crayers from Scarborough and other towns to the North Seas fishing, making a total of about 440 fishing vessels; while at the time they wrote--in the reign of Edward VI., and probably in 1552 or 1553--the number had fallen to about 133, of which 43 went to Iceland, 10 crayers to Shetland, and 80 to “the North Seas,” showing a decrease in the twenty-four or twenty-five years of about 307 “ships and crayers.”[161] A similar story of the decay of the fisheries came from the east-coast towns. At Lynn, which was maintained chiefly by the Iceland and the herring fisheries, and which twenty or thirty years before sent out about thirty vessels to those fisheries, there were then only two Iceland barks, and no herring-smacks at all. It used to be able to furnish 300 mariners for the king’s service, while now it could not supply more than twenty or thirty. And so at Burnham (where the fishing-boats had decreased from 26 to nil), Wells, Clee, Cromer, Yarmouth, and other Norfolk ports--all had greatly decayed. The fisheries and the shipping had fallen off, the “men of substance” had lost their money or left, the population had diminished, and even the houses were falling down. To a statesman like Cecil, who knew the value of the mariners bred at the fishing ports for manning the navy if need arose, and how a flourishing fishery multiplied shipping, such information must have been disquieting. He calculated that while within twenty years back there had been 150 ships for Iceland, 220 for the north seas, and 78 for “Shotland” (Shetland), the numbers had fallen when he wrote to 43 for Iceland, 75 for the north seas, and 9 for Shetland; and that the number of fishing vessels had decreased from 448 to 127.[162]

In replying to Cecil’s second question as to the cause of the decay in the fisheries, the fishmongers said it was first of all due to the diminished consumption of fish, since the fish-days were not “duly observed as heretofore,” which “took away such hope of gain as in time past they have had” in carrying on the fisheries. A second reason they gave was the greater love “for ease and pleasure” than in former times, people now preferring to buy their fish from strangers rather than to “travail and venture for it themselves,”--a very common charge against Englishmen then and for a long time afterwards. As a third reason, they said the price of fish was regulated in various towns by the mayors and other officers in such a way that they were often forced to sell without sufficient profit, while Government purveyors made them part with their fish at nominal prices. It is to be noted that they made no complaint against foreign fishermen or the importation of foreign fish.

During the brief reign of Mary (1553-1558) Cecil was in the shade, but shortly after the accession of Elizabeth he again devoted attention to the decay of the fisheries and tried to apply fitting remedies. Among the State Papers of the year 1563 is a long and elaborate document, copiously revised by Cecil himself, which deals with the condition of shipping and fisheries, and obviously formed the basis and argument for the great Act made in the same year.[163] In this paper the decay of the navy both in ships and mariners was traced by Cecil to a variety of causes: the piracies of Turks and Moors on the Levant trade, the transference of the spice trade from the Venetians to the Portuguese and Spaniards, the Spanish law of bottomry, the augmentation by the King of Denmark of the tolls at the Sound and his recovery of Iceland, and the decay of the English fisheries. Herrings and other sea fish, he said, were now taken upon our coast by strangers, who brought them into the realm and sold them “to the very inhabitants of the parts that were used to be fishermen,” while Englishmen had themselves been prohibited from exporting fish.[164] The remedies which Cecil proposed were that the importation of wines and woad should be allowed only in English ships; that Englishmen should be prohibited from purchasing fresh herrings which had been caught by strangers; that they should be free to export and sell sea fish out of the realm; and, principally, that Wednesday should be made an additional fish-day. The decay of the fisheries, he said, was manifest on all the sea coast in the decay of the port towns, which soon would be “remedeless,” and it was caused by diminished consumption of fish at home and the want of foreign markets.[165] On the other hand, Scotland, Norway, Denmark, Friesland, Zealand, Holland, and Flanders caught not only sufficient fish for themselves, but exported it to other countries, including England; while Spain provided herself by her fisheries on the south coast of Ireland, and France “aboundeth with fishermen” from her great fisheries at Newfoundland and Iceland.[166] Cecil’s conclusion was that there was no likelihood for a long time of developing a flourishing export trade in fish, and that it would be necessary to institute another fish-day to increase the demand at home. On this part of his proposals he entered into a long argument, showing that in 1536 the 500 monasteries which paid tithes to the king, with a minimum number of 25,000 inmates, must have required a great supply of fish, as fish was then eaten on at least seventy-six days a year more than at the time when he wrote.[167]

By the great Act passed in 1563, “Touching certain Politic Constitutions made for the Maintenance of the Navy,” Wednesday was added to the two fish-days previously enjoined by the statute of Edward VI., but only after long debate and opposition on the part of the “puritans.”[168] The Act also contained provisions to restrain foreign importation of fish, to encourage the export of English-caught fish by subjects, and to remove the complaints as to the action of purveyors and burdensome impositions--points on which the fishmongers had laid some stress. Herrings and other sea fish taken by Englishmen in English ships were to be freely exported without paying custom; no tax, toll, or restraint was to be imposed on fish taken and landed by subjects; it was made illegal to buy from strangers any herrings unless they were “sufficiently salted, packed, and casked”; only English vessels were to be allowed to carry coastwise any fish, victuals, or other goods; the cultivation of flax for fishing-nets was to be encouraged; and on the plea that there was “much deceitful packing” of cod and ling brought into the realm by aliens, the importation of these fish was forbidden, except only “loose, in bulk and by tale.” Most of these provisions and prohibitions would operate against the Dutch, who had not only a large part of the trade in herrings with England, but practically the monopoly in supplying barrelled cod and ling.[169]

From this time forward the policy of protecting the native fisheries by checking the competition of foreigners went hand in hand with the encouragement of the consumption of fish by the compulsory observance of fish-days. Interfering as it did with established practice and conflicting trade interests, the Act aroused opposition in various quarters, especially on the part of those who were interested in the important commerce in cured cod-fish. In the year after it passed, the Queen’s purveyors were unable to obtain in England sufficient supplies of fish for the navy and the royal service, and they were licensed to import cod-fish, lings, and green-cod, in barrels or casks, notwithstanding the prohibition in the Act,[170]--a privilege which had to be extended to all English subjects a few years later with respect to fish caught in their own vessels “with cross-sails.”[171] On the other hand, it was claimed that the Act had done good. The coast people of Norfolk and Suffolk informed the Council in 1568 that it had increased the trade in fish in these counties; and as the Act had been passed for four years only and continued at the Queen’s pleasure, they petitioned that it should be renewed, and that provision should be made to put a stop to the importation by strangers of cod and ling in bulk, which were dried and sold under the name of Iceland fish, to the detriment of those engaged in the Iceland fishery, and also to ensure that fish-days should be better observed.[172] In the same year the Council instructed the magistrates of London, Hull, and Southampton, and the justices of various shires, to commit to jail any persons fraudulently dealing with foreign imported cod and ling as Iceland fish;[173] and three years later another Act was passed, giving effect to the wishes of the fishermen, and continuing the former Act for other six years.[174] It contained a new provision showing that complaints had been made about the vessels, some of them foreign, which came “pretending” to buy fresh herrings on the coast of Norfolk. To avoid “lewd outrages” by these “catches, mongers, and Picardes,” in cutting and damaging the drift-nets of the fishermen, they were prohibited from anchoring between sunset and sunrise during the fishing season in the places where the boats were accustomed to fish.

Up to about this time no complaint seems to have been made against the foreign fishermen either by English fishermen or by statesmen or writers. The men from the Low Countries appear to have pursued their occupation in peace side by side with the Englishmen. But in 1570 the first note was heard of what became later almost a continuous lamentation. A petition was presented to the Privy Council asking that “letters” should be sent to Zealand and Holland, or ships of war despatched to protect the English fishermen from the evil doings of the Low Countrymen. “Otherwise,” the petitioners said, “both wee and all others that entend fysshing in all partes of this realme shall be utterly undone, for that the fishermen Flemynges this yeire have so spoyled and mysused all the coaste men, that it hath so discomforted them” that they feared “the whole avoyadaunce of fysshing both for herring and other fysshing upon all the north coast of this realme.”[175] Whether or not this complaint referred to the outrages described in the Act quoted above is uncertain, but probably it did not, as the Hollanders and Zealanders fished for themselves, and they were now becoming rather numerous. It does not appear that any special action was taken regarding the petition. It was Cecil’s aim to increase the use of fish within the realm and to foster the native fisheries, but he had no desire to interfere with the liberty of fishing enjoyed by the Hollanders. Such action would have been contrary not only to the treaties but to the international policy of England at that time. On political and religious grounds the aid of the Dutch was needful in the struggle against the common enemy, Spain.

That the English people had become interested in the condition of the fisheries and somewhat jealous of the fleets of foreign vessels which fished along their coast may be inferred from the appearance at this time of two works--one by Captain Robert Hitchcock, and the other by the learned and unfortunate Dr John Dee. It is a curious circumstance that those authors, who wrote at the same period, should each have advocated one of the two lines of policy adopted in the next century. Hitchcock was all for freedom of fishing, for strangers and natives alike. His remedy was the creation of a great English fishery organisation to oust the Dutch from our seas. Dee, on the other hand, was emphatic in claiming mare clausum and an exclusive fishing for Englishmen, and in urging heavy taxation of foreigners who fished in the British seas.

Hitchcock was a gentleman and a soldier who, in 1553, as he himself tells us, while serving the Emperor Charles V. in his wars in the Low Countries, had observed with astonishment that the wealth and shipping of Zealand and Holland were due to their sea fisheries. Pondering on his discovery, he thought out a plan some years later by which a great national fishery might be established in England to supplant the Dutch, so that the wealth acquired by them in the British seas might go to profit his own countrymen. It was the first of the innumerable schemes of the kind which are to be found scattered over the economic literature of the next two centuries. Having reduced his plan to writing, he submitted it about the year 1573 to the Earl of Leicester, in 1575 to Queen Elizabeth, and in the following year he distributed copies to men of influence, in the hope “that God would stir up some good man to set out this work.” It appears even to have been brought to the notice of Parliament by Sir Leonard Digges, but its consideration was deferred “for want of time.”[176] The copy presented to the Queen is preserved among the Burghley Papers in the British Museum,[177] and the completed work, somewhat enlarged,--now very rare,--was published (in black-letter) on 1st January 1580 as “A New Year’s Gift to England.”[178]

The plan of Hitchcock was to borrow £80,000 for three years, when the whole amount would be repaid from the proceeds of the fish sold. The shires were to be arranged in eight groups, each group providing with its £10,000 fifty fishing vessels of not less than 70 tons burthen, or 400 altogether. These were to be built after the manner of “Flemysche Busses” and distributed at eighty ports around the coast; and at eight of the chief ports (London, Yarmouth, Hull, Newcastle, Chester, Bristol, Exeter, and Southampton) two “honest and substantial men of credit” were to be appointed chief officers, to act as treasurers, purveyors, and directors. Hitchcock estimated that each ship when ready for fishing would cost £200; the crews were to consist of a skilled master, twelve mariners or fishermen, and twelve “strong lustie beggers or poore men taken upp through the land.”[179] The scheme proposed that the busses should first fish for herrings on the coast of England and Ireland during the fourteen or fifteen weeks this fishing lasted, the herrings being cured and branded after the “Flemish” fashion. The busses were also to visit Newfoundland for cod and ling; or some were to go to Iceland, “Wardhouse,”[180] the north seas of England and Scotland, or to Ireland. It was intended to employ some of them in winter in exporting the surplus of cured fish to France, “or elsewhere.” As for the all-important question of earnings, it was calculated that each buss would catch at least 50 lasts, or 600 barrels, of herrings, worth £10 a last; altogether £200,000 from this item,[181] and if two voyages were made, the amount would be doubled. It was supposed that each buss would bring back from Newfoundland 20,000 of the best “wet” fish and 10,000 dried--together worth £500; the same value was placed upon the 15,000 cod and 10,000 ling to be procured at Iceland, Wardhouse, or the north seas; and besides the fish, each ship was estimated to return with £50-£60 worth of cod-liver oil. Then with regard to the “vent” or sale of the fish, it was assumed that about half of the herrings, or 120,000 barrels, would be required for home consumption--not an exaggerated idea, for from other accounts it appears that London and the parts around it consumed about this time 60,000 barrels. Markets for the surplus herrings, it was believed, would be found at Normandy, Nantes, Bordeaux, and Rochelle. The profits were to be divided into shares, and besides paying off the borrowed capital and the interest (at 10 per cent), a stock of £8000 was to be formed at the eight chief ports, and £400 at the “225 decayed towns” in England and Wales for the philanthropic purpose of giving work to the poor. Nay, there was more. At the chief ports the surplus earnings were to provide a salary for “an honest, virtuous and learned man,” who was to travel constantly about the coasts preaching to the people, “as the Apostles did.” Among the indirect benefits to the nation Hitchcock included the transformation of idle vagabonds, of whom there were plenty, “daily increasing,” into good subjects--some of the Members of Parliament thought this part of the scheme alone entitled it to national support,--the addition of 9000 mariners for manning the navy, the saving of coin spent on foreign fish, the increase of the Queen’s customs, of commerce and navigation, and the repair of the decayed towns.

Such was the dream of this enthusiastic but thoroughly sincere old soldier: to expel the Hollanders from our seas by means of a national fishery organisation and to win back for England the wealth they gathered from her waters. At the time when he wrote, foreign fishermen were not nearly so numerous on our coasts as they became later. The herring-busses from the Low Countries which fished on the east coast numbered, he says, between 400 and 500, and the Englishmen “for feare of them,” and of tempests, fished in small vessels near the shore, as he shows in a “similitude,” here reproduced (fig. 2). Besides these, between 300 and 400 ships and barks from Biscay, Galicia, and Portugal fished off the south-west coast of Ireland from April to July, “near to Mackertymors country”; and also on the west and north-west coasts of Ireland for cod and ling from about Christmas to March. Hitchcock makes no complaint against the foreign fishermen for fishing in “her Majesty’s seas.” With a fine catholic generosity he indeed expressly says that all men of what country soever should be free to do so; that there was enough fish in the northern seas for all, even if there were 1000 sail more than there was. He believed that the English, by being so much nearer the fishing grounds, ought to be able to undersell the foreigner and get the markets and the trade.[182]

The scheme of Dr John Dee was very different from that of Hitchcock. A mathematician, an astrologer, a reputed magician, and, above all, an accomplished scholar, he looked at the subject from another point of view. Well acquainted with the writings of the Italian jurists and the practice of the Italian states, he expounded the view that the fisheries and the sovereignty in the British seas pertained to the crown of England, and that foreigners should be compelled to pay tribute for the liberty of fishing within them. It is the philosopher of Mortlake, indeed, who must be recognised as the literary pioneer of the claims to the sovereignty of the sea which were put forward by England in the seventeenth century. In 1577 he published a book entitled General and Rare Memorials pertayning to the Perfect Arte of Navigation,[183] in which he dealt with the fisheries and the boundaries of the British seas, and recommended that the tribute to be exacted from foreign fishermen should be expended in maintaining a navy to be called “The Petty Navy Royall,” for keeping the seas and supervising the fisheries. “Should not forreyne fishermen,” he asks, “(overboldly now and to to injuriously abusing oure riche fishings about England, Wales and Ireland), by the presence, oversight, power and industry of this Petty Navy Royal be made content; and judge themselves well apaid to enjoy, by our leave, some great portion of revenue to enrich themselves and their countries by, with fishing within the seas appertayning to oure ancient bounds and limits? Where now, to oure great shame and reproache, some of them do come in a manner home to our doors; and among them all, deprive us yearly of many hundred thousand pounds, whiche by our fishermen using the said fishings as chief, we might enjoy; and at length, by little and little, bring them (if we would deal so rigorously with them) to have as little portion of our peculiar commodity (to our Islandish Monarchy, by God and Nature assigned) as now they force our fishermen to be contented with; and yearly notwithstanding, doo at their fishing openly and ragingly use suche words of reproche toward our Prince and realm, as no true subject’s hart can quietly digest; and besides that, offer such shamefull wrongs to the good laboursom people of this land, as is not (by any reason) to be born withall, or endured any longer: destroying their nets, cutting their cables to the los of their anchors; yea, and often-tymes of Barkes, men and all.”[184] Here is the first note of a plaint which will become very common. He also accused the foreign fishermen, under colour of fishing, of making secret soundings of the channels and banks along our coast, to the great danger of the realm.

As for their fishing on the English coast, he says, erroneously, that the men from the Low Countries had frequented the herring fishing off Yarmouth for only thirty years (since 1540), since when their numbers had greatly increased. They had now become “very rich, strong, proud, and violent,” so that the ships of Norfolk and Suffolk, next to the fishing places, were reduced in numbers by 140 sail, besides crayers and other craft. The number of Flemish herring-busses that came to our coast he placed at over 500, while there were about 100 French; and 300 or 400 “Flemings” fished for cod in the north seas, “within the English limits.” Other foreigners, moreover, caught herrings on the Lancashire and Welsh coasts, and about 300 sail of Spaniards, besides Frenchmen, fished off Cape Clear and Blackrock in Ireland. All these fishings, said Dee, were “enjoyed as securely and freely from us by strangers, as if they were within their own King’s peculiar sea limits; nay, rather as if those coasts, seas and bays were of their private and several purchases: to our unspeakable loss, discredit and discomfort, and to no small further danger in these peculiar times of most subtle treacheries and fickle fidelity.” While admitting that the British seas were free for navigation, Dee held that the fisheries pertained to the crown of England, and that no foreigner had a right to cast a net in our sea without first obtaining leave from the Queen. To her belonged “the tenth” of all foreign fishings “within the royal limits and jurisdiction” in the British and Irish seas, and it was “a most reasonable and friendly request” that foreigners should pay that tenth in acknowledgment of the liberty to fish,--a tribute which he calculated would amount to £100,000 a-year, and which he urged should be devoted to the maintenance of the “Petty Navy Royal.”

Dee was not only the first English writer who claimed the sovereignty of the sea and the fisheries for England; he was also the first who attempted to define their boundaries in detail. At the time when he wrote, it appears indeed to have been held in theory by some lawyers that the limit of the English seas extended to the mid-line between England and foreign coasts, except in the case of the Channel, where the water right up to the opposite shore was believed to be under the sovereignty of England. The doctrine, no doubt, was evolved from the opinions of the Italian jurists, whose authority was then very high (see p. 539), and from the political relations with France then and in former times. Two years before Dee published his book, Plowden, an eminent lawyer, acting as counsel in a case concerning the rights on a manor to wreck of the sea, argued for the defendant that “the bounds of England” extended to the middle of the adjoining sea which surrounded the realm, but that the Queen had the exclusive jurisdiction on the sea between England and France by reason of her title to France, and so also with Ireland; whereas in other places, as towards Spain, she had only the moiety. It was the same, said Plowden, with the sea as with great rivers. But while Plowden allowed the “jurisdiction and governance of all things” to the Queen on the sea within the limits stated, he denied to her the right of property in it or in the land under it; it was common to all men, and she could not prohibit any one from fishing in it; the water and the land under it were things of no value, and “the fish are always removable from one place to another.”[185]

Dee adopted the same opinion as to the limits, but held, as we have seen, that the fisheries were appropriated. The boundaries of the Queen’s “peculiar seas,” he said, were “in all places to be accounted directly to the myddle seas over betweene the sea-shores of her own kingdom (and of all petty Isles to the same kingdom appertayning) and the opposite sea-shores of all forrein princes: and in all seas lying immediately betweene any two of her own coasts or sea-shores, the whole breadth of the seas over (in such places) is, by all reason of justice, appropriate to her peculiar jurisdiction and sea royalty,” even if the distance in such cases were 1000 miles or more.[186] On the other hand, according to Dee, neighbouring countries were to be allowed the same rights and interests in the moiety of the sea appropriate to their coasts.

The limits of the British seas, and the sovereignty pertaining to them, were more fully described by Dr Dee some years later in a long unpublished letter or treatise addressed to Sir Edward Dyer,[187] who had apparently asked him for a fuller statement of his views on the subject. In his book Dee said little about the boundaries in the Channel, where the principle of the mid-line was complicated by two circumstances--the claim of Elizabeth to the French crown, and the possession by England of the Channel Islands. In his later treatise he says that presupposing “for doctrine’s sake” that Calais was in the hands of Spain, and the northern coasts of Picardy and Normandy were appropriated by France (which was the case), then the boundary must be drawn in the very middle of the Channel between Dover and Calais, and then westwards in the middle line between the opposite coasts of England and of Picardy and Normandy, until it touched the middle of a straight line drawn between Portland and the island of Alderney. In this region, west of the line, inasmuch as the coasts of the Channel Islands and the opposite coast of England belonged to the Queen, her Majesty had “absolute, peculiar, and appropriate Sea Sovereignty and Jurisdiction Royall.” The western boundary of this area of absolute sovereignty in the narrow seas coincided with a line drawn from Start Point to an “island” that Dee calls “Rocktow,” which is unrepresented on charts, but which is probably a phonetic synonym for “Roches Douvres,” a group of islets off the north coast of Brittany.[188] From the middle of this line the boundary passed westwards, again midway between the coasts of England and Brittany, until it touched the middle of a third straight line drawn from the north-west part of Ushant to about the Lizard. These were the limits on the supposition above referred to; but, “speaking more boldly in her Majesty’s right,” Dee declared that the whole sea between the south coast of England and the north coast of France--Picardy, Normandy, and Brittany--was under the Queen’s “sea-jurisdiction and sovereignty absolute,” inasmuch as she was a real monarch of France by direct inheritance and prior conquest, and therefore had right to the French coasts; and this “absolute sovereignty” served to “enlarge and warrant” the Queen’s “Jurisdiction Respective” in the ocean to the west of France. So also the jurisdiction of the crown of England extended into the main ocean to the west of England and Ireland by reason of the possession of the shores; while the ocean around Scotland, inasmuch as that country was (he said) in olden times tributary to the English kings, yielded to her Majesty “a mightie portion of Sea Sovereignty,” as it stretched away westwards to “that famous and very ancient Platonicall or Solonicall Atlantis.” For the same reasons Dee claimed prerogative and jurisdiction for the Queen in the northern ocean, and between Scotland and the opposite coasts of Norway and Denmark, “at least to the mid-sea,” and so to the southwards “half seas over” between the east coast of England and the coasts of Denmark, Friesland, and Holland, to the Straits of Dover.

Within the British seas as thus defined, Dee claimed that the crown of England had first of all sovereign jurisdiction, over foreigners as well as over subjects,[189] and part of the duty of the Petty Navy Royal--which, as stated, was to be maintained by taxing foreign fishermen--was to guard and protect foreign ships passing through our seas. This doctrine he based upon the law as laid down by the Italian jurists. Nor did he forget the purely naval side. Quoting the old proverb, “A sword keepeth peace,” he argued that the presence of a fleet such as he suggested would cause other nations to respect us more than they did, and enable us to enjoy the royalty and sovereignty of the narrow seas and of our other seas better than the possession of Calais and Boulogne could do.

Dee’s work was premature. His proposals that Elizabeth should tax foreigners for fishing in the British seas and exercise jurisdiction over foreign vessels passing through them remained as much a dream as the scheme of Hitchcock.[190] It need not be supposed that such measures as Dee proposed were intrinsically distasteful either to the Queen or to Cecil. If a navy could have been acquired so easily, or a much less sum than £100,000 gathered from foreign fishermen in a “friendly” way, as Dee supposed, neither the sovereign nor the statesman was likely to let the chance go by. But they knew better than the philosopher, or than the Stuarts in the next century, that a policy of the kind would involve them in difficulties with other Powers,--with France and Spain as well as with the Protestant Netherlands.

So far from adopting any policy of this nature or making any claim to a special sovereignty in the surrounding seas, Elizabeth steadily opposed all claims which other nations put forward to mare clausum. Long before Grotius, she was the champion of the free sea, although it must be admitted that the action of the English Queen was no more based on considerations of the general good of mankind than were the efforts of the Dutch publicist: both had in view the interests of their native land. Elizabeth’s motive was to secure liberty of trade and fishery for her subjects, which was threatened by the pretensions of Spain and Portugal on the one hand and by Denmark on the other. The Portuguese pretension was of long standing. When that nation in the latter half of the fifteenth century had pushed her way down the west coast of Africa and ultimately round the Cape of Good Hope to the East Indies, she obtained from the Pope various bulls securing her in her possessions, and granting sovereign authority to the crown of Portugal in all the lands it might discover in the Atlantic from Cape Bojador to the Indies. By an inhuman doctrine established during the Crusades, Christian princes were supposed to have the right to invade, ravage, and acquire the territories of infidel nations on the plea of extending the sway of the Christian Church; and the Pope, from his supreme authority over all temporal things, disposed of these heathen lands to such princes as might bring them under the dominion of the Church and propagate the true faith among the inhabitants. Immediately on the return of Columbus from his first voyage in 1493, the Spanish monarchs accordingly obtained a bull from Pope Alexander VI. confirming them in the newly-discovered regions; and in order to prevent disputes with Portugal as to the extent of their respective claims, another bull was issued, on 4th May 1493, containing the famous line of demarcation between their territories. This was an ideal straight line drawn from the North Pole to the South Pole, passing 100 leagues to the west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands. All islands or lands discovered to the west of this line by the Spaniards, and which had not been in the possession of any Christian Power before the preceding Christmas, were to belong to the Spanish crown; and all territory discovered to the east of it was to belong to Portugal. The Pope, moreover, granted a monopoly of commerce within those immense regions to the respective crowns, so that other nations could not trade thither without license from the Spanish or Portuguese sovereigns.[191] Spaniards even were not allowed to go to the New World either to trade or form establishments without royal license and authority. Disputes arose between Spain and Portugal as to the equity of the Pope’s line of demarcation, and by the Treaty of Tordesillas, 7th June 1494, they agreed that the inter-polar line should pass 370 leagues to the west of Cape Verde Islands.[192] The exclusive rights conferred by the Pope were rigorously enforced by Spain and Portugal. Navigation to their new possessions, or the carrying on of any trade or commerce with them, without royal license was made punishable by death and confiscation of goods.[193]

Early in her reign Elizabeth had occasion to protest against the claims of Portugal, and had a heated dispute with King Sebastian about them.[194] Later, the daring exploits of Drake on the Spanish seas were more than a flagrant violation of Philip’s pretension to mare clausum in the western Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans--a claim which Elizabeth refused to recognise. When Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, complained to her in 1580 of Drake’s depredations, and that English ships presumed to trade in the “Indian” seas, he was told in effect that the Spaniards, contrary to the Law of Nations, had prohibited the English from carrying on commerce in those regions, and had consequently drawn the mischief upon themselves. She was unable to understand, she said, why her subjects and those of other princes should be barred from the “Indies.” She could not recognise the prerogative of the Bishop of Rome “that he should bind princes who owe him no obedience,” and her subjects would continue to navigate “that vast ocean,” since “the use of the sea and air is common to all; neither can any title to the ocean belong to any people or private man, forasmuch as neither nature nor regard of the public use permitteth any possession thereof.”[195]

About the time when Drake left England, the question of the right of Spain to forbid the English to trade to the Indies had been considered. It was argued that the Pope’s bull was void, for several reasons. The consent of the Pope had been conditional for the conversion of the natives, while the “usage of the Spaniards hath been otherwise.” The bull could have no force in tending to the prejudice of a third party, because all princes by the Law of Nations had the right of navigation in the sea and the right of traffic, and the Pope could not deprive them of these rights. Besides, there had been agreements between Spain and England since the date of the bull that the subjects of each state might freely traffic in the dominions of the other; and the Spanish lawyers had come to the conclusion that the Venetians could not legally inhibit others from trading in the Adriatic, and therefore, by the same reasoning, neither could the Spaniards or Portuguese prohibit orderly and lawful traffic to their Indies.[196] Elizabeth has been charged with inconsistency on the ground that at the time when she was asserting the freedom of the seas against the claims of Spain she was claiming for herself, “with very great energy,” a similar dominion in the British seas.[197] The charge is quite unfounded. No claim was put forward by her to the sovereignty of the British seas. On the contrary, they were declared to be free for the navigation and fishery of all nations.

The policy of Elizabeth as to the freedom of the sea is revealed still more clearly in the negotiations with the King of Denmark as to the right of fishery at Iceland and in the northern seas. Denmark claimed not only the Sound and the Belts and the maritime dominion of the Baltic, with the right of controlling the navigation through them, but also the seas intervening between the coasts of Norway on the one hand and Iceland and Greenland on the other. A similar claim was made to the sea between Norway and the Orkney and Shetland Isles, at all events prior to 1468, when they were acquired by Scotland. Putting aside altogether the differences that arose with regard to the dues exacted at the Sound and in connection with the Baltic, a great many disputes had occurred between England and Norway and Denmark as to the right of Englishmen to trade and fish at Iceland and along the Norwegian coast, and many treaties were made between the two Powers regulating that right. From an early period numerous barks from Lynn, Yarmouth, Hull, Scarborough, and other east coast ports, and from Bristol, frequented the northern seas for fishing and buying fish, and for traffic, visiting not only Iceland, but Helgeland, Nordland, and Finmark, and going at least as far east as Wardhouse or Vardö. In 1415 Henry V., at the request of King Eric, and notwithstanding an earnest petition of the Commons to the contrary,[198] prohibited his subjects from going to Iceland or other islands belonging to Norway or Denmark;[199] in 1429 the King of Denmark prohibited English merchants from purchasing fish at Finmark, or elsewhere in his dominions than at Bergen, against which the English petitioned Henry VI.;[200] and in 1490 an important treaty was concluded between Henry VII. and King John II. of Denmark and Norway, by which English subjects were granted liberty to sail freely to Iceland for fishing or trading on paying the usual customs, provided that they obtained a renewal of their license to do so every seven years.[201] This treaty was renewed in 1523 between Henry VIII. and Christian II.,[202] but disputes frequently arose later, and several embassies were charged with composing the differences.

Apparently the English fishermen did not always conduct themselves with propriety. They were accused of committing various wrongs and injuries on the inhabitants, and in 1585, on the complaint of the King of Denmark, Queen Elizabeth issued an Order in Council reproving them for their excesses, and intimating that if they were continued the King of Denmark would interdict their fishing, and “punish such as shall without his license repair thither, and confiscate their ships and goods.” The king, she said, had promised that if the English fishermen abstained from committing outrages and behaved themselves, and paid the customary duties, he would allow them to enjoy the liberties they had formerly possessed; and she commanded the principal officers at her ports to take bonds from all those going to Iceland or Wardhouse for their good behaviour.[203] But the disputes and difficulties continued. The English fishermen omitted to renew their licenses septenially,--in 1592 it was said they had not been obtained for twelve years, and the stipulation had been forgotten by those in authority,[204]--and the Danes began about 1593 to interrupt them in their fishing at Westmoney and in the sea off Iceland, and to seize their vessels. On complaint being made to the King of Denmark, he declared his willingness to allow the Englishmen to fish at Iceland under license, except at Westmoney (small islands on the south coast), where the fishing was reserved for his court.[205] At the close of the century the Danes used stronger measures. In 1599 several English vessels were seized or molested. Five ships of Kingston-upon-Hull, while at Wardhouse for fish, as had been their custom for years, were met there by a small Danish fleet with the King of Denmark himself on board, who caused them to be seized as prize, took all the goods and effects of the Englishmen, beat some of the crew and put them in irons, and finally carried off four of the ships.[206] Other English vessels were driven away from their fishing on the high seas around Iceland, although far from the coast.

Elizabeth complained strongly of these acts of injustice as being contrary to the Law of Nations.[207] A Danish ambassador who came to England at this time tried to justify the prohibitions by reference to the treaty of 1583, by which permission had been given to English vessels to navigate the northern seas to Russia, but which did not grant any authority for fishing; and he requested the Queen to publish an edict inhibiting her subjects from fishing at Iceland or Wardhouse without the license of the King of Denmark, declaring that many English vessels persisted in carrying on the fishery without any license, contrary to the treaties. Reliance was also placed on an old treaty made in 1468 between Edward IV. and Christian I., in which it was stipulated that English vessels should not go farther north on the coast of Norway than Hagaland.[208] In the following year ambassadors were dispatched from England to negotiate an arrangement concerning the tolls levied at the Sound and the freedom of the northern seas for English fishermen,[209] and in a paper of 1602 conveying instructions to the ambassadors at Bremen we find an admirable exposition of the principles of the freedom of the seas.

After claiming that the treaties of 1490 and 1523 had given liberty of fishing to the English, the ambassadors were to declare that the Law of Nations allowed fishing in the sea everywhere, as well as the use of the ports and coasts of princes in amity for traffic and the avoiding of the dangers from tempests; so that if the English were debarred from the enjoyment of those common rights, it could only be in virtue of an agreement. But there was no such contract or agreement. On the contrary, by denying English subjects the right of fishing in the sea and despoiling them for so doing, the King of Denmark had injured them against the Law of Nations and the terms of the treaty. Moreover, with respect to the licenses the Queen declared that if her predecessors had “yielded” to take them, “it was more than by the Law of Nations was due”; they might have yielded for some special consideration; and in any case it could not be concluded that the right of fishing, “due by the Law of Nations,” failed because licenses were omitted. As to the claim to the sea between Iceland and Norway on the ground that the King of Denmark possessed both coasts--the argument used by Dee and Plowden for the dominion of the English crown in the Channel--Elizabeth was emphatic. If it was supposed thereby “that for the property of a whole sea it is sufficient to have the banks on both sides, as in rivers,” the ambassadors were to declare “that though property of sea, in some small distance from the coast, may yield some oversight and jurisdiction, yet use not princes to forbid passage or fishing, as is well seen in our Seas of England and Ireland, and in the Adriatic Sea of the Venetians, where we in ours and they in theirs, have property of command; and yet neither we in ours nor they in theirs, offer to forbid fishing, much less passage to ships of merchandise; the which by Law of Nations cannot be forbidden ordinarily; neither is it to be allowed that property of sea in whatsoever distance is consequent to the banks, as it happeneth in small rivers. For then, by like reason, the half of every sea should be appropriated to the next bank, as it happeneth in small rivers, where the banks are proper to divers men; whereby it would follow that no sea were common, the banks on every side being in the property of one or other; wherefore there remaineth no colour that Denmark may claim any property in those seas, to forbid passage or fishing therein.”

The ambassadors were to declare that the Queen could not agree that her subjects should be absolutely forbidden the seas, ports, or coasts in question for the use of fishing, “negotiation,” and safety; she had never yielded any such right to Spain and Portugal for the Indian seas and havens. Nevertheless, if the King of Denmark for special reasons desired that she should “yield to some renewing of license,” or that “some special place upon some special occasion” should be reserved for his own use, they were in their discretion and for the sake of amity to agree; but the manner of obtaining the license was to be defined in such a way that it would not be prejudicial to her subjects, nor “to the effect of some sufficient fishing,” and the licenses were to be issued in the subject’s name rather than in hers or the king’s.[210] Denmark continued to insist upon her right to the trade with Iceland, and to the fisheries in the northern seas,[211] which became of greater importance early in the next century when the whale-fishing was established at Spitzbergen. The Danish claim to a very wide zone of territorial sea around Iceland was enforced until quite recent times.

The dispute between Elizabeth and the King of Denmark as to the rights of fishing in the North Atlantic bears a strong resemblance to that between James I. and the Dutch, which began a few years later, when the positions, however, were reversed, James insisting on his right to the fishery on the British coasts, while the Dutch used the arguments of Elizabeth in favour of the complete freedom of the seas. One difference in the two cases may be pointed out. England by agreeing to take licenses from the King of Denmark, in the treaties of 1490 and 1523, acknowledged the sovereignty of Denmark in northern waters, whereas the Netherlands never acknowledged the sovereignty of England in the British seas, within which the liberty of fishing had been expressly granted to them by the Burgundy treaties.

Meantime the condition of the English fisheries had not much improved, either under the restrictive legislation respecting imports and exports of fish or by the measures taken to enforce the political lent. The liberty given by the Act of 1571 for the importation of cod-fish was opposed to the interests of the Iceland trade, and gave rise to abuses. Great quantities of inferior fish were “engrossed” by English merchants abroad and brought into the realm, which was thus “furnished with foreign fish and herrings,” while the Iceland fishery declined and the number of mariners available for the navy diminished. The importation of foreign salted fish or salted herrings by Englishmen or denizens was therefore prohibited; such fish were allowed to be brought by aliens alone, who were to pay additional customs, but fish from Iceland, Shetland, Newfoundland, and from the Scottish seas were still to be admitted.[212] But the attempt to keep out foreign fish failed in its object, the restrictions were found to be otherwise injurious, and they were repealed in 1597. “It had been hoped and expected,” it was said in the preamble of the repealing Act,[213] “that the fishermen of this realm would in such sort have employed themselves to fishing, and to the building and preparing of such store of boats and shipping for that purpose, as that they should long ere this time have been able sufficiently to have victualled this realm with salted fish and herrings of their own taking, without any supply of aliens and strangers, to the great increase of mariners and maintenance of the navigation within this realm. Notwithstanding it is since found by experience that the navigation of this land is no whit bettered by means of that Act, nor any mariners increased, nor like to be increased by it; but contrary wise, the natural subjects of this realm being not able to furnish the tenth part of the same with salted fish of their own taking, the chief provision and victualling thereof with fish and herrings hath ever since the making of the same Statute been in the power and disposition of aliens and strangers, who thereby have much enriched themselves, greatly increased their navigation, and (taking advantage of the time) have extremely enhanced the prices of that victual[214] to the great hurt and impoverishing of the native subjects of this realm, and yet do serve the markets here in very evil sort,” housing their fish till the price was raised to their liking. Thus the merchants in England were hindered in their trade, the navigation of the realm “which was intended to be augmented, hath been rather impaired than increased,” and the price of fish had been greatly raised, to the general prejudice of the people. After this very thorough condemnation of its previous Act,[215] Parliament declared that as strangers and subjects were at liberty to export English-caught fish and herrings, it was only right to allow subjects as well as foreigners to bring in fish to provision their own country, and the previous Act was wholly repealed. Thus the condition reverted to what it had been before this course of legislation began.

It is equally doubtful whether the compulsory fish-days or political lent had much influence in fostering the fisheries. At first, if a return from the Trinity House can be trusted, the number of fishing-boats increased. They reported in January 1581 that since the previous Parliament there had been an increase along the coast from Newcastle to Portsmouth of 114 sail of fishing-boats, of between fifteen and forty tons, which was equal to the maintenance of a thousand additional seamen for the navy.[216] It is not improbable that an increase of the herring-boats occurred on the east coast at this time, but it was temporary, and more likely due to other provisions of the Act of 1563. Cecil’s Wednesday, for which he had fought so hard, was abolished in 1584, while certain penalties for eating flesh in Lent, on Fridays, Saturdays, or other fish-days, were at the same time augmented;[217] but in 1593 all the penalties were greatly reduced.[218]

The policy of the political lent did not fail from want of efforts to enforce it. In London especially precautions were taken to have the law carried out, and the fishmongers were naturally active in their own interests. Taverns and inns were often raided; those who had flesh in their houses during Lent were often put in the pillory, and those who partook of it in the stocks; and butchers were frequently prosecuted for selling flesh on forbidden days. Those who were licensed to provide flesh in Lent for the sick were put under bond, and had to keep an account of every joint they sold; watchmen guarded the city gates lest any beef should be smuggled in. Similar measures were taken throughout the country. The sheriffs and justices of the peace were ordered by the Council to see that the Act was duly enforced, and innkeepers had to enter into recognisance to observe it.

But there is abundant testimony that the observance of the fish-days was evaded on all sides. The policy was against the temper of the people. So long as it had been a matter of religion and ecclesiastical rule they were faithfully observed. The motive was now too remote; and although the people were exhorted on grounds of “conscience” to eat fish on 153 days in the year in order to maintain the navy, and “great numbers” at first obeyed, the “universal multitude” always abstained, and their example was followed by the better classes. Many considered abstinence from flesh on fish-days to be “papistical”; others objected on economic grounds, saying they could maintain their families better and cheaper on flesh than on fish; and great numbers took advantage of the clauses in the Act granting license of exemption. The Lord Mayor was pestered by such applications, very commonly from noblemen and persons about the Court, even receiving them from the Queen herself, and in 1595 he begged that the Act might be repealed altogether.[219] Thus “Cecil’s fasts,” as the unpopular fish-days were vulgarly called, designed by the great statesman to increase the fisheries and strengthen the navy, became the butt of the popular dramatist, and served little purpose except, in the words of Ben Jonson, to “keep a man devoutly hungry all day, and at night to send him supperless to bed.”[220] There is little doubt that the policy of the political lent, if it had been feasible, would have succeeded in its object. Edward Jennings at the end of the century calculated that shipping had diminished in the proportion of two to five since the time when fish-days were observed, and that the fisheries were reduced in the proportion of four-fifths in the same period; while the number of idle persons in England who had previously engaged in fishing in the sea was estimated at 10,000. Even if those figures were exaggerated, they indicate, as Parliament admitted, that the measures hitherto taken to revive the fisheries had failed. It remained for King James to try another plan, that of exercising an effective sovereignty on the British seas by prohibiting foreign fishermen from fishing within them without taking license and paying tribute.

Before passing to the reign of James something must be said about one symbol of this sovereignty, as it was now regarded--the striking of the flag and top-sails. From the beginning of the fifteenth century, when the Flemish herring-boats, and no doubt others, lowered their sails to English ships (see p. 43), there appears to be no record of the ceremony until the middle of the next. In the reign of Henry VIII., although he was sometimes called “Lord of these seas,”[221] and ships were appointed to “keep the passage of the narrow sea,” the honour of the flag was probably only occasionally enforced. But under Edward VI., during the Protectorate of Northumberland, we find it stated in the King’s Journal that in April 1549 “the Flemings’ men-of-war would have passed our ships without vailing bonnet, which they seeing shot at them, and drave them at length to vail bonnet and so depart”; and again in July of the following year, at Dieppe, the Flemish ships lowered their sails to an English man-of-war.[222] This appears to be the first recorded instance of foreign men-of-war saluting the ships of the King of England, and it is noteworthy that in the latter case it was performed in a French port by Flemish vessels.

That it was not always demanded in the absolute manner of later times is shown by orders issued by the Privy Council in 1552. The Baron de la Garde was in command of a French fleet of twelve men-of-war, and Sir Henry Dudley, whose force was weaker, asked how he should act “touching the preeminence of honnour to be gyven” when he met the Baron. The Council replied that “in respect of thamitie and that the sayd Baron is stronger then he uppon the sees sume tymes yelde and sume tymes receyve thonnour”; and he was told to use the Baron courteously, “and with such discression that the same yelding of the preeminence may be interpreted to be of curtesy rather then to the derogacion of the Kinges honnour.”[223] It was the French who consistently and constantly opposed the English claim, and there is evidence that the salute was a point of rivalry between the two countries even at this time. An ordinance issued by Henry II. of France in 1555 (repeated by Henry III. in 1584) required all vessels to strike their sails to ships of the French navy whenever they met them at sea, and some Hamburgers were seized because they did not do so.[224] The honour appears to have been generally accorded by the Dutch in the reign of Elizabeth,[225] and compelled from the Spaniards. In 1554, in the reign of Mary, when the Spanish fleet was coming up Channel in all its bravery, with the royal flag flying on the Admiral’s ship, and bringing Philip of Spain to marry the Queen of England, the English Admiral, Lord William Howard, fired a broadside into the Spaniard and forced him to lower his colours while in his presence.[226] And later, when Anne of Austria was on her way to Spain to marry Philip, the Spanish ships were fired on by Admiral Hawkins at Plymouth and forced to strike the flag and lower top-sails in like manner.[227] But it was not till the reign of Charles I. that this punctilio became of great international importance.

IV. UNDER THE STUARTS. JAMES I. A NEW POLICY

Shortly after the accession of James to the throne of England, the liberal policy of his predecessors as to the freedom of the sea suffered a marked change. In the previous century, under the Tudors, little was heard of the pretension to the sovereignty of the sea, with the exception of the striking of the flag to the royal ships in the narrow seas--a ceremony that was not peculiar to England. Foreigners then, as always before, enjoyed complete liberty of fishing on the coasts of England and Ireland, and no attempts had been made to exact tribute from them on the Scottish coasts. Queen Elizabeth, as has been shown, not only refrained from putting forward claims to the sovereignty of the sea, but on several occasions and in the most positive manner asserted the freedom of the seas for both navigation and fishing against the exclusive policy of Denmark and Spain. At the end of the Tudor period England was the great champion of mare liberum--long before the Dutch Republic had challenged the monopolies of the Portuguese either by the pen of Grotius or the guns of Jakob van Heemskerk.

But under James the old doctrine was revived, and something new was added in a claim to the fisheries along the British coasts. Before he had been a year in England he took measures, with the laudable object of defining the bays, or “King’s Chambers,” within which the hostile actions of belligerents were prohibited. In its essence this act was opposed to extensive claims to maritime sovereignty, because it restricted a most important attribute of such sovereignty to comparatively a narrow space in the adjacent sea, though a space much greater than that now comprised in the so-called territorial waters. In point of fact, throughout his reign no assertion was made to such a maritime sovereignty as was claimed by Charles I.[228] The measures referred to were in relation to neutrality in the war which continued between the United Provinces and Spain, James having promptly concluded peace with the latter Power. He issued a number of proclamations referring to privateering and depredations at sea, most of them being conceived in the interests of Spain; and in one of these, for the recall of British mariners in foreign service, dated 1st March 1604, the king forbad hostilities within his ports, havens, roads, creeks, or other places of his dominions, or so near to any of his ports or havens as might be reasonably construed to be within that title, limit, or precinct, as well as the hovering of men-of-war in the neighbourhood of such places; and he caused “plats” of the limits of his ports and jurisdiction to be prepared for the instruction of his officers concerned.[229]

Long before the time of James the harbours, roadsteads, and at all events some of the bays of a country were recognised as belonging to it, in the sense at least that hostilities of belligerent men-of-war or the capture of prizes were forbidden within them; they were “sanctuaries” under the jurisdiction and protection of the adjoining territory. With regard to the English Chambers, we find that in the treaty which Cardinal Wolsey drew up in 1521, when acting as mediator between the Emperor Charles V. and King Francis I. of France, it was stipulated that during the war between these two sovereigns, the ships, whether armed or unarmed, as well as the mariners, of either side should be secure from attack by the other Power in the harbours, bays, rivers, mouths of rivers, roads or stations for shipping, and especially in the Downs or other maritime place under the jurisdiction of the King of England.[230] There is little doubt that this article only embodied in a formal manner what had long been the practice of nations, the Downs being specially mentioned as the most important anchorage in the kingdom.

When James decided to mark out distinctly on a chart the boundaries of his neutral waters on the coast of England, the matter was submitted to the Trinity House, and a jury of thirteen men, specially skilled in maritime affairs, was appointed to prepare tables and charts showing the position and limits of the King’s Chambers and ports and the sailing directions for the same, according to their knowledge of what had been the custom in the past. The charts and schedules were presented to Sir Julius Cæsar, the Judge of the High Court of Admiralty, on 4th March 1604, together with a sworn declaration that they represented the true boundaries.[231] The chambers formed were nominally twenty-six in number, the points or headlands selected by the surveyors being as follows, beginning at the northern extremity of the east coast and ending at the Isle of Man--Holy Island, Souter Point, Whitby, Flamborough Head, Spurn Point, Cromer, Winterton Ness, Caster Ness, Lowestoft, East Ness, Orfordness, the North Foreland, the South Foreland, Dungeness, Beachy Head, “Dunenoze” (Isle of Wight), Portland Bill, Start Point, Rame Head, Dodman Point, the Lizard, the Land’s End, Milford, St David’s Head, Bardsey Island, Holyhead, the Isle of Man. The extent of the “chambers” varies in different places; and while this is obviously due on some parts of the coast to the contour, it is due on other parts to a selection of headlands, no doubt according to the custom which had grown up and was recognised among the officers and others concerned. Thus the great bay between Cornwall and Devon would have formed a natural “chamber” by a line, not so long as some of the others, between Start Point, or Prawl Point, and the Lizard, and which would have formed part of the girdle around the coast; whereas three chambers are formed along its shores. On the east coast the “chambers” are as a rule small,[232] the largest embracing the mouths of the Humber and the Thames; they are generally large on the south coast, and largest of all on the west coast, where the whole of the Bristol Channel was enclosed by the line from Land’s End to Milford, a distance of nearly 100 nautical miles, the whole area containing about 3400 square nautical miles. This chamber, as well as those to the north of it, must have been of importance on account of the volume of shipping which passed through it.[233]

It is to be noted that the King’s Chambers were confined to the coast of England, and, further, that they had no reference to the claim of James to property in his seas, so far at least as fisheries were concerned. They were strictly limited to questions of neutrality and jurisdiction, in view of the war then existing between Spain and the United Provinces and the frequent depredations of privateers. The chambers on the east coast, where the Dutch carried on their great herring fishery, were much too small to have any relation to the subject of unlicensed fishing; and at no time during the prolonged discussions on the fishery were the limits of the King’s Chambers made use of in argument. Neutral protection, moreover, was strictly limited to the waters defined. It was in vain that Gentilis, the Spanish advocate in the Admiralty Prize Court, argued that the jurisdiction of England extended far beyond the limits of the “chambers,” and ought therefore to be lawfully and justly applied in protecting Spanish vessels from the talons of the Dutch on the high seas. The judgment of the Court of Admiralty, so far as concerned the place of capture, was always based upon the consideration whether that place lay within or without the limits of a “chamber.”

The campaign against foreigners fishing on the British coast, which opened up the claims of England in the seventeenth century to the sovereignty of the sea and introduced a new principle into English international policy, originated in another set of ideas, which James brought with him from Scotland. The Scottish people had been always very jealous of foreigners sharing in their fisheries, and, as we have seen, never consented to give them the liberty to fish, so freely accorded by England. Moreover, a tax or tribute, called the “assize-herring,” was imposed upon the native fishermen in Scotland, and formed a part of the revenues of the crown. Although its value was not great, James conceived the idea of levying it also from the foreign fishermen, who frequented the British seas in large numbers, and before he formally demanded it in 1609, some curious negotiations took place with a syndicate of London merchants who proposed to form a fishery association based on the taxation of foreign fishermen, and in return they promised a handsome revenue to the king. The desire for an increased revenue may therefore have had something to do with the proposal to restrain unlicensed fishing on the British coasts. But neither this consideration, the practice in Scotland, nor the king’s passion for his prerogative, fully accounts for the reversal of the long-settled policy of England, which was accomplished with the concurrence of the Privy Council, and, so far as may be judged, with the full approval of the people.

In truth, a great change had taken place in the national sentiment. England had now entered upon the long struggle for commercial and maritime supremacy, with the aim of increasing the power of the nation against all rivals.[234] It was obvious to every one that the great rival and competitor was the Dutch Republic, whose rapid rise to the first commercial state in Europe deeply impressed the minds of English statesmen and writers. In the reign of Elizabeth, the common interest of the two countries in opposing Spain prevented measures being taken to curb the growing power of the Dutch. But early in the seventeenth century this motive had lost its force. James had promptly concluded peace with Spain, and even spoke of the Dutch as rebels.[235] Thus, during his reign arose that bitter rivalry and keen emulation of the Dutch which continued throughout nearly the whole century, and of which the English claim to the sovereignty of the sea may be looked upon as an important phase. It was against the United Provinces that the claim was directed, and as the Dutch themselves openly boasted that the sea fisheries were the foundation of their shipping, wealth, and power, it was to the sea fisheries that England first turned in her efforts to cripple them.

Those fisheries had greatly increased towards the end of the sixteenth and in the early part of the seventeenth century. An official account of the fisheries of Holland, Zealand, and Flanders in 1562 estimated the number of busses and fishing-boats at 700, of which Holland had 400, most of them being “great” busses of about 46 lasts burden.[236] Guiccardini, who visited the Low Countries about the same time, placed the fleet of busses at 700, each of which made three voyages, bringing back on an average 70 lasts of herrings, or a total of 588,000 barrels, valued at £441,000 sterling.[237] Another author of the period gave a list of towns whose prosperity and even existence depended upon the fishery;[238] and a little later Hitchcock, and, following him, Dee, stated that 400 or 500 busses came every year from the Low Countries to fish for herrings on the east coast of this country.[239] Those figures referred to the fisheries of the Netherlands as a whole, including Flanders, but during the war of independence, after the United Provinces threw off the yoke of Spain and secured command of the sea, the Flemish fisheries withered away. At Dunkirk, for example, which sent 500 busses to the herring-fishing in 1532 and 400 in 1550, the fishermen at the beginning of the next century were scarcely able to supply the town with herrings.[240] The industry passed into the hands of the Dutch. At the end of Elizabeth’s reign, so greatly had it prospered that 1500 busses went to the herring-fishing in 1601 from Holland and Zealand alone.[241]

From this time much attention was given by English writers to the Dutch fisheries, and on the whole they exaggerated their extent and the number of boats and vessels engaged in them. One of them, John Keymer, who was afterwards much quoted, professedly based his account upon his personal observations in the Netherlands about the year 1601. His statement appears to have been submitted to King James in 1605 or 1606, but it was not published until 1664. He said that the fishing fleet of the Hollanders numbered more than 4100 vessels, of which 100 were dogger-boats, 700 pinks and well-boats, 700 “strand-boats,” 400 “euers,” and 400 “galliotts, drivers, and tod-boats,” and 1200 busses, afterwards increased to 2000. The pinks and well-boats, each from 60 to 100 tons burden, fished on the coasts of England and Scotland for cod and ling, while the busses, ranging from 60 to 200 tons burden, pursued the herring fishery along our east coast. There were also, according to this author, 400 Dutch vessels, called “Gaynes” and “Euers,” which fished for herrings off Yarmouth; 1000 vessels, of from 50 to 100 tons, that caught cod and ling in his Majesty’s seas; as well as 600 ships engaged in carrying cod and ling to London. Keymer also says that he had seen near 3000 sail of English, Scotch, French, Hollanders, Embdeners, Breemeners, and Hamburgers fishing at one time upon the coast of Scotland, Shetland, Orkney, Gattney (Caithness?), North Farrel, and Fowl (Fair) Isle, and divers other places.[242] In a later treatise which Keymer wrote in 1620 and submitted to King James, it is also said that the Hollanders employed about 3000 ships and 50,000 people in fishing on the coasts of England, Scotland, and Ireland. This tract has usually been attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh and is published among his works, and it obtained celebrity in consequence, both in this country and on the Continent, but it was without doubt written by Keymer.[243] A more moderate statement was made by another writer, Tobias Gentleman, who published the best work on the subject, in 1614, and was evidently well versed in the fisheries both of Holland and England. He states that 1000 sail of Hollanders came every year to fish for herrings in “his Majesty’s streams”; that more than 600 of them were “great busses,” some of 120 tons, most of about 100 tons; that the crews numbered from 16 to 24 men, so that there could not be less than 20,000 mariners altogether. In addition to the great fleet of busses, the Hollanders had “a huge number” of smaller vessels of from 20 to 50 tons burden, with crews of from 8 to 12 men, which were called “sword-pinks,” “flat-bottoms,” “Holland-toads,” “Crabskuits,” and “Yeuars,” and fished for herrings along with the busses on the east coast from Shetland southwards, carrying home their catches or selling them at Yarmouth. Gentleman says there had been seen at one time, “and numbered,” at Brassey Sound, in Shetland, where the busses rendezvoused, either going to sea or at sea within view, 2000 sail of busses and schuits, besides those that were out of sight. All these fished for herrings during the season “in his Majesty’s seas.” Then the pinks and well-boats, which caught cod and ling all the year round, numbered between 500 and 600; they were from 30 to 40 tons burden, and had crews of about 12 men each. There were also more than 200 “fly-boats” which fished with lines to the north-east of Shetland all the year round for ling, which were split and salted in bulk and were known as “Holland-lings,” although, says Gentleman, they were really Shetland lings before they took them from his Majesty’s seas. This author placed the total number of Dutch fishermen who fished off the British coasts at not less than 37,000, of whom 32,000 were engaged in the herring fishery, and 5000 in fishing for cod and ling.[244]

It would thus appear from the evidently honest account of Gentleman, that early in the reign of James fully 2000 Hollander busses and fishing vessels frequented the British seas. But the Dutch were not the only foreigners who reaped the harvest of fishes along our coasts. Fishermen likewise came from France, Spain, and Portugal, from Hamburg, Emden, and Bremen. The French herring-boats, from Normandy and Picardy, generally numbered about 100; sometimes there were only 40, and they did not go so far north as the Hollanders.[245] Spanish, Portuguese, and French vessels fished for mackerel on the Irish coast and to the south-west of England, as well as for cod in the North Sea. Those from Hamburg, Bremen, and Emden took part in the herring fishery on the east coast, but they appear to have mostly confined their operations to the northern parts of Scotland. French and Flemish vessels also visited the western lochs of Scotland, both for fishing and for the purchase of fish.[246] The total number of foreign vessels thus fishing in the British seas at the time in question must have been large. In both of Keymer’s treatises it is stated that there were 20,000, with 400,000 people. This estimate is obviously greatly exaggerated; but making all due allowances, it is certain that the fleets of foreign fishing vessels frequenting our coasts in the reign of James were of formidable extent. The great herring-busses, while fishing along the east coast of Scotland, were described in 1608 as occupying an area of the sea of at least 45 miles in length by 22 miles in breadth, within which space they allowed no others to shoot a net.[247]

The herring fishery of the Dutch along the British coast was known as the “great fishery” (Groote Visscherye), to distinguish it from the “small” or fresh-herring fishery which was pursued locally, and it was subjected to minute regulations. The busses collected at Bressay Sound in Shetland in the early part of June, but the fishing was not allowed to begin until St John’s Day, on the 24th of the month, when the vessels departed in fleets for the fishing-grounds under the charge of “commodores” and guarded by men-of-war. As the season advanced the fishing was carried on farther and farther to the south. Until St James’ Day (25th July) it was prosecuted in the neighbourhood of Shetland, Fair Isle, and as far south as Buchan Ness; from then until Elevation Day (14th September) it was from Buchan Ness to the coast of Northumberland; then southwards to the deep water off Yarmouth till St Catherine’s Day (25th September); and so to the mouth of the Thames, the fishing usually coming to an end at the beginning of December. The “fleet” or train of nets was more than a mile in length, which necessitated the busses keeping some distance apart to prevent fouling; they were shot in the evening and hauled in the morning, when the crew began to salt and pack the herrings into barrels, which were then taken to Holland in “yagers,” or carriers, repacked, branded, and exported to various countries. The smaller vessels which took part in the “fresh” herring fishery were employed especially off Yarmouth in the autumn, and they sold their herrings for ready money to the fish-curers with whom they were “hosted.” On some occasions as many as 200 of those smaller Dutch vessels lay in Yarmouth harbour at a time. The boats that went for cod, ling, and haddock fished throughout the North Sea,--the smaller ones at the Dogger Bank as a rule, the larger on the Scottish coast and at Shetland. Hand-lines, baited with herring or lamprey, were used, the cod being either pickled, dried, or brought to land alive in wells, and these vessels furnished the larger part of the supply to London.

The quantity and value of the fish caught by the Dutch off the British coasts were variously stated. Keymer, in his first tract, estimated the quantity of herrings taken by the 2000 busses in the twenty-six weeks of their fishing at about 300,000 lasts (or 3,600,000 barrels) annually, and the value, at first hand, at £3,600,000 sterling. But the merchants who exported the pickled herrings--and by far the greater quantity were exported[248]--are said to have charged from £16 to £36 a last, the eventual value as merchandise being estimated at not less than £5,000,000 sterling. In his later treatise the value of the herrings exported by the Dutch is placed lower, at about £1,768,000, the quantity being stated at from about 89,500 to 100,500 lasts, or from 1,074,000 to 1,206,000 barrels. Gentleman, whose work seems to have been the most trustworthy, estimated the quantity of herrings taken by the Dutch in the British seas at over 100,000 lasts or 1,200,000 barrels, the original value at £1,000,000 sterling and the gross value at twice that amount; “while we,” he says, “take no more than to bait our hooks.” Gentleman’s estimate of the quantity may be taken as approximately correct, because in the present day the least effective of the vessels taking part in the Dutch herring fishery--namely, the old-fashioned flat-bottomed boats (bommen)--catch and cure on an average in a season about 660 barrels each, so that the quantity taken by a fleet of 2000 of such vessels would be about 1,320,000 barrels. But the old busses were of a superior type, keeled vessels (hoekers, sloepen), and the average catch of their modern representatives in a season is about 1060 barrels, which for a fleet of the same number would give a total yield of about 2,120,000 barrels, or over 176,000 lasts. Monson placed the value of the herrings exported from Holland to the Baltic at £800,000, and of those sent to other countries at £1,000,000,[249] while Sir Nicholas Hales in 1609 estimated the value of the exported herrings at £4,000,000, but raised it later, in 1634, to £6,000,000, owing to information received from Amsterdam.[250] Sir John Borough’s estimate was still higher. He said that if account was taken of all the herrings, cod, ling, and other fish caught in the British seas by foreigners, the gross value would exceed £10,000,000 a year.

The larger figures above cited are unquestionably exaggerated, but even the lowest shows how very valuable the sea fisheries were to the Dutch at the beginning of the seventeenth century, for the total value of all the commodities exported from England in 1613 was placed at £2,487,435, and the value of the imports at £2,141,151.[251]

The English fisheries, which Cecil had laboured to revive, presented a striking contrast to the prosperous fishery of the foreigners. As in the days of Hitchcock, our fishermen shot their nets for herrings from small vessels near the shore, and on the east coast, at least, only in the period from September to November, with the exception of an occasional “summer” fishing.[252] They had very “sorry” nets and poor frail boats, and most of those going to the Yarmouth fishing from Yorkshire and Durham were only “five-men” cobles.[253] “The Hollander busses,” it was said, “are greate and strong and able to brooke foul weather, whereas our cobles, crayers, and boats, being small and thin-sided, are easily swallowed by rough seas, not daringe to adventure far in fair weather by reason of their weaknesse for feare of stormes.” The largest of the crayers were of 20 tons burden, their catch of herrings for a night being generally from one to three, and rarely as much as seven, lasts.[254] One can only guess at the number of fishing boats and vessels belonging to east coast ports at this time. Gentleman stated that the number of “North Sea boats” which fished for cod, and probably also for herrings, in autumn, was from 224 to 237 along the stretch of coast between the Thames and the Humber, the crews employed in them being between 1500 and 1600. The Iceland barks numbered about 125 in 1614; 20 of them, as well as 150 of the North Sea boats, belonged to Yarmouth. The town-clerk of that port, writing about the same time, said that they sent annually to Iceland and the north seas for cod and ling about 120 sail, while all the “ships, crayers, and fisher-boats” belonging to Yarmouth numbered 220; the able-bodied mariners and fishermen amounted to 1000.[255] The only other fisheries on the east coast were a small one for mackerel, which employed 40 boats at Yarmouth in the spring; a sprat fishery with bag-nets; while some small trawlers worked in the bays and estuaries. On the east coast of Scotland there was no native herring fishery except in the firths.

Compared with the great trade of the Dutch, the exports of fish from this country were insignificant and trifling in view of the quantity imported: in London alone no less than £12,000 was paid to the Hollanders for barrelled fish and Holland lings between the Christmas of 1613 and 18th February 1614. Scotland still sent tolerably large quantities of salmon, herrings, and salt fish to France, Spain, and elsewhere; but the exports from England were almost quite confined to red-herrings from Yarmouth and pilchards from Cornwall,--both sent to the Mediterranean, and very commonly in Dutch bottoms.[256] The English had no share whatever in the trade in pickled herrings or in pickled cod; they were indeed ignorant of the method of curing the latter.

From the foregoing it is not difficult to realise the feeling of irritation against the Dutch which began to gather in the breasts of the English people. They witnessed with envy the great fleets of alien fishing vessels which darkened their coasts every season and reaped a rich harvest in waters which they regarded as their own. “No king upon the earth,” said Gentleman, “did yet ever see such a Fleet of his own subjects at any time, and yet this Fleet is there and then yearly to be seen. A most worthy sight it were, if they were my own countrymen!” Statesmen and economists saw in the extension of the Dutch fisheries a menace to the power and wealth of the nation. The fisheries formed a valuable nursery of seamen to man the mercantile marine and the royal navy; it was chiefly from this point of view that the political lent and the fishery Acts of the previous reign were designed. Another consideration began to excite even more attention. The trade in fish was looked upon as forming the basis of commerce and national wealth. The Dutch boasted that the herring fishery was their “gold-mine”; that “the herring keeps Dutch trade going, and Dutch trade sets the world’s afloat”;[257] and the argument that national power and wealth depended on the sea fisheries became a commonplace in the seventeenth century, and was urged as a reason why the English people should secure for themselves the fisheries in their own seas. This, it was said, would do more good to the kingdom than all the mines and the whole trade in cloth and wool; the fisheries would be more valuable to us than the Indies were to Spain, or than was the commerce with the West Indies; they were the “very goal and prize of trade and of the dominion of the sea.”[258] Had not Holland, which was “not so big as one of his Majesty’s shires,” and where nothing “grew” save “a few hops, madder, and cheese,” become a rich and powerful state, full of goodly towns, and the great mart of Europe, owing to the fish drawn from the British seas? Did not Dutch ships, in return for the fish they exported, come back laden with the riches of other lands,--with oil and wine, honey and wool, from France and Spain; with velvets, silks, and spices from the Mediterranean; with corn and wax, hemp, iron, and timber, from the Baltic? And all this great commerce was founded on their fisheries in his Majesty’s seas.

Two other arguments were very commonly put forward,--that the development of the fisheries would directly increase shipping, and also give birth to many other industries. Ingenious and detailed calculations were made to show that if 20 busses were built at a seaport they would cause other 80 ships to be constructed, increase the number of mariners by 1000, and give employment to nearly 8000 people by sea and land. “It is the fish taken upon his Majesty’s coasts,” said Sir William Monson, the Admiral of the Narrow Sea, “that is the only cause of the increase of shipping in Europe; and he that hath the trade of fishing becomes mightier than all the world besides in number of ships.”[259] Dutch ships crowded our ports; they carried away English commodities at lower freights than English vessels could afford to do, and thus we were “eaten out of all trade and the bread taken out of our mouths in our own seas, and the great customs carried from his Majesty’s coffers to foreign princes and states.” The Hollanders were accused of trying “to get the whole trade of Christendom into their own hands, as well for transportation as otherwise for the command and mastery of the seas.” Yet the king was “Lord Paramount of those seas” in which the foreigners caught the fish that made them so rich and powerful: surely “he would not, without question, allow strangers to eat up the food that was provided for his children!”[260]

Such was the national spirit and sentiment that had been developing during the closing years of Elizabeth’s reign and the early part of the reign of James, and was well expressed by Sir Walter Raleigh when he said that “whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.”[261] England was to become powerful and rich by shipping and maritime commerce, and the first step in the struggle was to secure the fisheries for herself. Opinions varied as to how this was to be accomplished. Some recommended the establishing of a national fishery on the plan recommended by Hitchcock in the preceding generation and tried by Charles I. in the next. Others suggested the institution of a commission of “State Merchant,” which would have trade and commerce as well as fisheries under its charge. A few spoke, more faintly, of the potency of fish-days and the strict observance of Lent. But all or almost all agreed that foreigners, and in particular the Hollanders, should be either prohibited from fishing in the British seas or allowed to do so only under license and regulations and the payment of a tribute to the crown.

The proposal most commonly mooted was to build a fleet of herring-busses for ourselves, and, in short, to imitate the Dutch system in all particulars. The natural advantages we possessed were made the most of. The fishing-grounds were at our doors, while the Dutch had to sail long distances. We had numerous harbours and sheltered beaches for the wintering of the busses. We had all the materials for building and equipping the busses except pitch and tar, whereas the Dutch had to import everything save hemp; and abundance of men to man the vessels could be got from the “decayed towns.” It was on the other hand admitted that we laboured under one disadvantage. The Dutch fishermen were more frugal, more industrious and painstaking, than the English. They were content with plain fare--with bread and butter, cheese, a little pork, and fish,--while the English required beef and beer, and much of both.[262] And while the Dutch worked hard, “labouring merrily together,” the English fishermen “sat day and night drinking in the ale-houses.”[263]

But any scheme for establishing a great national fishery had little chance of financial support from the public unless it could be shown to be profitable, and there was no lack of calculations and computations to prove the great profits that might be made. Gentleman estimated that the clear gain from one buss, allowing for wear and tear, would amount to £565 in four months, and from a pink for cod-fishing to £158 in two months. The author of Britaines Buss calculated that the yearly profit from one herring-fishing and one cod-fishing of a single buss would amount to £897, after all expenses had been paid. This writer proposed that a corporation should be formed, consisting of noblemen, gentry, and citizens “of ability,” each of whom should provide one buss; that the corporation should receive from the king certain powers, privileges, and immunities; and that a joint-stock should be raised like that of the East India Company, the annual profit on which was estimated at 75 per cent.

Those schemes resembled the one put forward by Hitchcock in the previous reign and frequently advocated since. Sir Walter Cope indeed told King James, in 1612, that “this royal work,” within his own knowledge, had been in project for thirty years, but that in Queen Elizabeth’s time it had been “ever silenced” in favour of the Netherlands, who then maintained war against a common enemy.[264]

Within two or three years of the accession of James, the project took more definite form, and was brought before the Privy Council, and it was carefully considered in 1607. An integral part of the proposal was that strangers fishing in the British seas should pay tribute to the king, while the native fishery remained untaxed, and that the tribute should be farmed out to patentees, as was done with the assize-herrings in Scotland, who would then establish a national buss fishery and pay a rent to the crown.[265] There were several schemes of the kind, but the one which received most attention was put forward by a Mr Richard Rainsford, acting on behalf of a number of London merchants, who aimed at forming an association to be called the Society of Fishing Merchants. In 1608 the proposals were referred to the Earl of Northampton, Lord Privy Seal, and the Earl of Devonshire, who commended them as being for the public good, and early next year a formal and detailed scheme was prepared.[266] In the preamble stress was laid on the fact that the Hollanders and other nations had their principal fishing on his Majesty’s coasts and seas, “whose soveraignty ought therein to be acknowledged, not only to procure thereby payment of his Majesty’s duties of fishing, but also to have his kingdom provided with fish at such reasonable rates and prices as other nations have maintained thereby navigation and mariners; and setting of an infinite number of subjects on work within the realm of England and Scotland to strengthen his Majesty’s dominion by sea and land, as the chief point of a most commendable Union,” that is to say, a union of England and Scotland, the idea of which was still in the mind of James. The justification for imposing a tribute on foreign fishermen, which was to be in kind, was the king’s right to the tithe, “grounded by ancient customs and records of his Majesty’s predecessors demanding the tenth fish; whereunto three things were required: (1) how his Majesty’s tithe and right can be evidently proved; (2) precedents, that other kings and princes have and do the like in their seas; (3) that it shall give no cause of offence to other princes or states to move war.” The second part of the project was to build a “competent number” of ships or busses yearly, and so to re-establish the fishing trade which, it was said, one Violet Stephens and other discontented fishmongers from England had transferred to Enkhuisen and other places in Holland some ninety years earlier, teaching the Dutch to come and fish in the British seas--a false tale current in England in the reign of James.

As an alternative plan, to be put into immediate execution in connection with the truce just concluded between Spain and the United Provinces,[267] it was proposed that, his Majesty’s right and tithe having been made plain as above described, the Hollanders themselves should be invited to join on reasonable terms with the English projectors in the fishing trade for one-third part, or even a half, of the fishery. This course, it was believed, would prevent any cause of offence, being, it was said, in agreement with “the known precedents of other princes.” It was also thought that it would be agreeable to the Hollanders, since they would see that the Society of Fishing Merchants, being free from license or tribute, could afford to have busses built in Denmark for themselves should that be necessary. If the Hollanders could be induced to associate themselves with the Society, then, it was argued, when the time came to interfere with their “general fishery,” the risk of war would be removed, and the king’s tithe and right might be acknowledged and established by proclamation or otherwise.[268]

The acknowledgment of the king’s “sovereignty or title annexed to the dignity of the Crown” required the contribution of the tenth or the twentieth fish, more or less, to be delivered at sea for the general good of the Society, so that they might be able to tide over bad years and maintain the fishermen. In this way, by heavily taxing the Hollanders, it was believed that “no man should be discouraged by bad successe, but might depend upon God’s blessing with a quiete minde to follow his vocacion avoydinge Idlenes by ye survey of others.” On the other hand, the Society would undertake to pay the king so much upon every last of fish as might be thought convenient, provided that letters patent were granted under which the Hollanders and other strangers would be “limited and ruled.”

In this scheme of the London merchants it was proposed to acquire in the first year fifty fishing vessels, partly by buying them beyond the seas, and partly by building them in Denmark, Scotland, and the north of England. The busses were not to exceed fifty, or the dogger-boats thirty tons, since the Dutch in recent years had found the smaller vessels more profitable than the larger ones. It was stated that some families in Holland, the “east countries,” and Hamburg, with vessels of their own, were desirous of joining the London Society,--several of them had indeed arrived in England,--and it was proposed to admit them for a few years only, in order to lay the foundations of the business, and to educate English lads in the curing of herrings, and, what was “not the least point,” to make the English as industrious as themselves. When the fishery was thoroughly established, it would be easy to erect “staple towns and magazines” for the commodities of other countries; the ships of the Society would bring back merchandise for the fish exported, and a great commerce would be created. In all this prosperity “the King’s Majesty might be made a partaker, as a Royal Merchant,” while the stock required would easily be found among the merchants. On the other hand, if the king confined his action to the issuing of licenses to foreigners, without giving means for establishing a society of merchants for the fishing, then his subjects would be entirely dependent for their fish on these foreign fishermen, who would charge higher prices to recoup themselves for the cost of the licenses. The country, moreover, would suffer from the loss of the commerce that sprung from the trade in fish; the transportation of money and bullion for fish and other commodities brought into the realm would continue unchecked; and the king would lose the great strength of shipping and mariners that otherwise would be available for the defence of the kingdom.

Objections were raised to the project on the ground that it was unlikely that the Society, even with the advantages which they desired, would be able to compete with the Hollanders. The Hamburgers and other peoples who had previously made the attempt had failed, for the Dutch were very industrious and frugal, their fish always brought the highest price, often 25 per cent above that of other nations, because they were thoroughly skilled and experienced in the industry. The freights of the Hollanders were, moreover, far lower than in English ships, as they took barrelled herrings for ballast, or even for “drink money.”

A more serious difficulty was the principle that lay at the root of the scheme--the taxation of the Dutch fishermen for the benefit of the Society. It was evidently admitted that the project would fail, even if the busses were manned by Dutchmen and the herrings cured and exported by them, unless some form of subsidy was provided. But on the threshold lay the question of the king’s right to impose a tribute on foreign fishermen. Rainsford endeavoured to help the solution by submitting a memorandum, “Touching his Majesty’s Tythe.”[269] It has some interest from the circumstance that it was the first attempt made in the reign of James to furnish historical and legal precedents for interfering with the liberty of fishing. In substance it is little more than a collection of the stories current at the time concerning the sovereignty of the sea, such as those about King Edgar, Queen Mary and Philip, and Camden’s statement about Scarborough.[270] It was also said that fishermen were compelled to pay taxes for liberty to fish in Russia, at the “Shoffland” islands and other islands belonging to the King of Sweden, in Denmark, and in Spain, where the Duke of Medina Sidonia derived a large revenue from the taxes on the tunny fishery. Rainsford reiterated the advantages of the scheme to the nation and the navy, and promised an annual revenue of £20,000 to the king, after the lapse of seven years, so long as he granted to the patentees the tribute on foreign fishermen.

About this time, whether by arrangement with the London merchants or independently, some influential persons addressed the king in denunciation of the Dutch. Sir Nicholas Hales in 1608, and again in 1609, strongly advised the king to take action against them. Their fisheries in his Majesty’s seas, he said, were worth more than the mines of gold and silver in the Indies; in one year they had sold fish in England alone to the value of £1,200,000; by their means they maintained 100,000 men with their wives and families. Then their immense shipping was a menace to the security of the realm. They came into our roads and harbours with their guns and ordnance on board: sometimes three or four hundred sail of Hollanders sheltered in St George’s Channel, where our fleet, if need were, could always strike them. The whole trade of Christendom appeared to be going into their hands. Sir Nicholas was afraid they might join with the “Turks” against us; there was even risk of invasion unless measures were taken to curb their growing power. The measures he proposed were the delivery of Flushing and Brill as pledges of security, and the payment of £4,000,000 for the king’s license to carry on their fishery for twenty-one years on the British coasts. Otherwise they should be compelled to pay a tithe of the twentieth herring or be forbidden altogether.[271] Sir William Monson--who was a Roman Catholic, had been Admiral of the Narrow Sea, and was accused by the Dutch of antipathy to them--wrote several papers in the same strain. He dwelt upon the danger to England of their increase in shipping commerce and power, all derived from the fisheries in the British seas. They had already got the Irish and Russian trade, as well as that to the Mediterranean, so that while twelve years before there were twelve English ships to one Hollander in that sea, there were now ten Hollanders to one English; they even transported the red-herrings from Yarmouth and the pilchards from Cornwall and Ireland, which was previously done by English vessels. Monson’s remedy was to obtain possession of the fisheries and build a fleet of English busses.[272]

There is no doubt James was inclined to listen with a favourable ear to the proposals to establish a native herring fishery at the expense of the Dutch. A year or two earlier he had, indeed, induced the Parliament of Scotland to pass an Act providing, among other things, that the royal burghs should equip busses for the herring fishery,--a suggestion frequently made and never well received. When the burghs were called upon to state the number of busses they were prepared to set forth, they declared that some of the coast towns already had vessels engaged in this fishery, especially in summer, “att the back of the Isles besyid the Flemeingis”; that on the coast there was more shipping for fishing than “substance” to furnish them with or mariners to serve in them; and that the most profitable and “easy” fishing was at the Isles and lochs on the west coast, though they were hindered there by the barbarous conduct of the natives. It was therefore, they said, “in vain” to ask them to fish “in the mayne sea” when they could get this easy and profitable fishing at the lochs and near the shore at all seasons, in great abundance, both summer and winter.[273]

At the time the fishery scheme was under consideration some events occurred which favoured the plans, if not of the London merchants, at least of those who were preaching hostility to the Dutch. A chorus of complaints came from Scotland and England as to the encroachments of the Hollanders near the shore on the east coast, not only interfering with the operations of the native fishermen, but breaking up and scattering the shoals of herrings. Whereas they had been prescribed “in ancient times” in Scotland from fishing nearer the land than they might see the shore from the main-tops of their vessels, they now came as near as they pleased, and would not sutler any others, whether subjects or strangers, to fish within the bounds of their fleet, which, it was said, extended over a space “at least forty Scottish miles in length and twenty broad,” thus “breaking and killing” the shoals before they could reach the mainland. They were also accused of drawing “the great fish” (by which was meant cod, saithe, &c.) from the grounds along the shore, by casting into the sea the guts of the herrings they cured on board their busses. By reason of all this the Scottish fishermen, who used to get abundant supplies at “yair awn dooris” to supply the whole country, were now scarcely able, with great pains, to supply their own families, and there was in consequence a general clamour in the country, the people affirming that “the Hollanderis fishes the meait out of thir mouthis.” The evil was felt all the more by the Scottish fishermen because they paid three “assizes” every year for their several fishings, each consisting of 1000 herrings, while the Hollanders paid nothing.[274]

Early in 1609 the fishermen of the Cinque Ports, who frequented the Yarmouth fishing in large numbers, sent a petition to the king, in which they recited their grievances. They alleged that the laws prohibiting the purchase from foreigners of fish unless sufficiently salted and casked (laws which, they pointed out, had done great good in the past, and had increased shipping and mariners) were not properly enforced. This complaint was aimed against the Dutch, who sold large quantities of fresh herrings at Yarmouth, and supplied London and other towns with fresh cod. They also complained that fishermen from the Low Countries, with a few from France, came before the fishing season and “preoccupied and environed” the best places with their shipping, enclosing, as in a circle, the shoals of herrings, and preventing the native fishermen from fishing among them. They were thus deprived of one of the best commodities of the land, and the herrings which they were prevented from catching were taken by the Hollanders and sold fresh on the English coast in contravention of the statutes. They said they were threatened with utter decay and impoverishment, and were discouraged from building barks for the Iceland fishing, which had in the past produced numbers of good mariners, to the great honour and defence of the realm. They pointed to the “ingenious dexterity of the Netherlanders, who in the care and pollicy of their State, and for the maintenance of their navigation and fishing,” had imposed a tax of fifteen shillings on every last of herrings imported by foreigners into their country; and they begged the king, by the justice of lex talionis, to do likewise, and thus to save the poor fishermen from the multitude of foreigners who oppressed them.[275] About this time complaints began to be made of cruel and harsh treatment of the native fishermen by the Dutch, but they appear to have rested on very slender grounds.[276]

The complaints against the Hollanders gave James his opportunity. The policy of issuing a proclamation to forbid unlicensed fishing by foreigners on the British coasts was discussed by the Privy Council early in the year. Doubts, however, were expressed whether such action would be in conformity with the provisions of the “Burgundy” treaties, which granted liberty of fishing to the Low Countries. In the “qualification” of Rainsford’s fishery scheme the question as to how the king’s title and rights could be proved had been answered in a lofty spirit--“By prerogative royall, without any accompt to be rendered to other nations; yet others to declare the reasons thereof.” But the Privy Council had to consider the matter more carefully. They remitted the draft proclamation to a committee consisting of Sir John Herbert, the second Secretary, Sir Julius Cæsar, now Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Daniel Dunn, Sir Thomas Crompton, and Sir Christopher Perkins, instructing them, after perusing all the Burgundy treaties, to report as to the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the proposed action.[277]

A fortnight later the report of the committee was sent to the Council. They had, they said, considered of the liberty taken by the subjects of foreign princes and states to fish upon the coasts of the King’s Majesty, by which not only the English fishermen received wrong in their fishing, but the very coast towns were decayed; they had also considered the proclamation for the restraint of fishing, and had perused the Burgundy treaties as required, and they were “of opinion that the King’s Majesty may without breach of any treaty now in force, or of the law, upon the reasons specified in the proclamation sent unto us, restrain all strangers from fishing upon his coasts without license, in such moderation and after such convenient notice given thereof by public proclamation, as his Majesty shall think fit.”[278]

It was on this extremely important deliverance that the new policy of interfering with the liberty of foreigners fishing on the British coasts was based. The cautious language of the Privy Council indicates that they were conscious of the strength of the case against them from the existence of the Burgundy treaties; but the committee professed to find that those treaties were no longer in force,--an argument which was made the most of in the subsequent negotiations with the Dutch Republic. The report was submitted to the Council in February; in March Grotius published his Mare Liberum, in which he branded as “insanely cupid” any one who attempted to interfere with the common liberty of fishing in the sea; and within a week or two thereafter the Truce of Antwerp was signed by Spain and the States-General, by which the long war between those Powers was brought to a close, and James was free to begin his policy against the Dutch fishermen. On 12th April 1609 a memorandum was drawn up for the Council, in which it was stated (1) that a conference having been held with the fishermen concerning the seasons of all the fishings on the coast, it was thought fit that the proclamation should take effect from 1st August ensuing; (2) that from that day forward it should be unlawful for any stranger to fish “upon those his Majesty’s coasts and seas of Great Britain and Ireland and the Isles adjacent,” where the fishing was usually carried on, until they had obtained license for the same from the king; (3) that commissioners should be appointed by the king, at London, for England and Ireland, and for Scotland at such place as the king should select, to give out licenses on such conditions as he might think fit; and (4) that the licenses should be apportionable to the number and tonnage of the ships.[279]

These provisions were embodied in the proclamation, which was issued on 6th May 1609.[280] “Whereas,” said James, in his wordy style, “we have been contented since our coming to the crown, to tolerate an indifferent and promiscuous kind of liberty to all our friends whatsoever, to fish within our streams, and upon any of our coasts of Great Britain, Ireland, and other adjacent islands, so far forth as the permission or use thereof might not redound to the impeachment of our prerogative royal, nor to the hurt and damage of our loving subjects, whose preservation and flourishing estate we hold ourself principally bound to advance before all worldly respects: so finding that our connivance therein hath not only given occasion to over great encroachments upon our regalities, or rather questioning for our right,[281] but hath been a means of much daily wrongs to our own people that exercise the trade of fishing, as (either by the multitude of strangers, which do preoccupy those places, or by the injuries which they receive most commonly at their hands) our subjects are constrained to abandon their fishing, or at the least are become so discouraged in the same, as they hold it better for them to betake themselves to some other course of living, whereby not only divers of our coast-towns are much decayed, but the number of mariners daily diminished, which is a matter of great consequence to our estate, considering how much the strength thereof consisteth in the power of shipping and use of navigation.” It was therefore both just and necessary, the king continued, to take lawful means to put an end to these inconveniences, although he had no intention, as he desired the world to take notice, to deny his neighbours “those fruits and benefits of peace and friendship” which might justly be expected at his hands in honour and reason. He therefore gave notice to all the world, that after 1st August 1609, “no person of what nation or quality soever, being not our natural born subject, be permitted to fish upon any of our coasts and seas,” “until they have orderly demanded and obtained licenses from us,” or the commissioners appointed at London and Edinburgh. The licenses were to be renewed yearly, “upon pain of such chastisement as shall be fit to be inflicted upon such wilful offenders.”[282]

The prohibition of unlicensed fishing in the British or Irish seas was general in its character, and applied to all foreigners indifferently. But it was well understood to be aimed at the Dutch. There is no evidence to show that any steps were taken to induce the hundred or so of French boats that took part in the herring-fishing on the east coast to obtain licenses; and though the Earl of Salisbury wrote a long letter to the English ambassador at Madrid, explaining the reasons that had induced the king to issue the proclamation, it does not appear that the numerous Spanish fishermen who caught mackerel off the coast of Ireland and the south-west coast of England were ever interfered with, or asked to apply for licenses.[283]

In the United Provinces the important step taken by the King of England was regarded with much concern. Early in June the proclamation was discussed by the States of Holland, and it was resolved that as the interference with the liberty of fishing was contrary to the treaties between England and the Netherlands, the States-General should maintain their right to fish off the British and Irish coasts.[284] This resolution was confirmed on the same day by the States-General, and it was decided to make representations against putting the proclamation into force. The herring-fishing, as previously described, began in June at Shetland, and was prosecuted down the east coast to Yarmouth, where the busses were usually to be found in September. There was therefore not much time to lose. Sir Noel Caron, the Dutch ambassador in London, had several interviews on the subject with the Earl of Salisbury and with James himself. Lord Salisbury, who was believed by Caron to be the real author of the scheme, held out little hope of an amicable settlement. But the good-natured king, who loved peace even more than he loved his prerogative, was more conciliatory. He explained to Sir Noel that the proclamation was for the purpose of introducing better order into the fishery, and to make manifest to the world the authority and power which he had on the sea,[285] and was not meant in any way to wrong the States, either by hostile force or otherwise. The French Government had in the meantime moved in the matter. At first nothing was said to our ambassador at Paris about the proclamation, and he thought it “no wisdom” to speak about it to them unless they raised the question. This they did later, either on account of the French fishermen or at the instigation of the Dutch, and a year’s respite was granted.[286] Caron learned the welcome intelligence from the French ambassador in London, that a promise had been made to him that the project would proceed no further until after mutual negotiations, which would occupy the whole of that year.[287] Sir Ralph Winwood, who was appointed English ambassador at The Hague in August 1609, also had conferences about the proclamation with Barnevelt, whose authority in Holland was then supreme. He was told that the States would send special ambassadors to the king, “to acknowledge those many royal favours they had received from him,” and to treat of the liberty of fishing. Meantime their ambassador in London had been instructed to beseech the king to have patience with their people “trading” on his coasts, and that “without impeachment they might use their accustomed liberty and ancient privileges.”[288]

Sir Noel Caron had also discussions in London with respect to the legality of imposing any tax on Dutch fishermen, the principle of which he could not well understand. As previously mentioned, one of the precedents upon which James founded his claim to impose tribute was the payment by Scottish fishermen of the so-called “assize-herrings.” This was an ancient tax or custom of a thousand herrings levied from each fishing-boat employed at the herring fishery, and they belonged to the king as part of the crown revenues.[289] From the extent of the Dutch herring fishery it is evident that a similar tax imposed on it would have brought in a goodly sum annually to the king’s coffers. A few years later, when James did attempt to collect the tax from the Dutch fishermen, each buss was to be charged an “assize duty” of 10,000 herrings, or £66, 13s. 4d. Scots, which was equal to about £5, 11s. 1d. sterling; so that if the duty had been exacted from the 2000 herring-boats fishing on the coast the crown would have benefited to the extent of about £11,000 a year, and the Hollanders would have been all that the poorer.

When the principle of the assize-herring was explained to the Dutch ambassador, he appears to have devoted some attention to it. He argued that although the Scots Acts showed that the assize-herrings had been exacted from the Scottish fishermen in the firths on the east and west coasts, the tax had never been imposed in the north seas and at the Isles (Shetlands) where the Hollander busses fished; it would therefore be an “innovation” to enforce the payment there now. He further averred that treaties between King James and the United Provinces existed by which Dutch fishermen were freed from any payment to the king for fishing on his coasts and seas. Moreover, he declared the sea was free to all, mare est liberum, and consequently there was no king nor lord to be acknowledged upon the sea, “but every stranger may fish over all the seas where he pleases, without asking license, or paying any toll or duty whatsoever.” It was moreover apparent, apart from considerations of principle as to the freedom of the sea, that no certainty existed that the king, or a successor, would not raise the tax, if once imposed, as the King of Denmark had done with the dues at the Sound, until they became a heavy burden.

A Scottish lawyer, probably in the service of the crown, in reply to the objections of Sir Noel Caron, argued that it could not be called an “innovation” to exact the tribute, if the herrings swam from the ancient places of their resort and appeared in new places in his Majesty’s seas, where the tax was not previously levied, or because there was an “oversight” in levying it in olden times when, he said, there was little fishing in the north seas and about the Isles, and the cost of collecting it would have been great. As for treaties, it was most improbable that any stranger would ask or king grant that strangers should be more free to fish “within the seas of the king’s dominions” than the native subjects of the kingdom. But even if such grant had been made, it could not stand good in law, because it was “repugnant to reason.” By negligence, he said, the Hollanders had been allowed two advantages. In ancient times they were “appointed” to fish no nearer the land than they could see the shore from their main-tops; but now they fished as near as they pleased, excluding the natives and breaking up the shoals. Then, while the natives had to pay three assizes yearly, the Dutch were “as yet” asked to pay only one, though many of the busses made three voyages in a year. And if the sea was free to all, why had the Netherlanders entered into treaties for freedom of fishing? By making covenants with the kings of Scotland, “and taking liberty of them to fish within the Scottish seas,” they had “disclaimed mare liberum and acknowledged the Kings of Scotland to be Lords of these Seas.” Why should the Dutch alone object, if the natives, the French, and all other foreigners willingly pay the assize-herring?[290] It was, however, untrue to say that the tax was paid by the French or other foreign fishermen. Even Scottish fishermen who fished at the North Isles were exempt; and when an attempt was made some years later to force them to pay, the burghs obtained a decree of absolvitor from the court and the Privy Council, on the ground that the tax could only be levied on “green” or fresh fish landed, and not on herrings cured on board (see p. 166).

In the spring of 1610 James’s proclamation was again taken into consideration by the States of Holland and the States-General, and it was resolved to send an embassy to London, primarily to thank the king for his friendly offices in connection with the conclusion of the truce with Spain, but in reality to deal with the fishery question and some other matters. One of the ambassadors was Joachimi, who afterwards represented the States at the English Court for over twenty-five years. Another was Elias van Oldenbarnevelt, a brother of the great statesman who was then at the head of affairs in the Netherlands, and to him the business of the fishing was specially committed. They arrived in England on 14th April, and had an audience with the king a few days later and another with the Privy Council. They asked for an assurance that the king’s proclamation was not meant to extend to the United Provinces, since he was in alliance with them, and treaties existed between the two countries. But the Earl of Salisbury plainly told them that the principal motive of the proclamation arose from the multitude and disorder of their fishermen, “who had wholly drawn the fishing to themselves, to the destruction of his Majesty’s people and coast-towns”; and they were invited to further conference.[291]

On the 6th May, exactly a year after the publication of the proclamation, the ambassadors had a formal conference with Sir Julius Cæsar, Sir Thomas Parry, Sir Daniel Dunn, Sir Christopher Perkins, Dr Henry Marten (Advocate-General), and Levinus Muncke, a Fleming, and “clerk to his Majesty’s Signet.” The English commissioners began the discussion by justifying the proclamation on the grounds previously indicated. The Dutch contended for complete freedom of fishing, resting their case on arguments drawn from the civil law, on immemorial possession, on the existence of treaties, and on political considerations. They said the United Provinces had always been in peaceful possession of free fishing, and that from time immemorial they had enjoyed complete liberty to fish over the whole sea, both as a matter of usage and of right. To disturb them by force in the enjoyment of that right would be unjust. Besides, by the Law of Nations the boundless and rolling sea was as common to all people as the air, “which no prince could prohibit.” No prince, they said, could “challenge further into the sea than he can command with a cannon, except gulfs within their land from one point to another,”--the first occasion on which this principle for delimiting territorial waters, afterwards so celebrated, appears to have been advanced.[292]

Besides these more or less abstract arguments, the ambassadors made a strong case by reason of the treaties in which liberty of fishing was stipulated. It is noteworthy that they referred to only one of the treaties with England, the Intercursus Magnus of 1496, while they laid stress on the treaties with Scotland in 1541, 1550, and especially in 1594, when James himself was on the throne of the northern kingdom (see p. 81). They further declared that there were reasons of state which forbade the United Provinces from allowing the free use of the sea to be disputed. More than 20,000 mariners were maintained by the herring fishery alone, besides other 40,000 people who gained their livelihood by making nets, packing the fish, and in other industries depending upon the fishery. The power and security of the country and much of its commerce rested on the fishery. As for the complaint that the decay of English coast-towns was caused by their fishing off the coast, it was explained that they only fished there for herrings which were cured on board, and that this industry had been discovered by themselves, which gave them a prior claim to it. The English were free to carry on the herring fishery themselves, though, they dexterously added, it was a business that required much experience, and it would be a long time before they succeeded, especially as heavy losses sometimes occurred, which the Dutch were able to bear, since they lived cheaply and each of the 60,000 people mentioned were “adventurers,” the losses being thus spread over a great number. They suggested that the English had given up the fishery because they had found a more comfortable livelihood in other ways.[293]

On the other side, the English commissioners argued that by the custom of nations the king had a right to the whole of the seas around his coasts; and this right was exercised by other countries, as Spain, France, Denmark, Sweden, Venice, Genoa, and Russia, and generally by all maritime states; and it was not opposed to the Roman law or the teachings of the Civilians. They admitted that the sea was free for navigation, but denied that it was free for fishing. All the kings of England since Edgar had the adjoining seas under their jurisdiction, and had always received “consideration” for the fishing within them. The commissioners evidently felt that the treaties offered the greatest difficulty to the policy of James, and they contended that all the Burgundy treaties had become obsolete for a variety of reasons. The great treaty of 1496 had lost its effect, inasmuch as a later treaty in 1520 (which, however, dealt with quite other things) did not confirm it. The treaties, moreover, had been made with the House of Burgundy, and concerned only the subjects of that house; but there were now no subjects of the Duke of Burgundy; and the Dutch at least could not found upon those treaties, because they had themselves broken and transgressed them. Even if those old treaties could be supposed to be in force and provided liberty of fishing without license, that could not mean without the payment of the usual dues, customs, and taxes. Besides, when the treaties were made the circumstances were different. The fishing of the Netherlanders was not then so disagreeable to this country as it was now; then about 100 vessels came to fish, while now they sent 2000. The king was therefore not bound to tolerate them any longer.

The negotiations between the English and Dutch commissioners went on for a short time, the arguments on either side being elaborated without much hope of agreement, when an event occurred that brought them to a sudden end. This was the assassination of King Henry IV. of France, the head of the Protestant League, which made James anxious to retain the goodwill and alliance of the Dutch Republic, in view of his relations with Spain. On 14th May the ambassadors were told by the Earl of Salisbury that while the king held his right to forbid the Netherlanders to fish on his coasts to be indubitable, he, “out of his great love to the Low Countries, would forbear to proceed according to the proclamation.”[294] At the farewell audience James used very kind expressions. He made the remarkable but characteristic statement to the ambassadors that he had issued the proclamation owing to the just complaints of his subjects, not from the solicitation of courtesans or courtiers.[295] He assured them of his affection towards them and the preservation of their state, “which next unto his own he held most dear above all other respects in the world.” As for the business of the fishing, he thought it was not fit now to spend more time on it, but to refer it to some better season, and in the meantime, he said, things would remain as they were.[296] This termination to the negotiations was naturally gratifying to the Dutch. Barnevelt and the States-General had become somewhat anxious as to the issue, and the ambassadors had been instructed to try to get the matter shelved for a little. Although James had suspended the operation of the proclamation, however, he had not withdrawn it. The question was merely postponed to a more convenient season.

The failure to carry out the policy of exacting tribute from the Dutch fishermen was fatal to the scheme of the London merchants to form a Society of Fishing Merchants. Rainsford wrote to Lord Salisbury in October 1609 expressing his fears that the Earl disapproved of the project to raise a great revenue to the king for the fishing in his seas;[297] and in 1611 he again addressed a memorandum to the Earl, answering various objections that had been raised to the scheme, and renewing the offer for farming the tribute.

The plans to form a national herring fishery founded on taxation of the Dutch having failed, others were brought forward on the basis of receiving special privileges and immunities from the crown. One proceeded so far towards realisation, that in December 1611 a corporation was formed, consisting of a governor, deputy-governor, a treasurer, twenty-four “consuls,” with “searchers” (cure-masters), gaugers, and other officials, in imitation of the Dutch system. The administration was to be general “for matter of order, and particular for matter of adventure,” leaving every town at liberty to venture for itself; and laws and ordinances were drawn up for the central body in London and the affiliated societies throughout the country. Since the money necessary was to be found by private individuals, a number of privileges were asked from the Government. One of these, which made it lawful for the corporation to carry their fish abroad and to bring back commodities in exchange, “from all parts wheresoever, notwithstanding any former privileges to the contrary,” was strenuously opposed by all the trading companies, and in particular by the Merchant Adventurers, who objected that it would be most injurious to their great trade in cloth.[298] This opposition killed the “business of the busses,” as the fishing project was popularly called. Writing ten years later, Gerard Malynes, a London merchant and author, who appears to have been one of the promoters and to have spent both time and money on it, deplored the failure of this society, which he said was due to the opposition of the Merchant Adventurers, the Russia Company, and the Eastland Merchants.[299]

Within a year or two another project came from an unexpected quarter. No less a personage than the queen became a suppliant for a royal patent empowering her to compound with strangers for licenses to fish on the British coasts. The arguments adduced from the point of view of benefit to the nation were of the usual kind; but others of a more or less domestic nature were added, which must have appealed to the heart of her consort. “It is desired by the Queene,” proceeds the petition, “that the King’s Majesty will be pleased to graunt unto her a Pattent of theis fishings under his Majesty’s great Seales of England and Scotland, whereby her Majesty may have power to graunt lycense and to compound with these strangers for an yearly revenue to be paid unto her Majestie for theis fishings.” By this means a great revenue would be drawn into the country, which would be sufficient to support and maintain her estate, “and so his Majesty’s coffers will be spared.” She promised besides that she would give him a full fifth of the amount she obtained; and another advantage would be that the king would be “royally invested in possession of his undoubted right, which,” she naïvely added, “hath never ben yet obtayned by anie of his royall progenitors.” The petition was brought before the Privy Council, who decided that the proposal was not feasible, as it depended upon “so many points of question and circumstance between us and the House of Burgundy in former times, and the States of the Low Countries and us for the present.”[300]

In her petition the queen referred to the proposal to build a number of busses. While explaining that her project would not prevent the king or any of his subjects from building busses if they so desired, she questioned whether that plan would be successful. Some men, indeed, of great judgment, she said, were of opinion that the king would reap no benefit at all in that way, for 1000 busses was “the least number that could be thought to doe any good upon this fishing,” and each would cost £1000 at least, while £100 a-year would be required for repairs, and 20,000 men would be needed to man them.

About this time several works were published giving details as to the cost and equipment of herring-busses,[301] but little was accomplished. The net result in 1614 was that one Richard Godsdue, Esquire, of Bucknam Ferry, in Norfolk, had five busses on the stocks at Yarmouth, and Sir William Harvey had built a large one at Limehouse. But all the efforts made in the reign of James, and indeed throughout the whole century, to form a great national fishery on the model of the Dutch completely failed. It required nearly two centuries of experience, and the squandering of vast sums of money, to teach the people that a great industry could not be suddenly created in this way by servile imitation of a system not suited to the natural circumstances of the case. It was chiefly by the gradual evolution of the Scottish herring-boat, and not by the building of busses, that the herring industry was wrested from the Dutch.

James was doubtless privy to the queen’s petition before it was officially considered,[302] and he appears not to have been satisfied with the decision of the Council. At all events, the question of the fisheries was still kept alive. In the spring of 1614 we find Wotton writing from The Hague to Secretary Winwood, saying that he still had his Majesty’s commission regarding the fishings, and that it was, as Winwood said, “a tender and dainty piece,” adding that though he had seen Mr Barnevelt on several occasions he had not mentioned the matter to him, and was waiting for a suitable time to speak of this “dainty and delicate business.”[303] Later in the year, the Keeper of the State Papers was requested by the Lord Chancellor and the Archbishop of Canterbury to search the records in his custody relating to the king’s jurisdiction on the sea and his right to the fishing. “Whereas,” they said, “there is occasion for his Majesty’s special service to look out such precedents and records as concern his Majesty’s power, right, and sovereign jurisdiction of the seas and fishing upon the coast; and that we are informed there are many of that kind among the records in your custody, we do hereby require you to make your personal repair hither to seek out all such precedents and papers as are remaining there and do any way concern that business,” and to hold them ready for inspection.[304]

This search was doubtless in connection with the subject of the assize-herrings mentioned in the next chapter, but that the queen’s scheme had been revived is evident from the action of Sir Noel Caron. As soon as he got wind of it, he wrote hurriedly to the States-General stating that the king had assigned to the queen for twenty-one years the revenue to be derived from taxing the herring-busses, and that no one would be allowed to fish on the coasts of England or Scotland without her consent.[305] This letter was at once considered by the Dutch Government. A committee was appointed to look into the treaties bearing on the question and the instructions which had been given to the ambassadors in 1610, and to report as to what action should be taken; but it was finally resolved to await further developments in England before interfering, and at the beginning of November Caron was able to announce that the danger had passed.[306]

At this period there were other disputes with England that caused apprehension in Holland. One referred to the trade in cloth, and in a proclamation which prohibited the export of wool[307] James took the opportunity to extol the commanding situation of the British Isles for navigation and trade, and to draw a parallel between the commodities of wool on land and fish in the sea, “which,” he said, “are the Adamants that draw and govern all other Trade and Merchandizing”--language which led the Dutch to think the proclamation anent unlicensed fishing was about to be renewed. Another referred to the whale fishery at Spitzbergen, which was claimed both by the Dutch and the British, and was regarded by James as being within his maritime dominion. It led, as shall be seen, to an interesting contest for mare clausum in the Arctic Seas.

V. JAMES I.--continued. DISPUTES WITH THE DUTCH

It would probably be too flattering to James to suppose that he had any well-considered plan for extending his authority over the foreign fishermen frequenting his coasts, or for extracting from them a tribute for their liberty of fishing. But the existence of the tax of the assize-herrings in Scotland clearly offered the best means for bringing that about if it was to be brought about at all. It has been explained that in the negotiations which followed the issue of the proclamation of 1609, Sir Noel Caron laid his finger on a weak spot in the English case, by pointing out that the assize-herring had never been levied on the native fishermen who fished where the Dutch fished at the North Isles. The special ambassadors in 1610 also mentioned that their fishermen had never been asked to pay it, though they naturally did not lay stress on the point. James resolved that those omissions should be remedied. In 1610 he granted the assize-herrings to Captain John Mason, who was employed with two ships of war in that and in the following year on the coast of Scotland. Mason accordingly made strenuous efforts to collect the tribute. The fishermen of Fifeshire, who carried on a herring fishery at Orkney and Shetland, resisted the unaccustomed tax, and in 1612 raised an action of absolvitor before the Lords of the Privy Council and gained their case.[308] The Lords of the Council decided that the “adventure” of the fishermen at the Northern Isles was of the nature of a merchant voyage, and that the fishermen had no right to pay any such assize, which had never been craved of them before.[309]

Notwithstanding this decision of the Privy Council of Scotland, James in 1614 again granted the assize-herrings of the North Isles, on this occasion to the Duke of Lennox, who was his Admiral in Scotland and one of the chief noblemen of the time. In ordinary course the grant came before the Privy Council for confirmation, and the Council at once informed the Convention of Burghs, requesting them to make it known to the burghs that the Duke of Lennox had obtained a gift from the king of “ane excyse to be tayne of all heyring to be tayne be north of Buqhan Nes” (Buchan Ness, Aberdeenshire), so that they might lodge their defences. The commissioners for Dundee, St Andrews, Dunbar, and the burghs on the coast of Fife, were accordingly appointed to proceed to Edinburgh to give reasons to the Council against the “gift.”[310] After hearing the representatives of the burghs and the agents of the Duke (one of whom was “Maister Johnne Browne,” the central figure in the dramatic episode in 1617, referred to later), the Lords of the Council indited a long letter to the king. They cited the decision in Mason’s case two years before, and the reasons for it. They expatiated on the great decay which had occurred in all trades and commerce in Scotland, and stated that the fishings would also decay if the duty was levied. In plain words they told the king that the fisheries should rather be encouraged--for the general welfare of the country, the increase of customs, the inbringing of bullion, and providing work for the poor. In face of the decree in Mason’s case, the Duke’s agents had to admit that they could not levy the tax from the burghs, but they craved leave to exact them from the native fishermen of Orkney and Shetland, and from the foreign fishermen who fished there. On the former point the opinion of the Council was clear. They upheld the contention of the burghs that the native fishermen were only their servants, since they paid wages to them for their labour, and that the herrings, being cured and barrelled on the sea, were exempt from assize duty, which could be exacted only on herrings brought fresh and “green” to land.[311] The Council evaded giving an opinion on the point of chief importance, the proposal to levy the tax on the foreign fishermen, all of whom cured their fish on board their vessels. There were, they said, according to information supplied by the burghs, “some strangers, especially of Holland,” who claimed the liberty and privilege of fishing “by his Majesty’s patent granted in their favour to fish in his Majesty’s waters”; but the tenour of this patent was obscure and not known to them, and they had no record of it. They suggested that the king should ask his ambassador at The Hague to procure an authentic copy of it, to be sent to Scotland for inspection and consideration.[312]

Evidently the Council in Scotland were at this time as cautious as the Council in England in doing anything contrary to the treaties with the Netherlands. Had they sanctioned offhand the request of the Duke to exact the assize-herrings from the Hollanders, they would have taken the responsibility, without direct authority from the king, of an act which they knew might have serious consequences. They had no sympathy with the foreign fishermen, for complaints regarding them from the burghs were frequent. In 1611 the city of Edinburgh represented to them the “inconvenience” which was sustained by the whole realm and by the merchants in particular through the non-observance of the Act of 1581, “anent the comming of schippis to burrowis in the west and north Isles be Flemings and uther nations”; and in the following year the “mater of the fischeing of the Flemins in the West and North Isles” was again brought up, and it was remitted to the burghs of Edinburgh and Dundee to draw up a supplication to the Privy Council to have the fishing by the Flemings in those places repressed.[313]

In view of the decision of the Privy Council, the Duke of Lennox did not at this time attempt to collect the tribute from the foreign fishermen at the North Isles. But two years later the political relations between this country and the Netherlands having become strained, the opportunity was seized to raise once more the question of the fishery and the exaction of the assize-herrings. Serious disputes involving retaliatory measures had broken out respecting the trade in cloth. In England strong resentment was aroused by an edict of the States prohibiting the importation of English dyed cloth. Winwood, now Secretary of State, wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton, who had taken his place at The Hague, that it was the opinion of “every true-hearted Englishman” that the king “ought to forbid all manner of intercourse between the Kingdoms and the United Provinces, and forbid the Hollanders, by a fresh reviving of former proclamations, to continue their yearly fishing upon our coasts.”[314] The influence of this feeling was soon apparent. The Duke of Lennox was now instructed by the king to levy the assize-herrings from foreigners fishing at the North Isles, the grant, under the great seal of Scotland, being dated in June 1616; and to render his task more easy he obtained from Sir Noel Caron in the same month a letter of recommendation (“aanbevelingsbrief”) to the captains of the Dutch convoying-ships. This letter was innocently given by Caron in the belief that it concerned the payment of dues on land at Shetland, which the busses had been accustomed to pay, and which were then payable to the Duke,[315] but it was made use of by the Duke’s agent to cover the collection of the assize-herrings. The duty of collecting the tax was assigned to Mr John Brown, one of the Duke’s deputies. The detailed instructions he received in 1616 do not appear to have been preserved, but they were probably similar to those issued a year or two later (see Appendix G). He was to proceed to the North Isles in one of the king’s pinnaces and there to demand the assize duty from the foreign fishermen.

At the end of July 1616 Brown, in one of the king’s vessels, appeared among the Dutch busses at work off the Scottish coast, and began to carry out his instructions, offering a “quittance or receipt” for the tax claimed. Probably to his surprise, it was peaceably paid by the busses, amounting for each to one angel or a barrel of herrings and twelve cod-fish. The fishermen were told that if they did not pay it the amount would be doubled in the following year; and that the king had a right to levy this tax for a distance of 100 miles from the coast in virtue of the agreement made with the States at the baptism of Prince Henry.[316] Although the toll was paid by most of the busses, it was without the consent of the captains of the convoying men-of-war. They came to Brown and demanded to see his commission; and it is said that he showed them the letter which the Duke of Lennox had obtained from Sir Noel Caron. Since no force had been used in collecting the tax, the States’ officers contented themselves with forbidding any further proceedings, and Brown then departed.[317]

The success of the mission was gratifying to James, and the payment willingly made on this occasion by the Dutch fishermen was often afterwards cited as an argument that they had acknowledged the king’s rights in the fishery. In the United Provinces the matter was naturally viewed in another light. The Dutch officers promptly reported the occurrence to the directors of the Enkhuisen branch of the fishery; the authorities of the town complained to Barnevelt in energetic terms, and the matter was brought before a meeting of the States-General, who characterised the proceeding of Brown as an “unheard of and intolerable innovation, contrary to the existing treaties,” and instructed their ambassador in London to make a strong protest against it. Orders were, moreover, issued to the commanders of the convoying ships of war to put a stop to any further payments, and even to refuse to give their names. Caron, who was indignant at the use to which his friendly letter had been put, complained to the king and to the Duke of Lennox. James explained that it was merely a small tribute or tax which was levied in Scotland on all foreign fishermen, and even on his own subjects, and had been leased to the Duke of Lennox, who paid an annual rent for it into the Exchequer. He had, he said, arranged that one of his ships of war should be stationed on the fishing-ground for the security of the fishermen and to protect them from pirates. Caron declared that their High Mightinesses were exempt from all imposts or taxes for their fishery, both by the treaties “and otherwise,” and he begged the king to give other instructions, as the matter had occasioned great disquiet and alarm in Holland. Lennox also tried to minimise the importance of the measure. It was, he said, a small matter; a mere “acknowledgment” of a barrel of herrings or ten shillings from each buss, which had to be paid thrice a year by all the king’s subjects who fished at the North Isles, and was willingly paid by the English, French, German, and all other foreign fishermen. The ambassador says he was shown a printed book in which it was stated that the Scottish Parliament had decreed that the assize-herrings should be paid not only by the native fishermen but by foreigners who came to fish on their coasts.[318] The latter were furthermore prohibited from approaching the coast nearer than they could see the land from the top of their masts, whereas of late they came within ten, eight, six, and even four miles of the shore, which had caused much murmuring in the country, particularly as in that year between 1500 and 1000 of their busses were there in June. Sir Noel Caron, however, continued to protest against what he said was an unjust innovation, and he closed the interview with the important declaration that, be the consequences what they might, the States would not allow a single herring to be paid in future, as it might be regarded as a precedent for further demands.[319]

Notwithstanding this strong protest from the Dutch ambassador, and a request he made to the king to forbear the right he claimed pending the appointment of a special embassy to treat of the matter, Brown was again sent to the North Isles in the next year to collect the king’s dues from the herring fishers. This he attempted to do as quietly and inoffensively as possible, but his mission had an abrupt and dramatic termination. Immediately on his arrival among the busses, Captain Andrees Tlieff, the commander of one of the convoying ships from Rotterdam, formally refused the payment in the name of all the Netherland fishermen, handing to Brown a declaration to that effect in writing. Brown professed himself satisfied, and was about to leave Tlieff’s vessel to proceed, as he said, among the fishermen of other countries, when the captain of the convoyer from Enkhuisen, Jan Albertsz by name, who had spoken to Brown in the previous year, came on board. He asked Brown if he was the person who had levied the tax in the year before, and on receiving a reply in the affirmative he at once arrested him, saying he had orders to that effect; and notwithstanding Brown’s warning as to the consequences, and the exhibition of his commission, he was made prisoner by the irate Dutchman and carried off to Holland. Whether the king’s pinnace had on this occasion, as two years later, more than “two small guns and ten muscattis” to represent the power and majesty of the British navy, does not appear. But Brown, meek and peaceful, was seemingly quite contented with his position. He wrote from the Dutch ship to Captain Murray, in charge of the king’s pinnace, telling him of his arrest and advising him to make no attempt at rescue, but to return to Scotland and report the matter to the king.[320]

James received the news of the capture of Brown at Dumfries while on a visit to Scotland. He felt that the arrest of an officer of the state, discharging business of the state and with his Admiral’s commission in his pocket, was an “insolent” personal affront to himself. The members of the Privy Council who were with him--and the Duke of Lennox was one of them--immediately wrote to the Council in London requesting them in the name of the king to arrest the masters of two or three Dutch ships in the Thames by way of reprisal, and to retain them as hostages; to inform Sir Noel Caron that reparation must be made by the States; and to instruct the British ambassador at The Hague to “demand satisfaction from them for this insolence offered to his Majesty.” Winwood at once sent for Caron, and informed him of the “disgraceful affront” which had been put upon the king while his Majesty himself was in Scotland. The king, he said, was very sensible of their “injurious and scornful carriage,” and immediate satisfaction and redress were demanded. Sir Dudley Carleton used even stronger language in addressing the States-General at The Hague. What, he asked, would the world say when they knew that a public officer and Minister of the King of England had been seized by them in Scotland, in sight of the ships of other nations and while the king himself was in that country? That the outrage was committed by the orders of the States he did not believe; but the captains pretended they had a commission for what they did, and produced certain letters patent containing, as they said, an express commission from their masters. The ambassador concluded by requiring instant reparation and satisfaction.[321]

Meanwhile Brown himself had, perhaps, little cause for regret. He spent two days on board the Dutch man-of-war, and was then landed at Enkhuisen. The authorities of the town at once perceived the rashness of the step that had been taken by Captain Albertsz. Brown was immediately liberated, treated with the greatest courtesy, and conducted by one of the chief magistrates, with profuse apologies, to the British ambassador at The Hague. All his expenses were defrayed; he was presented with seventy “double Jacobus pieces” as a personal gift, and he left for home on 13th September. Count Maurice and Barnevelt promptly disavowed the act of Albertsz, and when the matter was brought before the States-General by Carleton, it fell to the lot of Grotius, in the absence of Barnevelt, to express the regret of the assembly for the “accident,” and to request the British ambassador to put the case in writing for inquiry. In their reply later, the States-General threw the whole blame on the captains, Albertsz and Tlieff, who had, they said, acted without authority, and would be punished on their return from the fishing. They renewed their regrets, said that Brown had been immediately released, and begged that the Dutch merchant captains who had been thrown into prison in England and Scotland might be set free, and their “ancient accustomed liberty of fishing maintained.” In preferring this request the States relied on their treaty with James in 1594, and the gracious answer he had given to their ambassadors in 1610 concerning the proclamation of the year before.[322]

If the States-General thought they were to get so easily out of the awkward position in which the precipitate action of their officers had placed them, they were disappointed. James not only refused to release the Dutch ships, but said their masters would be detained in prison until the offending commanders had been sent as prisoners to England, there to receive such justice as their case merited. This request was most unpalatable to the States, and they raised various objections to it, founded both on law and privilege; and although they were assured by Carleton that the only punishment the offenders would receive would be “the crossing and re-crossing the seas,” they begged that some other means might be found of settling the matter. James, however, who had submitted the case to counsel as to the legality of his demand, remained obdurate.[323] Finally, after much negotiation and debate, the States, in February 1618, resolved to send over the two captains to receive the personal rebuke of the king. Albertsz, the chief offender, fell ill and died, but Tlieff did actually come to England in April. Notwithstanding letters of recommendation from the States-General, Sir Noel Caron, and Sir Dudley Carleton (with whom Grotius had interceded), he was “very wrathfully” received by James, who scolded and rebuked him severely for the enormity of his offence, and then dismissed him without further punishment.[324] Thus ended an incident in the claims to mare clausum which almost led to a rupture between the two countries.

It would appear that James, though thus foiled in his attempt to levy the assize-herrings from the Hollander fishermen in 1617, did not intend to let the matter rest in the following season, and circumstances occurred which brought up the question of the “land-kenning” in another quarter. Early in 1618 the King of Denmark complained to him that Scottish fishermen were in the habit of fishing “within the waters of Faeröe,” which was part of the dominions of Denmark, and that the native fishermen had been so much injured by their encroachments that they were unable to pay their dues and taxes. Here was a complaint against Scottish fishermen like that which they so commonly made against the Dutch. The complaint was brought before the Privy Council of Scotland, who summoned the burghs concerned[325] to appear and explain their conduct. They admitted that for some years they had gone to the Faeröe Isles to fish, but they said that they had been “driven thereto upon necessity, and by the violence and oppression of the Hollanders, who came yearly with two thousand sail and above within his Majesty’s waters, and within a mile of the ‘continent’ of Orkney and Shetland, and not contented with the benefit that the liberty of their fishing within the said bounds affords yearly unto them, they do very heavily oppress his Majesty’s poor subjects and fishers.” They said that the Hollanders “stoppis thame, houndis and chaisis thame frome thair fischeing, cuttis thair nettis, threatnis thair lyveis, and thairby compellis thame, who ar a nomber of poore people haveing no other trade quhairby to manteene thair families, to seeke thair fischeing elsquhair and far frome thair awne coist, with grite tormoyll, travell, trouble, and chargeis.”[326] The Lords of the Council, however, held that the oppression committed by the Hollanders on them was no warrant for their oppressing the subjects of other princes, and “that they ought not to have fished in the said waters without some license and oversight.” A proclamation was thereupon issued by the king and Council forbidding Scottish fishermen “to fish within sight of the land of the Isle of Faeröe, but to reserve the [fishings there[327]] to the inhabitants of the said Isle, and to other” subjects of the King of Denmark, “conform to the law of nations,” under a penalty of confiscation of the ships, vessels, and goods of the persons offending. At the same time the Council wrote to the king acquainting him with the oppressions committed by the Hollanders on the Scottish fishermen, and suggesting that his ambassador at The Hague should demand reparation and “instant prohibition” by the States to their people, “that they fish not within sight of his Majesty’s land, but reserve these bounds to his Majesty’s own subjects, conform to the law of nations.”[328]

Sir Dudley Carleton accordingly made a strong representation to the States-General on the subject in April. They asked for particulars as to the persons who were alleged to have been ill-treated in Scotland, and the nature of the wrongs done to them; while with respect to the limit proposed to be set them in their fishery--namely, not to come within sight of land--they said they had never heard of any such custom, and did not understand how it could be put into practice.[329] On reporting this home, Carleton was told by the king to raise the question of the fishing again before he came away, and he explained to him that the custom of the land-kenning was that no stranger should fish either within the creeks of the land or within a kenning of the land, “as seamen do take a kenning.” He asked Carleton to ascertain whether the Dutch claimed to fish wherever they liked, or were willing to accept reasonable bounds, adding that the resolution that might be taken on the subject would depend largely on this.[330] A few months before this Carleton had brought similar complaints to the notice of the States-General, declaring that the Hollanders were daily guilty of “great outrages and insolencies on the Scottish fishermen.” It was even said to be the opinion in London that the prosecution of the herring fishery by the Dutch under the protection of ships of war was a direct challenge to and defiance of the king.[331]

The authorities in Scotland lost no time in preparing statements recounting in detail the outrages and insolences committed by the Dutch fishermen; but an impartial perusal of the complaints leaves little doubt that they were greatly exaggerated. The Dutch fishermen were accused of going ashore in large numbers and chasing, taking, and slaying sheep; they “intromitted” with growing timber, trod down all the corn they could find, induced the best and ablest of the native fishermen to join them, or even took them by force; entered the kirks, where they broke down the seats and polluted the pulpits; carved their names on the green pastures; took uninvited rides on the horses in the fields, “to the great hurt of the owners”; and made free with the eggs and young of seafowl on the uninhabited isles, to the hurt of the proprietors. In the long catalogue of their supposed outrages on land, two were more important. It was alleged that they gave refuge to thieves and malefactors, so that justice could not reach them; and that some years before they seized an honest young woman who was selling stockings among them and held her head-downwards on an eminence in sight of the whole fleet, owing to which she died later. Among their offences at sea they were charged with shooting at native fishermen, “catching of their small netts and lynes within those huge long netts” that they used, and which they laid hard by the shore, “whereas before they approached not nearer the coasts than fourty (sic) myles.” By fishing near the shore they had impoverished the whole trade of fishing; before they began to do so the herrings came close in, so that the poorest fisherman could enrich himself, while the shoals were now broken up and dispersed. So near did the busses come in stormy weather that they fished “hard by gentlemen’s doors,” where the fishing was “appropriate to the owners of the land nearest adjacent for their own fishing in the time of storms when they could not go to sea for the entertaining of their houses.”[332]

Since the States-General appeared to be tardy in admitting the offences with which their fishermen were charged, the king wished strong measures to be taken by the Council in Scotland, and he instructed Lord Binning, his Secretary there, to take steps “for interrupting and staying the Hollanders to fish in his seas within sight of the land.” The Council, however, pointed out in a very humble tone that inasmuch as it was a matter which concerned not only “thir Hollanders, who ar your Maiesties confederatis, pretending thair awne interes thairin, ather be right or lang possessioun,” but also the whole of the kingdom, it would be better if the king’s proposals were first imparted to the Privy Council in England. They requested, further, that the ambassador in Holland should again expostulate with the States as to the injuries caused to the king’s subjects by their “unjust usurpation to fish within sight of his Majesty’s land,” and to urge them to issue a proclamation to prohibit, under heavy penalties, their people from all further fishing within his Majesty’s seas, which, they said, ought by the Law of Nations to be exclusively reserved for his own subjects. They advised the king to make the States clearly understand that if they continued any longer in their “oppression,” he would so provide for the maintenance of his right and the freeing of his people as his honour and justice required; and if the answer was not satisfactory he might then resolve upon the “next expedient,” and the Council would be ready to obey whatever he should command.[333]

The States-General, while they did not go so far as the Council desired in prohibiting their fishermen from approaching near to the land, did all that they reasonably could do to prevent injuries being committed on the Scottish people. After an inquiry was made among those taking part in the great herring fishery, without any evidence being forthcoming in support of the Scottish complaints, they published an edict forbidding their subjects, under pain of severe punishment “as pirates and malefactors,” from interfering with the Scottish fishermen, with whom they were enjoined to maintain “true friendship, neighbourliness, and good correspondence.”[334] In forwarding a copy of this proclamation to the king, the States said that they had issued it for his satisfaction, and had given strict orders to their captains to apprehend any one who acted contrary to it. But they expressed the hope that he would not permit the fishermen of the United Provinces to be disturbed or troubled in the liberty and freedom of taking herrings throughout the whole sea, of which liberty they were in immemorial possession, and it had been confirmed to them by several treaties, in particular by that made in 1551 between the king’s predecessor and Charles V. The prosperity of their country, it was added, depended on navigation, traffic, and fisheries, and the freedom of these had been provided for in treaties.[335] James, however, was far from satisfied. He sent on the missive to the Privy Council in Scotland, with the request that the rolls and registers should be searched to see if any record existed of any such treaty, whether “with the said Emperor or any other potentate of the Low Countries.” The States, he said, had promised to send a copy of it, but they had not done so, and in the meantime he would cause the rolls in London to be searched.[336]

The negotiations with the States-General dragged on throughout the summer without much result, and in August James took the sudden resolution again to demand from the Dutch fishermen the payment of the assize-herrings. This was doubtless caused by the receipt of a letter from Sir Dudley Carleton, informing him that the herring-fishers had gone that year to the coast of Scotland with extraordinary convoy, the number of their men-of-war having been doubled, and expressing the hope that notwithstanding this the king would send some one to make the usual demand in a peaceable manner; otherwise, said Carleton, the Hollanders “will think his Majesty has laid aside his pretension.”[337] James accordingly wrote hurriedly to the Council at Edinburgh, saying it was necessary to make requisition of his duties from the Hollanders fishing on the coasts of Orkney and Shetland, in order both to keep possession of the fishing and to foil any plea from the States-General that no such duties had been demanded of them. He had intended, he said, to send a ship of war, but those which were ready were otherwise engaged, and there would not be time to equip a vessel in England before the Hollanders returned from the fishing. The Council were therefore instructed to fit out with all expedition either his own pinnace or any other ship which could conveniently be procured, and to send it to the North Isles with such person as the deputy of the Duke of Lennox should choose, who was to be instructed “in fair tearmes and calme and peciable maner to crave oure said dewties, and accept of any suche answer as they sall gif him, without making any furder questioun or dispute in the mater.”[338] Here was another Brown mission over again; but James forgot, if indeed he ever knew, that at that time of year the Dutch herring fishermen would be very far from the North Isles, and fishing along the English coast.[339] The fact was well known at Edinburgh, but, for whatever reason, it was not pointed out to the king; and the Council, urged to use “exceeding great haste,” chartered a Leith vessel, the Restore, put Mr Patrick Bruce on board to demand the tax from the Hollanders, along with a notary “to give instruments thereupon,” and despatched it on its bootless errand to the Shetlands. No Hollanders could be discovered, and the Restore came back to Leith.

The reason of the king’s action, as well as of Carleton’s advice, is doubtless to be sought in the desire to strengthen the case against the Dutch in view of an expected special embassy from The Hague, whose appointment was now mooted, and which was designed to settle various differences between the two countries that had become acute. Besides the herring fishery, which was a never-failing subject of dispute, there was the trade in cloth, the East Indies, and the “Greenland” whale fishery, about which it is necessary to say something here.

Allusion has already been made to this phase of the controversy respecting mare clausum which sprang up in the Arctic seas, and was now mixed up with the question of the liberty of fishing on the British coasts. Towards the end of the previous century English whalers, for the most part in the service of the Russia or Muscovy Company, frequented the coasts of Greenland, and the northern seas which had been opened up to English enterprise by the voyages of Willoughby and Chancellor;[340] and early in the next century they also began to catch whales at Spitzbergen, where they were found in enormous numbers.[341] The whalers of other nations followed in their wake, and in 1612 two Dutch vessels arrived at Spitzbergen to take part in the fishery, and although from their ignorance of the methods they failed of success that year, a company (Noordsche Compagnie) was formed at Amsterdam to continue the venture under better conditions.[342] The Muscovy Company, whose whalers in 1612 got within nine degrees of the North Pole, sighting 700 whales and bringing back 17,[343] became jealous of competitors. In 1613 they procured from King James a charter by which they were entitled to exclude all others, foreigners as well as subjects, from sailing to Spitzbergen; and in that year they dispatched thither a fleet of seven armed vessels to defend their rights by force as well as to catch whales.[344] In the seas at Spitzbergen they found a number of other whalers from Spain and France, as well as two Dutch ships which had returned to the fishery. The English vessels immediately attacked them, and drove most of the intruders away.[345] The Englishmen then set up a cross on the shore with the king’s arms on it, and they called the land “King James’s Newland.” It is noteworthy as indicating the attitude and practice towards France throughout almost the whole of the disputes about mare clausum, that the French whalers were allowed to continue their operations, subject, however, to the payment of a tribute of whales or train-oil, while the two Dutch ships were despoiled of their catches and fishing-gear and were sent home empty. On their arrival at Amsterdam the ill-treatment to which they had been subjected was naturally resented, and representations to King James were made through the ordinary channels, but without success. The Dutch founded their case partly on the general principle “that according to the practice of all times and peoples, navigation, fishery, and the use of the shore were free and common to all,” and partly on the claim of prior discovery. Spitzbergen, they said, was discovered by Jakob van Heemskerk, a Dutchman, in 1596; they had therefore at least as good a right as the English or any other nation to the fisheries there. On the other hand, the powerful Muscovy Company argued that Spitzbergen was discovered by Willoughby in 1553, and accordingly belonged to England; and the king adopted this view, notwithstanding the elaborate case drawn up by the famous cosmographer, Plancius, on the other side, which was submitted to him.[346] The seas around Spitzbergen were held to pertain to the British seas, and to be under the maritime dominion of the King of England,--a claim which Selden attempted to vindicate later.

Having failed by diplomacy to obtain recognition of what they believed to be their plain rights, the States resolved to oppose force by force. Early in 1614 a new Dutch company was formed, and exclusive privileges were conferred on it “to navigate, trade, and fish, from the Netherlands on or to the coasts of the lands between Nova Zembla and Davis’ Straits,” including therefore Greenland and Spitzbergen.[347] A tax of “last-money” was established, and in the same year eighteen Dutch whalers, armed, and convoyed by three States’ men-of-war, left Holland for the Arctic seas, prepared to maintain their right to freedom of fishery by fighting for it if necessary. The English whalers did not venture to attack so powerful a squadron, and as the Hollanders came in 1615 and 1616 in even greater force, they were for these three years enabled to carry on their whale-fishing without molestation. In 1617, however, their convoyers having been reduced in numbers, they were again assailed by the English; one of the Dutch vessels was despoiled, and their “cookeries,” or the buildings on shore in which the oil was made, were destroyed. Then in 1618 the Dutch reappeared, and in strength sufficient not only to maintain the right they claimed, but to make reprisals. They attacked, despoiled, and drove off thirteen English ships, most of which returned to England empty, and the Muscovy Company were loud in their complaints to the king. They put their loss at £66,436, 15s., besides the spoiling of the ships and the killing of the men.[348]

At this time, as we have seen, James was pressing more than ever for the recognition of his claims to the herring fishery in the British seas, and it may be easily imagined how he was moved by the news of this fresh “outrage” at Spitzbergen. At a meeting of the States-General in October, the British ambassador used strong language in animadverting on these “violencies, robberies, and murders” committed by the Dutch on the king’s subjects in the Arctic seas, on the injuries inflicted on the English in the East Indies, and on other matters in dispute; and he demanded that the embassy so repeatedly promised by the States should be sent to England without any further delay. The embassy in question had been originally proposed by the Dutch with the view of arranging the differences as to the trade in cloth and the herring fishery. Their diplomacy through the ordinary channels had, however, been so successful in preserving their freedom of fishing, notwithstanding the harassing efforts of the king, whom they invariably foiled, that they preferred to procrastinate, and the proposed embassy had from time to time been put off. But now the minatory demands of Sir Dudley Carleton were reinforced by the insistence of the Dutch East India Company, for it had been proposed in England to arrest the vessels of that company in the Channel in reprisal for the wrongs done to the English in the East Indies, and one of their ships had just narrowly escaped capture.[349]

The Dutch ambassadors arrived in England on 27th November;[350] but notwithstanding the earnest exhortations of Carleton, their instructions were confined to the “Greenland” (Spitzbergen) and East Indian questions, and did not contain what the king most desired--full powers to treat on the herring fishery.

James had been looking forward to this embassy as providing an opportunity for the final settlement of the fishery dispute. Sir Dudley Carleton had informed the States-General that the king wished to go into the matter of the treaties on which their claim to liberty of fishing was in great measure based, adding jesuitically that it was probably with the view of confirming them. The king in reality felt that owing to the dissensions in the Low Countries and the general political state of Europe, the time was specially opportune for negotiating a treaty in his favour.[351] He had accordingly made considerable preparations to meet their arguments both with reference to the treaties and the Law of Nations. Early in November he wrote to the Council at Edinburgh, saying that the wrongs suffered by his Scottish subjects from the fishing of the Hollanders in the seas of Scotland had caused him to bring the matter before the States, and to acquaint them of his “resolution to have them duly repaired.” The States had signified their desire to have their rights and the actions of their subjects “orderly tried and determined,” and they were therefore about to send over commissioners “sufficiently authorised” for that purpose. As commissioners to meet them, he had chosen the Duke of Lennox, the Marquis of Hamilton, Lord Binning (Secretary), and Sir George Hay (Clerk of Register), and he asked the Council to expedite the issue of their commission under the great seal. He also desired them to send him, in writing, the most perfect information they could procure as to his right to exclude the States from their pretended right or alleged possession of the herring-fishing, with full particulars of the wrongs committed by the Dutch on the Scottish people, either by scattering the shoals of herrings or by “usurpation of farder libertie to themselves nor hes bene formerlie granted or tolerated be us or our prediceesoris to them.”[352]

The commissioners named were accordingly authorised to treat with the Dutch commissioners “anent the trial and verification of the rights, immunities, and privileges alleged to have been granted by his Majesty or any of his most noble progenitors, Kings of Scotland, to the said States-General of the United Provinces, or any others from whom they deduce and derive their claim to fish in the seas of the said kingdom of Scotland, or any part or place thereof.” They were further instructed to treat as to the redress required for the injuries committed by the Dutch fishermen, and for preventing in future any unlawful proceeding by the States, “either by fishing in his Majesty’s Scottish seas” or by doing wrong to the inhabitants. They were, moreover, “to concur” with the English commissioners to be appointed as to the “friendly behaviour” of British subjects and the subjects of the United Provinces in all other seas, fishings, voyages, and other foreign intercourse, necessary for the continuance of peace and amity.[353] The business of the herring fishery was thus placed in charge of the Scottish commissioners, while the English had specially to deal with the other subjects in dispute--the East Indian trade, the whale fishery, the coinage, and the trade in cloth. Towards the end of November Lord Binning informed the king that the Council had sent off the commission, together with a statement of the injury sustained by the whole kingdom by the daily increase of the Dutch usurpation in his seas.[354]

With regard to the other matter about which James had desired “the most perfect information,”--his right to exclude foreigners from fishing on his coasts,--the Council had the greatest difficulty in discovering anything whatever pertaining to it. It was the most important part of the question to come before the commissioners, because the States had already issued a strongly-worded edict forbidding their people from committing any wrongs upon the Scottish people (p. 179), and the king could scarcely make out a just case for prohibiting the Hollanders from fishing on this ground alone. He desired to show, what he no doubt fully believed, that his claims were supported by historical precedents and the laws of Scotland, and that none of the treaties on which the Dutch always relied in such negotiations were contrary to his claims. In his letter to the Council he therefore repeated the request that the public records should be searched, and desired that Lords Lauderdale and Balmerino, the Laird of Lundy, and others into whose hands such documents might have come, “from their ancestors, Chancellors, secretaries, clerks of register, ambassadors, or councillors of state,” should try to find any which bore upon the matter, and to have them forwarded to him without delay. The terms of the king’s letter show plainly enough the confusion and imperfection of the Scottish state records at that time; and the Lords of the Council sought high and low to discover copies of the treaties or any other official papers relating to the subject, but for a long time without any success. Copies of some of the treaties were afterwards found, but nothing to establish the king’s right to exclude the Hollanders from the fishery. In these circumstances the Council advised the commissioners “to proceed warily,” and to make the Dutch ambassadors produce what they had to show for their claim to the fishing, and then to answer that.[355]

But as things turned out, it was of no immediate importance whether or not the Scottish commissioners were armed with documentary proofs of the king’s claims to the fishery. The Dutch ambassadors, as has been said, came without any powers to treat on that subject. In their private instructions, indeed, they were enjoined to avoid carefully any discussion about the herring fishery. If it was forced upon them, they were to point out that the States had already issued a proclamation to prevent wrongs being done to Scottish fishermen, which would be strictly enforced. If this was not sufficient, they were to fall back on general arguments as to the natural freedom of the sea, their immemorial possession of the fishery and its paramount importance to their country, and to plead for delay on account of the confusion and difficulties of their home affairs.

On their arrival in London they were met by two high Scottish personages, who had been awaiting their coming for some weeks. They took this for a bad sign, concluding from it that the king was resolved to raise the fishery question. They had several interviews with the Council and the king. On finding that their instructions limited them to the discussion of the two points on which there was least anxiety in England, the East India business and the whale-fishing, the Council received them coldly, Bacon indeed rating them soundly for coming without adequate powers. James himself was very angry, and made no effort to conceal his disappointment. He expressed astonishment that after all the complaints that had been made, and after all the negotiations that had gone on through the ambassadors at London and The Hague, they had ventured to come unprepared to deal with the principal matter in dispute. “The fishing,” he told them, “on the coasts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, as a regality and point of sovereignty, was possessed by him alone, to the exclusion of all others.” Spain, he said, had asked leave to negotiate about freedom of fishing, while France enjoyed the privilege only under great limitations, a few small vessels being allowed to fish for the use of the Court and the king’s family.[356] How little becoming was it therefore, continued James with heat, that a Republic which had only been recognised for a few years should be the first to contest his sovereign rights! It was useless for them to plead unprofitable years and immemorial possession. He was king of the greatest islands in the world, and he knew very well the rights he had on the coasts of his three kingdoms.[357] He further informed them that he was bound by oath at his coronation to maintain the rights, liberties, and privileges of his crown, and that he would rather lose all that he had than give up his right to the fishings.[358] Declarations equally strong were expressed in despatches to the British ambassador at The Hague. The king, it was said, would not be taught the laws of nations “by them nor their Grotius.”[2] It would be to their advantage to ask the king’s leave for the fishing and to acknowledge his right as other princes had done, or it might well come to pass “that they that will needs bear all the world before them with their Mare Liberum, may soon come to have neither Terram et solum nor Rempublicam Liberam,”--phrases which lead one to think that James penned the missive himself.[359] The Council intimated to the ambassadors that the king declined to discuss only the two points mentioned in their instructions, and that they must get powers from the States-General to deal with the question of the herring fishery.

Language of this kind from the king and Council disturbed and perplexed the envoys. They were anxious that the friendly relations between the two countries should be strengthened, and yet it appeared not unlikely that they would have to return home without having been heard on any of the matters in dispute. They began to think that after all it would be better if the fishery question were taken up and settled, and they advised the States-General in that sense. The British ambassador at The Hague was using pressure with the same object. But the Prince of Orange told him that in his opinion the States of Holland would refuse to give authority for the fishery question to be opened, “for fear of the people,” because the livelihood of 50,000 of the inhabitants of that province depended on the herring-fishing, and they feared that the same thing would happen with the tribute the king claimed as had happened with the dues at the Sound, which had been gradually raised until they had become an intolerable burden. He threw out the suggestion at the same time that perhaps the freedom of fishing might be purchased by a lump sum. A little later Carleton proposed to the States-General that the three subjects omitted from the ambassadors’ instructions should also be brought into the negotiations--viz., the trade in cloth, the coinage, and especially the herring fishery. In a minatory speech he declared that the king, who had “a legitimate title and the exclusive sovereign right and propriety to the fishery on the coasts of his three kingdoms,” would not any longer permit the subjects of the United Provinces to encroach on his rights, which were recognised by all other princes and states. The condition of affairs, he said, had been brought to extremities by the extravagant discourses of one of their politicians and the violent conduct of the commanders of their ships.[360] Sweeping aside the treaties and the claim to immemorial possession, and using much the same language as the king had done as to the hardihood of a young republic flouting the sovereign rights of princes, he ended a long harangue by declaring that if there was any further delay in dealing with the fishery question, England would take measures to provide for her rights by force of arms, “for such,” he said, “was the demand of the people, the advice of the Council, and the resolution of the king.”

But all those strong speeches and brave words came to nothing. The leaders in the States knew the character and difficulties of James, and felt that the warlike threats of a monarch whose greatest desire was that he should be known as Rex pacificus[361] were not likely to be carried to the extremity of the sword. A little more delay brought about a change in the English attitude. In the Privy Council there were signs of wavering and evident hesitation to recommend extreme measures against an allied and Protestant state. In the political condition of Europe--troubles in Bohemia, the King of Spain threatening the overthrow of Venice, &c.--it was urged that harsh measures might drive the Dutch to have recourse to France, which supported Barnevelt, the king’s enemy. Above all, it was feared that the Protestants throughout the world would be unable to understand how the king could attack the Dutch at that critical time over so small a matter. On the whole, “for the sake of the peace of Christendom,” it might be better to “continue” the question to another time, and thus avoid an immediate rupture. The faltering in the Council coincided with a humbler tone on the part of the Dutch ambassadors. They strove to convince James that it was by no means the desire of the States to refuse to treat of the fishery, or absolutely to deny his right to regulate it on his own coasts. All they asked was that the matter might be delayed a little owing to the religious troubles which were raging in the Netherlands, and because as all the provinces were concerned and the records and treaties would have to be searched, it would take some time before they would be in a position to deal with it in an equitable way. The States-General used language equally conciliatory to Sir Dudley Carleton, and promised to send other ambassadors later, fully empowered to treat of the herring fishery and the trade in cloth. James was appeased and agreed to the delay, but he told the ambassadors that unless the States gave an undertaking in writing to send commissioners sufficiently authorised to settle the matter before a year had expired, he would take it as “a plain and perpetual declining of the treaty.”[362]

Thus James was again baffled in his endeavour to force the United Provinces to acknowledge his rights in the fishery. But scarcely had the arrangement been completed when he brought forward another proposal. Pending the conclusion of the final treaty, he wished the States to issue a provisional edict forbidding their fishermen from approaching within fourteen miles of the British coasts, to which they had been coming closer and closer in recent years, a proceeding which was the principal cause of the complaints from Scotland.[363] The distance mentioned was that embodied in the Draft Treaty of Union in 1604, and was supposed to be equivalent to a “land-kenning.”[364] Carleton, however, thought the States would not immediately agree to this,--their cumbersome system of government would alone cause great delay,--and he counselled the king “to begin with the fishers themselves,” by publishing a proclamation fixing the distance at which they would be permitted to fish.[365] But the States were disposed to go so far to meet the wishes of the king. They objected, indeed, that fourteen miles was a greater distance than that at which a person could see the coast from the sea, and thus exceeded a “land-kenning” or the range of vision, but they promised to issue orders to their fishermen to keep so far from the land as to be out of sight of people on the shore, and to strongly prohibit them from going nearer.[366]

The business of the herring fishery having thus been shelved, the negotiators took up the other matters in dispute. The East Indian question was settled by a treaty,[367] but the differences as to the whale fishery were not so easily adjusted. The English case was founded on the contention that Spitzbergen belonged to King James, on their prior fishing in those seas, and on the depredations committed by the Dutch in 1618 on English vessels. The Dutch claimed a right to the fishery from their discovery of the island, and they proposed three alternatives: (1) that both nations should fish at Spitzbergen with an equal number of ships, the bays to be divided by drawing lots;[368] (2) that fishing should be carried on by both parties everywhere with an equal number of ships of equal size, disputes to be settled by regulations; (3) that the island should be divided by an imaginary line into two equal parts, the Dutch to have one part and the English the other. The English declined all these proposals, and James informed the ambassadors that even if the island had been discovered by their nation the English had the right to the fishery because they were the first to practise it,--an argument which, it may be remarked, if applied to the herring fishery, would have been unfortunate for the king’s claim to it. But while maintaining his abstract right to the sea at Spitzbergen, James gave way on the immediately practical point, consenting that the Dutch should continue their fishery at the island for three years longer.[369]

We have mentioned that late in 1618 James caused the Scottish Council to send a vessel (the Restore) to the Shetlands to demand the assize-herrings from the Dutchmen, and that it arrived on the scene too late. Next year he resolved to be in time, and while the Dutch ambassadors were still in London he wrote to the Council saying it was necessary “for divers imperative reasons” that the duties should still be craved, and requesting them to send a ship that summer with some discreet person on board, “who in fair terms may require our duties of the said Hollanders and report their answer”; and the Council were desired to take special care that the business should not fail through negligence.[370] At a meeting of the Council at Holyrood House on 29th June, arrangements were made to carry out the king’s wishes. Mr John Fenton was appointed “his Majesty’s commissioner” for “craving his Majesty’s rent of assize and teind from the Hollanders and other strangers fishing in his Majesty’s seas,” and a Mr James Brown was instructed to accompany him as notary.[371] Fenton’s commission, under the great seal, commanded him to repair to the north seas, and there “in his Majesty’s name to ask, crave, receive, intromit with, and uplift from those of Holland, Zealand, Hamburg, Embden, and Rostock, and from all other strangers following the trade of fishing in his Majesty’s said seas this present year, his Majesty’s rent of assize and teind of the whole fishes taken, or to be taken by them in his Majesty’s said seas and waters this present year.” The tribute levied by John Brown, in 1616, on behalf of the Duke of Lennox, amounted to only one angel (about ten shillings) or a barrel of herrings from each buss, or twelve cod from a line-boat. But that claimed by the king was now considerably greater. The “assize” was to be computed at ten thousand herrings (which would be fully ten barrels) for every buss that fished for herrings, and a last of white fish for every buss that fished for white fish, that is to say, cod and ling; or, if the fishermen preferred to pay in money, they were to pay at the rate of £6, 13s. 4d. Scots for every thousand of the assize-herrings, and at the rate of £50 Scots for every last of the assize white fish; and the same equivalents were to be asked for each thousand “teind herrings,” and for each last of “teind white fish,”--a new duty now first mentioned, “teinds” being the Scottish term for ecclesiastical tithes. The value of the assize-herrings to be levied from each buss was thus about £5, 11s. 1d. sterling, and the value of the assize white fish from each dogger about £4, 3s. 4d. On the basis of two thousand Dutch herring vessels the total duty would amount to the respectable sum of about £11,000, while the dogger-boats would yield some £1500 additional. On receiving payment Fenton was to give an “aquittance and discharge,” which would be as valid and sufficient as if given by his Majesty’s comptrollers or ordinary receivers of his Majesty’s rents.[372]

In the particular instructions given to Fenton,[373] and which, there are reasons for thinking, were essentially the same as those previously given to Brown, he was enjoined to proceed to the north seas in H.M.S. Charles, under the command of Captain David Murray, and in the first place to inquire the names of the admirals and vice-admirals of the Dutch fleet, the names of their ships, to what towns and provinces they belonged, and also the number of the convoys and busses sent out to the fishing by every town, province, and state. This having been done, he was “in fair and gentle terms and with modesty and discretion” to demand from the admirals or vice-admirals, and from two or three of the convoyers and busses of each state, “his Majesty’s rent of assize and teind” as specified. He was not to dispute with them as to the amount of the duty. If they offered a smaller amount, “although it were only an angel for every buss,” he was to accept it, but not less; so also if he were offered fish instead of money. It was left to his discretion to make a differential duty according to the size of the busses, if that point was raised, and also to compound with the admiral for the whole of the busses of a town, state, or province. If payment of the duties were refused, Fenton was merely “to take instruments upon the said refusal without further contestation,” and to report the result. He was also to inform the Dutch of the oppressions made by those landing from the fleet at Shetland, and to demand redress and a promise that such conduct would not be repeated.[374]

A short time before this the Council, for the sake of economy, had ordered the Charles to be disfurnished, but now, in view of her important mission, they judged it to be “no ways meet or expedient” that she should be made altogether empty of her furniture and munitions of war, so that she might be able to resist any sudden or secret onslaught by the Hollanders or others. They therefore instructed that there should be left on board “twa of the smallest pecceis of hir ordinance and ten muscattis, with some few bullets ansuerable thairto, and a litill quantitie of poulder, yf ony be within the schip.”[375] Orders were given for the manning of the vessel, which was to be ready to sail before 1st July. It was with this scrimp and penurious armament, and in this attorney-like manner, that James prepared to obtain an acknowledgment from the Dutch of his rights in his seas, whereas Charles I., as we shall see, employed his great ship-money fleet for the same purpose. But apparently the king would be almost as satisfied with a refusal as with the payment of the tribute, either of which he would be able to make use of in the negotiations for the “final treaty” on which he had set his heart. It is therefore unfortunate that we can discover no further information as to the expedition of Fenton. That the Charles left on its mission we know,[376] but the records are silent as to the result. It may perhaps be inferred from this circumstance alone that the Charles was no more successful than the Restore in the year before.

Early in 1620 the States, which had taken no steps to redeem their promise to send another embassy to deal with the question of the herring fishery, were reminded of it, and Carleton urged this course as a point both of policy and honour. But they were as reluctant as ever to handle the matter. The increased duty which Fenton was commanded to ask--of which very probably they had heard--was not likely to make them more willing, and they continued to procrastinate, alleging the unsettled state of their affairs at home and the troubles in Bohemia and Germany as reasons for further delay. Some prominent men in Holland indeed began now to assume a firmer tone. Hints were thrown out to the British ambassador that there was really little difference between forcing on the matter and declaring war, since freedom of fishing was of fundamental importance to the people of the United Provinces. The Prince of Orange gave it as his opinion that the seaport towns of Holland would never be brought to consent to “any innovation” in the herring fishery, even if it were urged at the cannon’s mouth. Still more significant was the action of the States in now voting large additional sums for the equipment of a greater number of men-of-war to guard the herring-busses from molestation.[377]

To all appearance, therefore, the Dutch had now stiffened their backs and were prepared to fight for their liberty to fish on the British coasts, as they had done at Spitzbergen, instead of sending commissioners to London to haggle over it. But their uncompromising attitude was soon modified owing to certain political events, which taught them the need of caution in flouting the wishes of the King of England. In the autumn of 1619, Frederick, the Elector Palatine, who had married Elizabeth, the daughter of James, was offered and accepted the crown of Bohemia under circumstances pregnant with troubles. In consequence of this, Spain, in alliance with the Emperor, attacked and took possession of the Palatinate. The strengthening of the Spanish power in Germany was by itself inimical to the United Provinces, and the sense of danger was intensified when it was found that the occupation of the Lower Palatinate was part of a plan for marching the Catholic troops overland from Lombardy to the Spanish Netherlands. In view of an impending conflict with their hereditary enemies, it became a matter of grave anxiety to the States to retain the goodwill of England. Accordingly, after many discussions, the States-General at the end of 1620 appointed another embassy to go to London; but it was rather with the view of meeting the political dangers with which they were threatened than of dealing effectually with the subjects in dispute. The ambassadors’ official instructions, which were most carefully considered, referred in general terms to the affairs of Germany and the approaching expiry of the truce with Spain, and more particularly to the cloth trade, the coinage, and the East Indies. On the all-important subject of the herring fishery they were mute. In their private instructions the envoys were enjoined to avoid all discussion about it; if pressed, they were to assure the king that the States would be glad to consider it “later”; and in any discussion that did arise, they were to bear in mind that they always had been in undisturbed possession of it, and that the profit they derived from it had been greatly exaggerated and was far less than the king supposed--so little indeed that they would be quite unable to carry it on if any “innovation” were made.[378]

The embassy of six persons arrived in London towards the end of January 1621. At their first audience with the king they spoke only of the affairs in Germany and the seizure of the Palatinate, desiring it to be understood that this was the principal matter to be considered; and when they met the Council they raised the question of a warlike alliance between the two countries against Spain. But the herring fishery had not been forgotten by the English, and when the subject was mooted the Dutch begged that it might be allowed to rest for a time, pleading in particular that the expiry of the truce with Spain would leave them face to face with a powerful foe. The Council reminded them of the promise given, and James bluntly expressed the hope that they had come on this occasion fully empowered to treat of the business of the fishery, which had been suspended at the conferences two years before. While disclaiming any wish to diminish their legitimate profits from the fishery, he warned them that the question touched his honour and sovereignty so closely that it could not be always left undecided and in dispute; and that he would only agree to further delay when he was informed at what time it would suit the States to conclude an agreement both about the fishing on the coasts of Great Britain and at “Greenland.”[379] After many conferences and much negotiation it was arranged that another embassy should be sent by the States before the lapse of a year, and the Dutch commissioners quitted London on 16th April.

In accordance with this understanding, still another embassy came to London, in November 1621. On this occasion the ambassadors were provided with full powers to settle the East Indian disputes, and with less ample authority to deal with the Spitzbergen fishery question. But, astonishing as it appears, they were again sent without any power to negotiate any treaty about the herring fishery. That the States, after so many delays and evasions, in the face of so many protests from the king, should again break their promise, shows both the great importance they attached to the matter and their belief that James would not force on a quarrel about it. In their secret instructions the old injunctions were repeated. They were to beg that as a year had not yet elapsed a little further delay might be granted; laying stress on the danger to the Protestant cause, in view of the relations with Spain, if anything were done to lessen the sea-power of the Netherlands, which depended so much on their fisheries. At this time the East Indian question had become important and pressing in England, and the early conferences were confined to it. But later the king broached the subject of the herring-fishing; and after listening to the ambassadors for a while, he peevishly asked them to make an end of their long harangue, called them leeches and blood-suckers, who sucked the blood from his subjects and tried to ruin him,[380] and then treated them to the same sort of disquisition as on former occasions. To the king’s railing and reproaches the ambassadors made such answer as they could, and the upshot was that they were allowed to go on with the conferences on the East Indian question. This embassy, at the head of which was François Van Aerssen, Lord of Sommelsdijck, remained in England until the spring of 1623, engaged in negotiations, often interrupted, on political affairs, and on the East Indian and Greenland fishery questions. James did not harass them further about the herring fishery. At the farewell audience he spoke of it in a good-natured way. He must, he said, resume his old song, veterem cantilenam, but not at that time. But whenever the condition of the Netherlands was favourable, he would, he said, be glad to resume the negotiations.[381]

During their long stay in England the ambassadors had an opportunity of learning what was thought about the fishery question. On their return to the Netherlands they earnestly counselled the States-General to come to some agreement with England both on the herring fishery on the British coasts and the whale-fishing at Spitzbergen. These matters, they said, were close to the king’s heart, and many people whom they had met had shown much irritation in speaking of them, and had even advised forcible measures against the Dutch. By this time the Republic was again at war with Spain, while Prince Charles and Buckingham had gone to Madrid to woo the Infanta: it would be prudent to do all that could reasonably be done to cultivate good relations with England. The States therefore wrote to Sir Noel Caron telling him they had resolved to take the fishery matter into serious consideration, and their efforts were directed to the removal of all cause of complaint in Scotland. Two edicts had already been issued--one, in 1618, prohibiting any wrong from being committed on Scottish subjects; the other, in 1620, ordering their fishermen to refrain from taking herrings within the rocks and reefs of Shetland, Ireland, and Norway, on the ground that such herrings were inferior in quality and unfit for curing.[382] The technical reason given in the latter for keeping away from the coast had some foundation, but the real motive was probably to redeem the pledge which the States had given in the year before (see p. 193). What the States now did was to renew the edict of 1618, and, after a conference between the ambassadors who had returned from England and the College or Board of Fisheries, to issue orders that the herring-busses were not to go too near the coast of Scotland, which had, indeed, been agreed upon some years earlier, so as to avoid causing inconvenience to the native fishermen.[383]

There is evidence that the warning which the ambassadors gave to the States-General as to the feeling in England was well founded, and there occurred at this time, both in England and Scotland, a revival of proposals aimed against the Hollanders. The Scottish burghs complained of the “heavie hurt” they sustained owing to the English and the “Fleymings,” who had lately taken up the “trade of fishing” in the North and West Isles, by which was probably meant the curing of herrings and other fish. The Council accordingly ordained that the Islesmen should “suffer no strangers to come within their bounds to the fishing,” and that none of the country people should sell fish to them; and they issued a proclamation forbidding “all and sundry strangers” to “slay or take any fish within the Isles, lochs and bays of the kingdom, and that they buy no fish but salted and barrelled, and at free burghs.”[384]

In England fresh attempts were made to establish a great national herring fishery which might rival that of the Dutch. Within a month of the departure of the ambassadors, Lord George Carew, Master of the Ordnance, was busy with a project. Along with Lord Hervey and Sir William Monson--who was perhaps the prime mover in the matter--he had several conferences with “skilful fishermen,” and then he sent for the city merchants to consider how the scheme might be floated. To them he proposed that six busses and four doggers should be bought or built at a cost not exceeding £10,000, explaining, after the usual manner, how the return from the first year’s fishing would repay the whole of that sum and encourage “all men” to adventure. The city merchants, one of whom was Sir William Cockaine, were loud in their praises of the scheme,--“it was the best work for the public and the most profitable that the wit of man could imagine,”--but as for the money required, they were afraid that it could not be raised. Then the promoters asked the Lord Mayor to propound the plan to the Court of Aldermen. But the Lord Mayor curtly replied that the Aldermen were engaged in other adventures, and were “utterly unwilling” to enter into the project of building busses, while the Merchant Companies were too much in debt to undertake it. On a second appeal being made to him, he said the Court of Aldermen “absolutely declined” to entertain either the general project for fishing-busses or the lesser scheme of building six busses and four doggers. They would have nothing to do with it;[385] and this scheme was therefore nipped in the bud.

Fresh proposals were now brought forward by others, based on Government support, and a plan was propounded similar to the old one of Hitchcock and Dee in the reign of Elizabeth, but to be carried out under an Act of Parliament. Each city, county, and seaport town was to be encouraged to equip fishing-busses at their common charge and for their common benefit, with power to employ their idle inhabitants in manning them. For the security of the fishing fleet the king was to provide twenty ships of war, five of which were to belong to the royal navy, and they were to continue at sea from the beginning of April till the end of September. To meet the cost of this guard the king was to receive the tenth fish taken both by English and foreign fishermen, the promoters thinking that the latter would be quite willing to be taxed when the tax was demanded by an “Act of the King and Kingdom,” and when they knew they would be protected by a squadron of men-of-war.[386] It was a pretty scheme, well-intentioned, but innocent of information as to the actual state of affairs.

Scarcely anything more was heard about the herring fishery or the taxation of Dutch fishermen during the brief remainder of James’s reign. Another embassy came from the Netherlands in 1624, but it was to conclude a defensive alliance against Spain, and in the shadow of this new alliance the Dutch fishermen quietly reaped the harvest of the sea without fear of English interference. James’s policy of the assize-herring had thus completely failed. All his efforts to induce or to force the Netherlands’ fishermen to acknowledge his right were baffled by the superior diplomacy of the States,--their “artificial delays, pretences, shifts, dilatory addresses, and evasive answers.” The only immediately practical result of the king’s policy was that the herring-busses kept for a time farther from the coast of Scotland. But a new weapon had been forged for the contest with the United Provinces for supremacy at sea, and one which was to be used by his successors with much more skill, if with little greater ultimate success.

Of one symbol of this sovereignty of the sea comparatively little was heard during James’s reign--namely, the salute or homage to his flag. This traditional custom of the narrow seas, while maintained on important occasions, was not enforced with the vigour and arrogance which characterised it later, perhaps less rigorously than under the Great Queen. “I myself remember,” said Raleigh a few years before his execution, “when one ship of her Majesty’s would have made forty Hollanders strike sail and come to anchor. They did not then dispute de mari libero, but readily acknowledged the English to be domini mavis Britannici.”[387] Sir William Monson, too, who was Admiral of the Narrow Seas in the earlier part of James’s reign, tells us that the Hollanders were very “stubborn” about striking their top-sails and performing the duty due to the king’s prerogative, and that he earned their lasting ill-will by compelling them to do it.[388]

But the English commanders were punctilious in enforcing the salute in the narrow seas on state occasions. A notable instance occurred in 1603, when King Henry IV. of France sent over the famous Sieur de Rosny, afterwards Duke of Sully, to congratulate James on his accession to the throne of England. With a numerous retinue he went on board an English man-of-war at Calais, which then made sail for Dover accompanied by a French warship under the command of M. de Vic, the Vice-Admiral of France. The English captain observed with displeasure that the French vessel bore the arms of France at his top, “contrary to the custom of the narrow seas”; but on account of the important personage on board and the nature of his mission, he restrained himself from challenging the “indignity” until they approached Dover Road. Unable to brook the affront any longer, he fired at the French ship, and so “constrained her to strike her flag.” The shot did no harm, but M. de Vic at once turned round his vessel and went back to France in high dudgeon. Cecil thought it necessary to send a despatch to the English ambassador at Paris explaining the circumstances, and while saying that the English captain “rashly discharged” his gun, he thought that if the matter was “well looked into, and the former customs observed, there would be reason found for us to stand upon.”[389]

A somewhat similar incident happened two years later, when Sir William Monson was bringing over an ambassador of the Emperor from Calais to Dover. In Dover Road he found a number of States’ men-of-war, and their admiral, as Monson drew near, struck his flag thrice, but then “advanced” it again and kept it flying in the presence of the king’s ship. Monson believed the Dutch admiral had come in on purpose to put this “affront” on him, so that the ambassador, as well as the Spaniards then at Dover, might “spread it abroad throughout all Europe” that the Dutch, “by their wearing their flags, might be imputed kings of the sea as well as his Majesty,” and so lessen the esteem of the king’s prerogative in the narrow seas. Instead of firing upon the Dutch ship, he sent to invite the admiral to dinner, and to tell him that he must take in his flag. To this request the admiral demurred, saying that he had struck it thrice, and that no former admirals of the narrow seas had required more at his hands. Monson rejoined that “times were altered”; that when the mere striking of the flag as he had done was sufficient, England and Holland were both at war with Spain and it was tolerated; but now, since the war was ended so far as England was concerned, his Majesty required “such rights and duties as have formerly belonged to his progenitors.” On the Dutch admiral still refusing, Monson threatened to weigh anchor and come near him, and that the force of their ships should determine the question; “for,” said the English admiral, “rather than I would suffer his flag to be worn in view of so many nations as were to behold it, I resolved to bury myself in the sea.” The flag was then struck, and the Dutch ships stood out to sea. Monson tells us that he was congratulated by a Spanish general who had been watching the proceedings, who said that if the Hollanders had worn their flag times had been strangely altered in England, since his old master King Philip II. was shot at by the Lord Admiral of England for wearing his flag in the narrow seas when he came to marry Queen Mary.[390]

Sometimes, however, the zeal of the naval officers led them too far in their resolution to compel the salute. Thus in 1613, when the Count of Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, was returning to England accompanied by two galleons, an English man-of-war forced the Spanish ships to take in their flags off Stokes Bay. The ambassador complained to the Lord Admiral (the Earl of Nottingham), who decided that the captain had exceeded his authority, for the Spaniards were not bound to strike their flag unless to the admiral of the narrow seas, and the captain was neither admiral of the narrow seas nor employed under his commission. The rules or etiquette regarding this ceremony were indeed somewhat complicated, occasionally changed, and not always well understood, and as a good deal will be heard of the striking of the flag in the following chapters, it may be well to say something here about the practice. It appears that it was customary from a remote period for merchant vessels to lower their sails on meeting a ship of war in seas under the dominion of the state to which the latter belonged,[391] but the ceremony only attained to international notoriety in connection with the claims of England to the sovereignty of the narrow seas. The practice varied at different times. Generally speaking, by the custom of the narrow seas as interpreted in this country, any foreign man-of-war meeting with an English man-of-war in those seas had to take in her flag and strike her top-sails as soon as she came within sight or within range of the English guns, and she had to keep in the flag until she had passed out of range. A merchant vessel had to strike in the same way. Further, no vessel in the narrow seas was to pass to windward of an English ship of war, but must “come by the lee”; the inferior had to make way for the superior.[392] In an English port or road no foreign ship or English merchant vessel could wear her flag in the presence of a king’s ship. This custom was also sometimes enforced in foreign ports and roads, but usually only when out of range of forts on shore. If a foreign vessel, whether man-of-war or merchant ship, did not thus “do her duty” or “perform the homage of the sea,” the English ship of war might hail her or send a boat to command her to strike. Or they might at once, without any parley, fire a shot across her bows, and after an interval another, also across her bows or over her poop, and if this was ineffective, then a third between her masts or at her flag. If the foreigner still refused to strike, a broadside was usually poured in, and the vessel might be carried into port and the offender punished. In the reign of Charles II., Spaniards, Dunkirkers, Frenchmen, and other foreigners, were not infrequently brought before the courts and fined for refusing to strike. If a merchant vessel refused to strike until she was shot at, she was compelled to pay to the king’s ship twice the value of the gunpowder and shot expended.

In England the custom, no doubt, originated in the Channel, probably in the time of the early Angevin kings, when the opposite coasts were under the same rule; and it is most probable, as formerly said, that it arose in connection with the exercise of jurisdiction over pirates and for securing peaceful commerce. In early times the utmost lawlessness prevailed on the sea: it would be a common duty of the king’s ships to satisfy themselves as to the character of the vessels they encountered, and the lowering of the sails and the coming under the lee, for “visit and search,” might well be a relic of a duty enforced for that purpose. With regard to ships of war, the ceremony appears to have been first confined to the Channel, and was held to be peculiarly a privilege of the admiral of the narrow seas. Thus, when Captain Plumleigh was appointed admiral of a squadron for service in Ireland in 1632, he was ordered by the Admiralty if he met “in any part of the narrow seas with the Convertive, in which Captain Pennington commands as admiral of those seas,” to take in his flag, and to “continue it furled whilst in sight of that ship, it being an ancient honour and privilege belonging only to that admiral to carry the flag in the maintop in those seas.”[393] Monson also tells us, in referring to the decision of the Lord High Admiral in Gondomar’s case, above alluded to, that every ship of the king’s serving under an admiral could not demand the striking of the flag when out of sight of the admiral; but the foreign ship, “be he admiral or no, is to strike his top-sail and hoist it again, to any one ship of the king’s that shall meet him.” He further states that any foreign ship or fleet arriving in an English port, or passing by a fort or castle, had to take in their flag three times, and advance it again, unless the English admiral’s ship was in the same harbour, in which case they were to keep it in so long as the admiral was present; “but if any other ship of his Majesty’s be there but the admiral’s, they are not bound to keep in their flag, but only to strike it thrice as aforesaid.” Monson added that he wished, in these later times (the reign of Charles I.), “that his Majesty’s ships would take more authority upon them than is due,” in order to curb the insolence of the French and the Hollander--a wish which, as we shall see, must have been fully gratified. It was against the Dutch that the striking of the flag was most thoroughly enforced, and one cannot but admire the patience and restraint they exhibited under great provocation. The French and Swedes avoided giving the salute as much as they could. As the century wore on, the English exaction on this point grew more outrageous. Foreign ships of war were forced to strike on their own coast even to our royal yachts, and the Hollanders were asked to strike not merely in the British seas, but wherever they were encountered. To the old sea-dogs all seas were “British” where their fleets were strongest.