Chapter XI…

Chapter XI

THE PARLIAMENT, THE COMMONWEALTH, AND THE PROTECTORATE--continued.

THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS.

The importance of the questions connected with the claim to the sovereignty of the sea was revealed in the long negotiations with the Dutch which preceded the conclusion of peace. These were begun at a very early stage of the contest. From the first the war had been as distasteful to Cromwell as it was to John de Witt and the leading men in the States of Holland, and so soon as the beginning of August 1652, within three months of Tromp’s encounter with Blake, clandestine negotiations were set on foot, with the approval of Cromwell, Vane, Whitelock, and other leaders in England, with the object of bringing about peace; and though nothing came of them at the time, they were resumed early in 1653. The Speaker informed the Parliament on 22nd March that he had received a formal letter from the States of Holland desiring that the negotiations might be resumed, and on 1st April the Parliament replied favourably, offering to take up the negotiations at the point at which they had been broken off when the special ambassador, Pauw, quitted London in the previous year.[748] This implied payment to the Parliament of the expense incurred in consequence of the Dutch naval preparations and of Tromp’s fight with Blake, and “security” for a close alliance,--conditions unacceptable by the ruling oligarchy at The Hague.

In order to find some more satisfactory basis for the negotiations, the States-General in June 1653, immediately after the two days’ battle, and when the English fleet was blockading the Dutch ports, sent four deputies to London. One of them, Hieronymus van Beverning, a trusty friend of De Witt’s and a representative of the States of Holland, came on in advance, reaching London on June 17; the others, Nieuport, van de Perre, and Jongestal, following a few days later.[749] The deputies arrived at a time when Cromwell, having dissolved the Long Parliament and the old Council of State, was dictator, and the new Council was composed of his own nominees; and Cromwell, as is well known, had been against the war and was favourable to peace.[750] Nevertheless, a stiff attitude was adopted towards the envoys. To their request that negotiations might be resumed on the basis of the thirty-six articles the Council turned a deaf ear, putting forward the demands for reparation and security, and refusing to proceed with the negotiations until they had received a satisfactory answer.[751] Cromwell, however, sent a private message to Nieuport, on 30th June, that the Council would not insist on satisfaction and security. He suggested that Tromp should be suspended for a few months; that a binding treaty and alliance should be concluded; and that for security two or three Englishmen should sit in the States-General or Council of State in the Netherlands, and the same number of Dutchmen in the English Council. If these conditions were agreed to, little difficulty would be made about the thirty-six articles, the Dutch would be allowed to carry on their herring fishery in the British seas, and a truce probably granted.[752] But by the next day Cromwell, after discussion with the Council, had changed his mind, and the debate went on about reparation and security. The deputies were told that the Council did not ask for a great sum, but that the “security” meant “uniting both states together in such manner as they may become one people and Commonwealth, for the good of both,”[753]--a scheme apparently much the same as St John had taken with him to The Hague.

This extraordinary proposal for a union, closer even than that which existed among the seven United Provinces themselves, astonished the envoys of the many-headed Government. They pretended at first not to understand it, and went on talking of “alliance” and the Intercursus Magnus; but the Council pointedly declared that what they meant was not the mere “establishing of a league and union between two sovereign states and neighbours, but the making of two sovereign states one,” under a joint Government, all the subjects to possess equal privileges and freedom in either country “in respect of habitations, possessions, trade, ports, fishing, and all other advantages whatsoever.”[754] The deputies considered such a scheme “absurd,”--nothing of the kind had ever been heard of in history; it was opposed to the constitution of the United Provinces and was impossible; and they hinted that if the proposal was pressed they would have to return home. They thought it was far better to take as a basis for the negotiations the treaty of 1496, which was a perfect, true, and sincere alliance, league, and confederation by land and sea. To this the Council replied that they had desired a coalescence of the two countries as the best security for the future of both, and especially of the United Provinces; and that the deputies offered nothing more than they did at first, by which they demanded free trade to the English colonies and the suspension of the Navigation Act; “nay,” the Council continued, “they do in effect demand to share with this state in the sovereignty of the narrow seas, and in their right of fishing,” whereas these advantages could only be obtained by such a coalescence as had been proposed.[755]

The negotiations had now come to such a pass that the Dutch commissioners judged it to be necessary to report verbally to the States, and Nieuport and Jongestal left for home with this object on 3rd August. They did not return until the end of October; and while the official conferences with the Council were suspended in the interval, the two deputies who remained in London carried on important private negotiations with Cromwell, mostly through an intermediary. At first Cromwell descanted on the advantages to the United Provinces of the proposed coalescence, including the complete liberty they would have of fishing on the British coasts. Later he put forward the extraordinary schemes which remind one of the dreams of Napoleon--a confederation of the Protestant states of Europe for the propagation of the Gospel; the partition of the rest of the world, Asia to fall to the share of the Dutch and America to England; a war of conquest against Spain and Portugal, and then there would be complete freedom of commerce and of fishery in all seas, without molestation or disturbance.[756] A less extravagant alternative offered was an alliance of the Protestant states, without the partition of the globe or the war of conquest; but this smaller scheme was not to carry with it either freedom of commerce or liberty of fishing. And now, for the first time since the negotiations began, a formal stipulation was asked that all ships of war of the Dutch Republic, on meeting “on the sea” with the ships of war of the Commonwealth, should show them the same respect and do them the same honour as had been practised in any former time.[757]

The two deputies in London could do nothing with these proposals until the States-General had decided about the original project of coalition, with reference to which Nieuport and Jongestal had gone to The Hague. But they expressed their own opinion on the twelve articles which had been submitted to them; and with regard to the striking of the flag, they thought the word “respect” conveyed the impression of too great a sovereignty on one side and of submission on the other, but they agreed that another word might be chosen and a “good regulation” made. The objection was curious, because during the negotiations of 1673 the envoys of the States--and the same able Beverning was the chief of them--themselves proposed that the striking of the flag should be done “by way of respect”; and when that word, respect, was inserted in the treaty of 1674, it was said in England that the Dutch had scored a great diplomatic victory, since to show respect was not to acknowledge sovereignty.

When the two absent deputies returned to London they brought back with them the old instructions for a “close alliance and strict union,” nothing being said about the proposal to fuse the two nations into one. Their memorandum was submitted to the new Council of State, on which Cromwell had a working majority; the only coalition suggested was a “coalition of interests,” and a “brotherhood” of the peoples. Cromwell at once called it a mutilated coalition, and some of the Council are said to have expressed strong opinions as to the “contumelious” tactics of the Dutch. If they refused real coalition, it was our duty, they said, to make them and keep them our inferiors, so that they might never attempt this nation again; they must pay for liberty to fish on our coasts; render the usual submission at sea; give up their own wafters and pay us for convoys, since we were the proper guardians of the British sea; they must not equip many great ships, without explaining their intentions and asking leave to pass through our seas; and they must pay the costs of the war. Such were the opinions attributed to the Council by a well-informed author who wrote a little later,[758] and they indicate tolerably well the demands which were subsequently made. The Council then prepared draft articles for a treaty on the lines the Dutch desired, and Cromwell informed them that since they were averse to a coalition which would have made the privileges of both countries equal, it would be necessary first of all to define clearly their respective rights, so that disputes might be avoided in future. And in the first place, he said, they must settle their right and dominion in the narrow sea and the question of the fishery, remarking that if these points were adjusted the work in hand would be much facilitated.[759]

In putting the question of the sovereignty of the sea and the fishery in the foreground of the negotiations, Cromwell placed the envoys in a difficulty. In conformity with their traditional policy on like occasions, the States-General had expressly instructed their representatives to avoid discussion on these thorny subjects,--a circumstance no doubt well known to Cromwell. They therefore fenced with them. With regard to the “honour of the sea,” they had never desired to dispute with the Parliament of the Republic of England any honour or dignity which had been rendered to former Governments, and they declared their willingness to pay the same “honour and respect” to the English flag as had been previously shown to it. They thought it would be better to defer consideration of the fishery question until the articles of a “strict union” had been adjusted, when the whole business of commerce, fishery, and the immunities on both sides might be dealt with. But Cromwell was not to be turned from his purpose. On the following day, after a long and remarkable speech on the advantages of coalition--which the Dutch once more put aside,--he again declared that the matter of the sea and the fishery must be first of all settled; and he ended the discussion by handing to the deputies the draft articles which the Council had prepared.[760] The articles were twenty-seven in number. Some of them provided for a defensive alliance and arranged details of peace. Freedom of trade was to be allowed, provided the laws in force--the Navigation Act--were observed; the rebels of the one were not to be assisted by the other, and so forth. But the Dutch were to pay a sum to be agreed upon, by way of reparation, and there were several articles dealing with the sovereignty of the sea and the fisheries.

The article[761] on the fishery was framed on the model of the proclamations of James and Charles relating to unlicensed fishing. It was as follows: “The people and inhabitants of the said United Provinces, of what condition or quality soever they be, shall with their busses and other vessels fitted to that purpose, have liberty from time to time, for the term of one and twenty years, next coming, to sail and fish as well for herrings, as all other sort of fish, great and small, upon any of the coasts or seas of Great Britain and Ireland and the rest of the Isles adjacent, where and in such manner as they have been formerly permitted to fish. In consideration whereof, the States-General of the United Provinces shall during that term pay into the public treasury of this Commonwealth at the City of London the sum of ... at two equal payments upon every 24 day of June and 24 day of December; the first payment to begin on the 24 day of June next.” When it is remembered that the Dutch in the reign of James, and again in the reign of Charles, were prepared to go to war with England rather than surrender their liberty of fishing, the objectionable nature of this article is apparent. No glimpse is obtained throughout the negotiations of the sum that was to be asked for the liberty of fishing, possibly because it was never definitely fixed by the Council. It is, however, stated by Stubbe, who had special sources of information, that it was the intention of the Council to demand £100,000, as well as payment for constant wafters or convoys,[762]--a statement which is credible only on the supposition that it was desired utterly to ruin the Dutch herring fishery.

Some of the other articles were equally or even more objectionable. That concerning the striking of the flag,[763] though not feasible in its original form, was capable of adjustment. It provided “that the ships and vessels of the said United Provinces, as well men-of-war as others, be they single ships or in fleets, meeting at sea with any of the ships of war of the State of England, or in their service, and wearing their flag, shall strike their flag and lower their top-sail, until they be passed by, and shall likewise submit themselves to be visited, if thereto required, and perform all other respects due to the said Commonwealth of England, to whom the dominion and sovereignty of the British sea belong.” By this article the whole of the Dutch fleet would be bound to strike to a single ship in the English service anywhere on the sea, and, what was a far more serious matter, to submit to be visited and searched. A stipulation of that kind was unacceptable. Tromp’s fleet had been fitted out before the war expressly to prevent the visitation and search of merchant vessels; if no conflict had occurred with Blake about the flag, it would almost certainly have happened on this other point.[764] And now the States were asked to confirm in a formal treaty the right claimed by England; and above all to make it applicable to their ships of war. Another article with reference to the measures to be taken against pirates embodied the old doctrine attributed to the Plantagenets. The Commonwealth of England, it stated, had declared their resolution “to put upon these seas a convenient number of armed ships, for the defence and safeguard thereof, and to maintain and preserve all lawful navigation, trade, and commerce therein, against pirates and sea-rovers.”[765] Another article which raised the strongest objections provided that the Dutch fleet passing through the British seas should be limited to a certain number, to be agreed upon in the treaty, and that if the States had occasion for a larger number to pass than that agreed to, they should first give the Commonwealth three months’ notice and obtain their consent. The article also provided that Dutch merchant vessels should be allowed freely to navigate the British seas, as if the right of permitting or forbidding navigation there belonged to England.[766]

Such conditions could only have been imposed on a nation hopelessly vanquished. They were conditions, the ambassadors declared, which would not be demanded from rebels or slaves. On the English side there was a strong feeling that since coalition had been rejected, the “security” for the future ought to be rigorous and complete. It was still firmly believed by the mass of men, and doubtless by many in the Council, that Tromp had attacked Blake in overwhelming force in order to destroy the English fleet; and that too by the implicit or express orders of the States. There was doubtless also a desire to cripple Dutch commerce and power as far as was possible. Commercial jealousy had long been simmering, and now that the English thought they had the power they were resolved to use it to their own advantage.[767]

The Dutch deputies were astonished and indignant at the English demands, which, as they sarcastically noted in their journal, they could scarcely reconcile with the professions of friendship and the pious words of Cromwell. Had they communicated them to the States-General all thoughts of peace would have been at an end, for it had required the most adroit diplomacy of John de Witt to induce that body to allow the negotiations to be set agoing. They therefore sent home only an imperfect official account of them, pleading that Cromwell had tied them down to the utmost secrecy,[768] and then proceeded to consider the articles themselves. Those dealing with reparation, the Prince of Orange, the visitation of ships, and the fishery, they decided absolutely to reject as inadmissible, for reasons to be given later. The one which proposed to limit their naval power in the adjacent seas they resolved indignantly to refuse, and to break off the negotiations rather than to agree even to discuss it, believing that it was a matter in which all Christian princes in Europe were also interested, who would condemn the English Government for their extravagant claims to special maritime rights and to the fishery. Their conclusions were embodied in a paper which was submitted to the Council of State on 22nd November. In this they said that the visiting and searching of merchant vessels and ships of war was contrary to the practice of the United Provinces, was subject to innumerable disorders and disputes, and was injurious in point of sovereignty, since it was not reciprocal. As to the fishery, they declared that they had been in immemorial possession of complete liberty of fishing. They denounced the article concerning the limitation of the number of their ships of war, which they said they could hardly persuade themselves had been put forward seriously, since it struck at the root of their existence as an independent sovereign state, and they declined to discuss it.[769]

Cromwell throughout the whole negotiations, until he became Lord Protector, acted as spokesman for the Council at the conferences; and he now stated that the visitation of Dutch ships was an undoubted right of sovereignty possessed by the English Commonwealth. The limitation of their ships of war passing through the British seas was also a consequence of the same right of dominion; and the English had now more than ever reason to maintain it, both on account of their ancient prerogative and the recent injuries committed by the Dutch. The right to the fishery was of the same nature. No other nation in Europe had attempted to carry it on without the consent of England; the Dutch were the only people, he said, who sought a separate interest in it--a statement which was quite inaccurate. But the deputies took their stand on the obnoxious article which proposed to clip their naval power and interfere with their liberty of navigation, and threatened to return home unless it was withdrawn. After standing firm for a time Cromwell withdrew the article, asserting at the same time that England had jurisdiction on both sides of the sea, and that it was perilous to allow a fleet of sixty or eighty men-of-war to come into our rivers or ports without our knowledge or consent,--a reference, no doubt, to Tromp’s action before the war.

This concession facilitated the negotiations. Frequent conferences were held in the following week, Cromwell and his Council strongly asserting the right of the Commonwealth to the fisheries and the dominion of the sea. At this period there were four subjects chiefly in dispute--the arrangements relating to the striking of the flag, the visitation of ships of war, the preliminary part of the sixteenth article as to the guarding of the seas, and the fishery. On none of these was Cromwell inclined as yet to give way. The deputies repeated their offer as to the flag, and requested that a joint commission of old and experienced naval officers should be appointed to draw up regulations for the guidance of both sides in future. To this Cromwell replied that such a commission was unnecessary, their rights and the custom being well understood and clearly expressed in the article. There was, however, uncertainty as to the places where the right could be claimed, and the Dutch deputies said they wished to make it clear in what seas and on what coasts the flag ought to be struck, urging that it was better to be guided by a regulation than to compel it by force. But Cromwell was inflexible. To yield would be to admit that the claim was doubtful in point of right or mode, and it would stultify their whole action; he may also have thought it would open a door for some form of reciprocity. The article was therefore postponed, as was also the sixteenth article, the deputies insisting on the deletion of the introductory sentence as to a fleet to be put forth to guard the sea, which Cromwell refused to do.[770]

The keenest dispute at this time was about the herring fishery. There were two principles in the article, Cromwell said, which required attention: first, the recognition of England’s right to the fishery; secondly, compensation for allowing the use of it. Unable to avoid the discussion, the envoys pleaded their immemorial possession and their treaties, and said that their liberty of fishing had never been disputed; besides, they asked, was it a friendly thing to make a proposal of the kind when they were about to conclude a strict and close alliance between the two countries? Cromwell, who had obviously been well posted up in the arguments in Mare Clausum, then entered upon a lengthy disquisition on the subject. He said the English could prove by authentic documents that they had had possession of the fishery from all time, and that other nations sought their permission to fish; that the clause in the treaty of 1496 (the Intercursus Magnus) upon which the Dutch relied, was omitted in later treaties; and that the treaties had expired owing to the subsequent wars between Queen Elizabeth and Spain, and had never been since renewed; they were not the same people with whom the treaties had been made, since they were now alienated from the House of Burgundy. And they could not establish their right by prescription, for by the civil law it required a hundred years for a just prescription, and the States had not existed so long as an independent nation. Moreover, long before the treaty of 1496, licenses for fishing had been sought and granted. Even King Philip II. in Queen Mary’s time had asked permission to fish for twenty-one years, and had paid £1000 a-year for the privilege. King James, too, had issued a proclamation in 1610 (sic) forbidding unlicensed fishing, while King Charles had demanded and received through the Earl of Northumberland an acknowledgment from their herring-busses.

To this long argument the deputies replied with arguments as long. With respect to the treaties, they said that the treaty of 1496 was not between prince and prince, but between states and towns, as specified in it; and that the article which provided for mutual liberty of fishing had been confirmed in later treaties, notably in the treaty of Binche, in 1541, between the Emperor Charles and the King of Scotland; in that of 1550 with Queen Mary of Scotland; and in that between the United Provinces and King James of Scotland in 1594.[771] Moreover, in the treaty between England and Spain in 1630, there were certain words which confirmed the ancient treaties of intercourse and commerce.[772] They expressed the opinion that Cromwell had not been well informed in saying that licenses for fishing had been granted before the Intercursus Magnus was concluded, because it was doubtful if the invention of the salting and casking of herrings was much before that date.[773] As to the alleged lease of the fishings by King Philip, there was nothing to compel him to take such a lease, and they saw no reason why he should have done so; while the proclamation of James, so far from being an argument against them, was entirely in their favour, because, as they could prove from papers in their hands, it was never put into execution, but was suspended on the representations of the States. The action of the Earl of Northumberland they described as simple extortion, since he had compelled a few defenceless fishermen, without the knowledge of the States, to pay him some money. The deputies concluded their arguments by saying they had no further instructions on the matter, and that if the Council pressed the article, they would require to return and report to their Government: there was, they said, a high and mighty Lord in heaven who knew the hearts and rights of all, and He would judge. Cromwell assured them that the article had not been inserted in the draft treaty with the object of breaking off the negotiations, but only that they might maintain their just rights. Why, he asked, should the States object to acknowledge the right of the Commonwealth to the fisheries, when other Powers like France and Sweden, who had as much claim to liberty as they, had not scrupled to acknowledge it?[774]

As Cromwell was immovable, and the deputies equally obdurate, the negotiations came to a stop, and the latter on 5th December formally requested their passports to return to The Hague. In the interval they asked the French ambassador if France had requested permission from England to fish in the sea, as Cromwell averred. He told them nothing had been said to him on the matter since he came to England, but that his papers showed that the Duke of Guise had formerly asked that certain fishermen of Treport should not be molested in their fishing.[775] They also learned that the Swedish ambassador had sought to obtain from England free commerce in general, free fishery, and freedom of trading to the Barbadoes. It was indeed the case that Sweden had made such proposals. In the negotiations for a treaty with the Commonwealth, the queen expressed her desire to obtain liberty for her subjects to fish for herrings in the British seas,[776] and in the preceding August the Council of State, at the request of her ambassador, had actually issued a license to four Swedish vessels to fish in the narrow seas and upon the British coasts.[777] In a treaty concluded in 1656 between the King of Sweden and the Lord Protector, the privilege, it may be said, was carried much further. The treaty provided that Swedish subjects should be free to fish for herrings and other fish in the seas and on the coasts under the dominion of the Republic, provided the number of ships so employed did not exceed a thousand; and no charges (such as the assize-herring) were to be demanded of the Swedish fishermen, who were to be treated courteously and amicably, allowed to dry their nets on the shore, and to purchase necessaries at a fair price.[778]

It may be noted as remarkable that, throughout the long discussions with Cromwell about the fishery, the Dutch deputies never made use of the argument, so frequently employed by their predecessors at the Court of James, that the English claims were opposed to the law of nations. They probably shrank from using an argument of that kind to the great dictator who had ruthlessly trampled on the laws of England; perhaps they were deterred by the abrupt intimation made earlier, that the Council had not come to listen to scholastic subtleties, but to consider the real legal rights of England. The obstinacy of Cromwell in refusing at this stage to modify the fishery article is also noteworthy. No doubt he was moved by a sincere desire to benefit England. The belief was still prevalent that the herring fishery which the Dutch carried on along the British coasts was the foundation of their commerce, wealth, and naval power. It, moreover, provided them with a great “seminary of seamen” to recruit their fleets--a consideration which must have had a special force at a time when we had only the ships in the coal trade between Newcastle and London to draw upon for ours, and when the most rigorous system of pressing failed to provide sufficient men for the navy.[779] But Cromwell had other reasons for insisting on the English claims, even to the point of rupture of the negotiations. It was by this time obvious that the Barebones or nominated Parliament had only a short life before it, and it was desirable that its dissolution should be free from violence and as far as possible voluntary. The majority of the members were strongly opposed to the Dutch, and to the conclusion of peace except on humiliating terms to the enemy; and it is probable that Cromwell’s insistence was partly due to his desire to conciliate them. He was now about to put on the mantle of the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England.

When the Dutch envoys wrote to the Council for their passports, they received no answer. On repeating their request two days later, they got a hint of what was impending,--that the Parliament which was against them would soon be dissolved, and the management of affairs placed in the hands of a council of ten or twelve.[780] Then on the 9th December they were asked by Viscount Lisle, in the name of the Council, to delay their departure, as commissioners would soon be appointed to treat with them and conclude the treaty. Cromwell took the oath as Lord Protector on the 16th; the new Council of State met on the 19th; and the conferences on the treaty were resumed four days later.[781]

Cromwell did not now attend the conferences, the negotiations being entrusted to four members of the Council--Viscount Lisle, Sir Charles Wolseley, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, and Walter Strickland, who had accompanied St John to The Hague in 1651. The discussions on the questions affecting the claim to the sovereignty of the sea were continued: the striking of the flag, the visitation of ships, and the declaration that the dominion of the sea belonged to England. The former arguments on both sides were repeated, and the Dutch proposed the following article with reference to the flag: “That the ships and vessels of the United Provinces, as well men-of-war as others, meeting with any of the ships of war of the State of England shall honour and dignify them with the striking of the flag and lowering the top-sail, in such a manner as ever under any form of government in times past they have been honoured and dignified; and to prevent all quarrels for the future the particulars thereof shall be regulated by the advice of the generals and commanders.”[782] The English commissioners reiterated the objections previously made, but now stated that they had been referring only to the narrow seas;[783] and it was agreed to refer the points in dispute to the Lord Protector.

Another difficulty arose on the third article, which fixed the dates on which the peace should take effect on the sea, after which dates the capture of prizes would be illegal. The part was as follows: “Excepting such depredations as shall be committed in the British Seas (Maria Britannica) after the space of twelve days, and betwixt the British Seas and the Line after the space of ten weeks,” &c. At the first, the phrase “British Seas” had caught the eye of the envoys; but, thinking it was merely an ordinary appellation such as might appear on a chart, and that no deep design lurked beneath it, they decided that it would not be desirable to raise “the business of the sea” on such a point.[784] They now took exception to these words, and suggested that it would be better to begin, “in the narrow sea, which was called the British Sea” after twelve days, from there to Cape St Vincent after six weeks, &c. This matter also was referred to the Protector.

Cromwell, who was now settled in his new dignity, gave close attention to the peace negotiations. On 26th December the deputies were handed a paper in his name, in which he gave up the demand for a money payment in reparation for the war; agreed to the stipulation about the exclusion of the Prince of Orange--which was the corner-stone of the treaty--being put in a secret article; agreed to some new articles which the Dutch had proposed, after slight modifications; and at the same time introduced a new element of trouble and debate by formulating three additional articles requiring justice to be done for the “murder” of the English at Amboyna in 1623, and concerning the settlement of disputes and wrongs committed in the East Indies, Brazil, and Greenland. Important concessions were at the same time made on the maritime question. The article respecting the fishery was dropped. “Concerning the fishing,” wrote the Protector, “the Lords Deputies having by their former papers desired that freedom of fishing in these seas might be declared in this treaty, the 17 article was thereupon propounded, whereby license is granted to the people of the United Provinces to fish freely in these seas upon the terms therein expressed, notwithstanding as in their Lordships’ power either to accept or refuse, but it cannot be admitted that anything should be inserted in this treaty that may prejudice the right of this state in their fishery.”[785] The Dutch thus again scored a diplomatic victory and preserved their liberty of fishing on the British coasts, just as they had done in the reigns of James and Charles. They did not succeed in getting the clause in the Intercursus Magnus inserted or confirmed, as they desired, but it still remained in force. Later writers accused Cromwell of having surrendered the rights to the fishery, and much else, as a quid pro quo for the stipulation regarding the exclusion of the Orange family in the Netherlands, which was his main object;[786] but there is no doubt at all that the States-General would never have agreed to the English proposal.

Concessions were also made as to the striking of the flag. “The 15 article,” said Cromwell, “to be as following: that the ships and vessels of the United Provinces, as well men-of-war as others, meeting at sea with any of the ships of war of the State of England, shall strike their flag and lower their top-sail, and perform the other respects due to this State until they be passed by”; but the request that a naval commission should draw up a “regulation” on the subject was not acceded to. On the other hand, the clauses which stipulated for a right of visitation of Dutch ships at sea, and the declaration that the dominion and sovereignty of the sea belonged to England, were entirely withdrawn; but the Protector would not yet part with the clause which provided for an English fleet to guard the seas and protect commerce. Surely, he said in effect, since the article limiting the number of warships has been withdrawn, you will not contest our dominion of the sea in this?--and at this stage it was retained, with the remark, “this article is insisted on.” One of the new clauses provided that not more than eight men-of-war at a time were to enter any port of the other Power, unless constrained by force of tempest, without having obtained consent to do so; and when compelled to enter by danger of the sea, they were immediately to signify to the chief magistrate the cause of their coming, and to leave when he required them to depart.[787]

On the subject of striking the flag, the deputies were not yet satisfied. They still continued to urge that a “regulation” should be prepared; and they now raised a new point. Cromwell had always used the words “at sea,” which might mean any sea or any part of the sea. They now desired that the ceremony should be restricted to the narrow seas, “which,” they said, “are called the British seas.”[788] To this proposal Cromwell assented in so far that the words “in the British seas” were inserted later. It is curious to notice how the meaning of the term “British Sea” thus became confused even within the compass of a single treaty. In reference to this article, the Protector made the important admission that the narrow seas and the British seas were synonymous.[789] In the third article, as we have seen, the same term was used, and it was natural for the Dutch to suppose that it there had the same significance and meant the narrow seas or Channel. Since the clause dealt with a matter of great practical importance, namely, the restitution of vessels that might be captured after a specified date, and the term “British seas” appeared to be restricted to the Channel, they wished specifically to include in it the North Sea and the East Sea (or Baltic), both regions of great traffic. The envoys were accordingly instructed later by the States-General to have these words added, so that the clause would read, “excepting such depredations as shall be committed in the British Sea, the East Sea, and the North Sea.”[790] By this addition, moreover, the objectionable phrase “the British seas” would be formally restricted to the narrow seas or Channel, with the consent of England. The proposed change was instantly rejected. When Beverning brought it forward, Thurloe resisted it with great warmth,[791] and the qualifying words confining the term British seas to the narrow seas, which the Dutch had inserted, were also deleted.[792] When it was verbally agreed that the striking of the flag should be restricted to the narrow sea,[793] the deputies made a new proposal. It was to the effect that Dutch ships, without any distinction, not only in the narrow seas but throughout the whole world, on meeting English men-of-war should give them the first salute by striking the flag and top-sails and firing guns, provided that the English ships immediately returned the salute in precisely the same manner. This, doubtless, was the proposition which lurked behind the reiterated suggestion for a “regulation”; but the English commissioners would not agree to any form of reciprocity. The Dutch again raised objections to the part of the sixteenth clause concerning pirates, on the ground that it contained an implication of the claim to the dominion of the seas, which they had constantly opposed, and they cited the treaties with Elizabeth in 1585, and with Charles in 1625, as having assigned to them the protection of the sea off the Flemish coast and neighbouring coasts. They declared they would prefer it to be dropped altogether unless it was amended or made reciprocal.[794]

The differences as to the sovereignty of the sea or the phraseology of the maritime articles were now, however, of little actual importance. The progress of the negotiations, secret and otherwise, had narrowed the real ground of contention to two crucial points--the exclusion of the Prince of Orange from office, and the inclusion of Denmark in the treaty. The former had been secretly agreed upon by Cromwell and Beverning, the latter acting in conjunction with De Witt;[795] but the Protector was obdurate as to the inclusion of Denmark, and the deputies decided to return home to report the state of the negotiations. They left London on 3rd (13th) January, and though a message from Cromwell overtook them at Gravesend conceding the point in dispute as to Denmark, they thought it better to continue their homeward journey. The treaty, so far as it had been officially arranged and made known, was received with approbation in Holland, the vital stipulation respecting the exclusion of the Prince of Orange being concealed. Beverning came back to London on 25th January, but was refused audience by the Protector until he had obtained proper credentials recognising the new Government. He was joined by Nieuport and Jongestal a month later, but it was not till 15th March that the conferences were resumed.[796]

By this time the Protector had in substance conceded almost everything concerning the dominion of the seas that the Dutch had asked for, and the ambassadors--they had returned with the title of extraordinary ambassadors--were anxious to avoid any more discussion about it. For this reason Beverning disapproved of the resolution of the States-General, above referred to, for the amendment of the third article by specifying the North Sea and Baltic, and after his first interview with Cromwell he wrote to them expressing his opinion that it would occasion new disputes about the fisheries and the sovereignty of the sea. We have seen how it was received by Thurloe; and from what followed it would appear that Cromwell had either heard of the rumours going about that he had sacrificed the rights of England to the sovereignty of the seas in order to gain the exclusion of the Orange family, or that he was determined to keep the matter open until the secret arrangement for that exclusion had been officially accepted in the United Provinces--a task in which De Witt was struggling against enormous difficulties. At all events, after the treaty had been signed by the negotiators and ratified by the States-General, and when Cromwell was on the point of ratifying it, he suddenly reopened the question as to the extent of the British seas. Thurloe began by asking the ambassadors what was meant by the distinction drawn in the third article between the British seas and Cape St Vincent. Such a distinction seemed to prejudice the limits of the British seas, and might besides give rise to disputes later as to the seizure of vessels. He then treated the ambassadors to a discourse on the extent of the British seas, the particulars of which are, unfortunately, not recorded. They were, however, told that they extended to and along the coast of France, “Xaintonge” (Saintonge, an old French province) and round about there. It had not been thought, he said, to limit or define any seas in stating the districts, and he asked them for a declaration on the subject. They suspected that the design was to extract from them an explicit statement as to the southward limit of the British seas, and they said they had now no power either to alter the article or even to interpret it. The treaty had been signed on both sides and ratified by the States-General, and their instructions and commission were at an end. The proposal to alter it, they now alleged, came from themselves alone, without instructions from the States-General, and they had willingly and immediately withdrawn it when objection was made. Cromwell then asked if it had ever been their intention to define in any way the limits of the seas by that article. They replied that they believed not, and added that they had never thought of yielding anything with regard to right or jurisdiction or limits of the seas; and they failed to see what prejudice his Highness could suffer from the extension of the article, unless it was to be maintained that the whole of the French and Portuguese coasts to Cape St Vincent were within the narrow seas, as they had defined in the fourteenth article, which was withdrawn.[797] Cromwell then angrily told them that he would not exchange the ratification of the treaty unless he got the explanation and interpretation requested.[798] It was only, the ambassadors reported home, by their earnest insistence to the Protector that the articles had been signed with perfect knowledge on both sides of their contents, that he passed from the point. Whatever the object may have been in thus raising a discussion at the last moment as to the extent of the British seas, there is little doubt that the circumstance would prove useful to De Witt in his difficult and manifold manœuvres to get the Act of exclusion of the House of Orange adopted.

The treaty of peace, which had been signed by the plenipotentiaries on 5th April, was ratified by the Protector on 19th April, and proclaimed with due solemnity on the 26th May. It was received with rejoicing both in this country and the Netherlands.[799]

Comparison of the treaty as completed[800] with the original draft shows how thoroughly the Dutch plenipotentiaries had eviscerated the parts dealing with the sovereignty of the sea, and stripped it of almost all the phraseology which might imply such sovereignty. The articles imposing tribute for the liberty of fishing; stipulating for the visitation and search of vessels; restricting the number of their men-of-war in the British seas; the Plantagenet claim for the guarding of the sea; the declaration that the dominion of the British seas belonged to England,--all had been wiped out. Cromwell indeed succeeded in retaining the term “British seas” in its original ambiguity; but both he and his commissioners admitted (verbally) that it meant, in reference to the salute, only the narrow sea--a statement which was in contradiction to the instructions issued to the naval officers, and to the practice both before and afterwards. The clause providing for the striking of the flag was saved, but only in a mutilated form. It ran as follows: “That the ships and vessels of the said United Provinces, as well those of war as others which shall meet any of the men-of-war of this Commonwealth in the British Seas, shall strike their flag and lower the top-sail, in such manner as the same has ever been observed at any time heretofore under any other form of government.”[801]

This, as the States-General took care to point out to their fellow-countrymen, was no more than they had voluntarily agreed to do, and had instructed Tromp to perform, previous to the declaration of war. It was, however, the first time the custom had been recognised in a treaty.

After the conclusion of peace, the English naval commanders took pleasure in vigorously enforcing their right to the “honour of the flag,” and, as above stated, notwithstanding the verbal limitation made by Cromwell and Thurloe, they did not confine the demand to the narrow sea. Within a few weeks of the proclamation of the treaty, and before its details were known to the fleet, Vice-Admiral Lawson encountered the “bellicose” De With off the north coast of Scotland. The Dutch admiral with three men-of-war was convoying seventy sail bound for Greenland, and he at once struck his flag and fired a salute, which the English returned. He also “submitted to a search,” though stating that it was not customary for men-of-war to do so. “De With,” wrote Lawson, “begins to know his duty, being very submissive, acknowledging the sovereignty of England in the seas, and yielding as much as could have been required of any merchant ships.”[802]

In the south the Dutch were not always so compliant, and disputes with the English officers sometimes arose as to whether the place where the striking of the flag was demanded was or was not within the British seas. Thus, Captain Cockraine, in the Old Warwick, met a fleet of Holland merchantmen under convoy of a man-of-war between the Lizard and Ushant. The merchant vessels struck their top-sails, but the man-of-war refused to strike, on the ground that he was not in the British but in the Spanish seas. Cockraine refrained from firing, as the ship was surrounded by others and there was “much wind.” Instead, he wrote to the Admiralty. “I want to know,” he said, “how far is intended by the British Seas, and how far our power reaches, so that we may make no unnecessary broils.” There is nothing to show what answer he got; but a week later he encountered twenty-six Dutch merchant vessels bound for the Mediterranean, who refused to strike, and he had to fire thirty guns among them before they submitted.[803] About the same time, a States’ man-of-war convoying a fleet of Hollander merchantmen met Captain Heaton, in the Sapphire, and did not strike until a shot was fired. Heaton sent a message to the commander saying that he had not fulfilled the articles of peace, and that the keeping of his flag and top-sail aloft when within shot of one of the ships of the State of England was a great abuse, and a gross affront by the States of Holland to the Commonwealth. To which the Dutch captain replied that if he had shot back at the Sapphire he would have been quite justified, as, being on his own coast, he was not bound to strike, and had done so not out of duty, but from “brotherly love,” and he then re-hoisted his top-sails and flag. Heaton deliberated whether or not he should fight the Dutchman for doing this, but refrained. He, too, wrote to the Admiralty asking how he should act in similar cases in future.[804]

The authorities at the Admiralty were always sparing in advice on such matters. They showed the same reticence as the Government in defining the extent of the British seas, and for the same reason--that they did not know themselves. This reluctance was shown, and a partial glimpse afforded, in a letter to General Montague (afterwards Earl of Sandwich) which Richard, Cromwell’s son, wrote during his brief tenure of the Protectorate. Telling him to demand “the flag” of such foreign ships of war as he might encounter in the British seas, he remarked that there had been “some doubt” as to how far the British seas extend. Not unnaturally, “Tumble-down Dick” shrank from plunging into a matter which had puzzled the great Oliver and every one else. “Not being willing,” he said, “to determine that in our instructions, we rather put in general terms the ‘British Seas’ only. We judge there is no question of all the sea on this side the Shagenriffe;[805] on the other side [the Baltic] you have need be tender, and to avoid all disputes of this nature, if it be possible, because war and peace depend on it.”[806]

Disputes about the flag were not the only differences that arose on the sea. At the end of September 1654 complaints came from Yarmouth that the English fishermen were being molested by the Dutch in the herring fishery there. They had come, it was alleged, with a multitude of busses, “far above a thousand sail,” and, contrary to the custom before the war, “and against the laws of this nation,” shot their nets so close to the sands that the English were crowded out and hindered in their usual fishing. The Dutch busses occupied a space of more than forty miles adjacent to the coast, and the English fishermen were afraid to use their nets lest they lost them. When they remonstrated with the foreigners for coming so near the shore, they were vilified, and muskets and “great guns” were shot at them.[807] By the direction of Cromwell and the Council, the complaints were transmitted to the ambassadors, who were still in London, and they requested the States-General and the commanders of the ships guarding the busses to make every effort to avoid giving cause for complaint. In the inquiry which followed, the Dutch fishermen denied the charges against them, and in turn accused some of the Englishmen of shooting at them, cutting their ropes, and calling them dogs, rogues, and devils. They stated that they had carried on the fishing in the old accustomed way, the English usually fishing peacefully along with them.[808]

Under the Commonwealth and Protectorate very little was heard of schemes for establishing fishery societies, such as appeared and disappeared so frequently in the preceding reigns and afterwards. That the Puritan spirit was not antagonistic to projects of the kind was shown by proposals made in 1649. One of these contemplated the employment of Dutchmen to establish “a fishing trade” in England. It was referred by the Council of State to Sir Henry Vane and Alderman Wilson, with what result does not appear. Another, briefly described, was to set up a fishing trade for the English nation;[809] and about this time the attention of some writers on commercial matters was directed to the same end. The only thing apparently effected was the gift to the Corporation of the Poor in London of some of the Dutch busses captured in the war, to be used in fishing on the English coast. During this period of our history the Government had other things to think about than the launching of fishery schemes. Cromwell, however, at the conclusion of the war, renewed the licenses to the fishermen of Dieppe and Calais to fish in the seas between England and France, at the usual times and places.[810]

XII. CHARLES II

THE SECOND DUTCH WAR.

The Restoration, in 1660, made no change either in the national sentiment or the national policy of England concerning the sovereignty of the sea. Charles II. encouraged the pretension with as much zeal as had been shown by his father, or by the Commonwealth and the Lord Protector; and he was more astute than any of his predecessors in taking advantage of the national feeling with regard to it in order to carry out his own selfish policy. Under the pretence of maintaining the dominion of the sea, a base and treacherous war was waged against the United Provinces in circumstances which will for ever sully the reputation of the king. The measures at first taken were, however, of a peaceful kind. Commercial jealousy of the Dutch was still a strong factor in England. As firmly as ever the opinion was held that the primary source of their great trade, shipping, and wealth lay in their fisheries, which also formed a great “nursery” of seamen for the navy.

As in the reign of Charles I., it was therefore towards the development of British fisheries that efforts were first directed. The means taken with this view were twofold: the taxation of imported fish which had been caught by foreigners, and the creation of great fishery associations like those which had been established earlier in the century. The Navigation Act, which was passed a few months after the Restoration, while more oppressive to Dutch commerce and shipping than the Act of 1651, was less stringent in this particular. The measure of the Rump Parliament prohibited the importation or exportation of fish, or its carriage coastways, unless such fish had been caught by subjects. This prohibition was ineffective,[811] and it was now replaced by the imposition of double customs on all kinds of dried or salted fish imported, if caught or brought by vessels other than English.[812] Three years later, the importation of fresh herrings, cod, haddocks, and coal-fish was absolutely prohibited unless they had been taken and imported in vessels certified to be English.[813] With the view of still further promoting the fisheries, the same prohibition was afterwards extended to cured fish and certain other fresh fish,[814] which practically restored the provision of the first Act of 1651. To a large extent these variations were due to the trade rivalries that existed in England, the party which was uppermost at the time forcing the measures that were most in its interest.

Besides protective duties and monopolies, more direct means of encouraging the fisheries were tried. The always attractive idea was revived of establishing a great national fishery society, which, on the one hand, would enrich those who supported it with their purse, and on the other hand would increase the prosperity and the power of the country. Simon Smith, who had been the agent of the Royal Fishery Society in the reign of Charles I., lost no time in presenting to the king his two books on the subject, along with a petition in which he dwelt upon the advantages that would accrue to the nation from the labours of such an association.[815] Smith recommended that all the corporations and county towns in the kingdom should conjointly raise a stock to buy hemp and other materials to equip busses, which were to be built at the seaports nearest to them and sent to the fishing at Shetland; and he calculated, after the usual fashion, that each buss would maintain twenty families in work, “breed country youths to be mariners,” and cause many ships to be employed in exporting the herrings and bringing back commodities.

Charles was apparently impressed by Smith’s arguments. Within two months of the Restoration he caused a letter to be written to the Lord Mayor of London, referring to the good done by the Society formed in 1632, “as by the book called the Royal Herring Busse Fishing (sic) presented to him, plainly appeared”; requesting particulars to be obtained of all the poor inhabitants within each ward who were in want of employment; requesting that the Lord Mayor and Aldermen should raise a stock by a free subscription to fit out a buss or fishing vessel for each ward; and that storehouses should be built in suitable places about the river Thames, provided with nets, casks, salt, and all things in readiness. The busses were to attend the fishing at Shetland, according to the “prescribed orders in the aforesaid book,” and the king declared he would recommend the same course to all the cities and towns throughout the kingdom, so as to make it a national employment.[816]

The assistance of Parliament was also called in. On 8th November 1660 the House of Commons remitted “the consideration of the fisheries” to the Committee for Trade and Navigation, who were asked to inform the House “what they thought necessary for the regulation and advancement of that trade.”[817] The Committee’s report does not appear to have been preserved, but on 8th December a “Bill for Encouraging the Fisheries of this Kingdom” was introduced. It was remitted to a large committee, including the members for the seaport towns, and being read a third time on 27th December, was sent up to the Lords.[818] It was, to a large extent, directed against fishing by foreigners on the British coasts and the use of destructive methods of fishing. One of its clauses prohibited trawling, whether by subjects or foreigners, within eight miles of certain parts of the coast. The fate of this important measure was unfortunate. The Parliament was dissolved two days after it reached the Lords, and nothing further was heard of it.[819]

In the following year a measure dealing with the fisheries was passed by the Scottish Parliament.[820] The preamble contained the common declarations as to the value of the fisheries to shipping and commerce, to the navy, in the employment of the poor, and as furnishing the materials for a great native export. The Act provided for the formation of societies and companies of free-born Scotsmen, each member to supply at least 500 merks Scots as stock, and they were to receive various privileges and immunities, including power to erect houses for the fishing trade wherever it was most convenient, a “limited allowance” to be paid for the ground. An absolute monopoly of the export of fish, fresh or cured, was granted to the companies; foreigners were prohibited from curing herrings or white fish on land, or erecting booths for the purpose,--a provision aimed against the German merchants at Shetland,--but encouragement was given to foreign fishermen to settle and become naturalised in Scotland, and even to become burgesses, and they were to be exempt from taxation for seven years. The importation of everything required for the fishery, including “Holland nets,” was to be free of custom dues; the exports were to be similarly exempted, and the “teind” and “assize” herrings were to be remitted for nine years.

The provisions of this Act differed essentially from the scheme proposed by Charles I. in 1630, which aroused so much opposition, inasmuch as the companies were to be composed solely of Scotsmen. The question of the territorial or “reserved” waters belonging to Scotland was thus avoided. It appears, indeed, that the Act was due to the representations of the Royal Burghs, for in the preceding autumn they expressed a desire for the “erection of the fishing trade in Scotland,” and resolved to bring the subject before the next Parliament.[821] Little was done in Scotland under this Act. A company was formed, which, however, seemed more desirous of misusing its privileges than of fostering the fisheries, if we may judge from a petition of the burghs to the Lords of the Exchequer, praying that the company might be restricted to import nothing but what was necessary for the fishing trade. The town of Musselburgh also was empowered to equip busses, and various towns in Fife applied for and received permission to fish in the northern seas. The Scottish society became an incubus, and in 1690, when its function seems to have shrunk to the mechanical exaction of a tax of £6 Scots per last of herrings exported from Scotland, the Act under which it had been formed was repealed.[822]

In England the efforts to establish a fishery association met with but little more success, although the king showed an active interest in its promotion. On 22nd August he issued a commission under the great seal, appointing his brother, the Duke of York, and twenty-nine noblemen, including all the great officers of the Court, with six others, as the “Council of the Royal Fishery of Great Britain and Ireland,” to which he assigned various privileges and monopolies. To encourage the building of busses, the king “requested” that wharfs, docks, and storehouses should be built on the Thames and in all the ports of the kingdom for their accommodation and use; all the “returns” or commodities brought back from foreign lands for the fish exported were exempted from customs for seven years; all victuallers, inns, alehouses, taverns, coffee-houses, and the like, were to be bound to take from one to four, or more, barrels of herrings from the society yearly at thirty shillings a-barrel, “until foreign vent be attained to perfection”; each barrel of pickled herrings or cod-fish brought into the realm by the Flemings, or others, was to be taxed half-a-crown, the tax to be paid into the coffers of the society, and the protection of the State was to be given to their fishing vessels and the vessels employed in exporting fish. It was further provided that the money necessary for the scheme should be obtained by a lottery, to be set up for three years, and by a collection in every parish in the kingdom.

A few days later, Charles issued letters-patent saying that he had requested a bountiful subscription from London to fit out fishing vessels, which should belong to the wards, and recommending the same to the whole country, as the Hollanders had so engrossed the fisheries that the fishing towns were greatly decayed; the local officers were to see to the collections being made, the monies to be paid to the high-sheriff and by him remitted to the Earl of Pembroke, who was appointed treasurer. Those who subscribed to the stock were to pay their money in three instalments to Mr Thomas King, a London merchant and member of Parliament, who became the moving spirit in the project; and the adventurers were to have the option of withdrawing after three years, on giving six months’ notice.[823] Literary puffs were not neglected. A highly-coloured account of the value of the Dutch fisheries (founded mainly on the Raleigh tract) and of the rosy prospects of the society was published “by command.” The cost of a buss, equipped and provisioned for four months, was set down at £835; the herrings caught in that time were calculated to fetch a round £1000, giving an immediate profit of £165 after meeting all expenses.[824]

Notwithstanding the active support of the Court and the energy of many agents, subscriptions to the fishery society filtered in but slowly. The sum collected for it in the London churches in the year 1661 amounted to the paltry total of £818, 6s. 4½d.--scarcely enough to set forth one buss,--and in the autumn of 1664 it was reported that the amount collected throughout England and Ireland was only £1076. The lottery, too, from which a great deal was hoped, gave rise to much corruption, confusion, and dispute, without notably enriching the society.[825] In these depressing circumstances recourse was again had to Parliament. On 5th March 1662 a “Bill to confirm his Majesty’s letters patent concerning the fishing trade” was introduced into the House of Commons and remitted to a committee; but it ultimately became transformed into a mere local Act dealing with pilchard-fishing.[826] The king was not yet discouraged. The Masters of the Trinity House were consulted in July as to the cost of ten busses he had resolved to build, and the amount required--£9000--was actually handed over to Mr Thomas King. Charles further offered to pay £200 to every person who had a new English-built fishing-buss ready for the fishing before the middle of the following year.[827] To facilitate the success of the society on the foreign markets, an Act was passed in 1663, after considerable discussion, to make the use of the Dutch system of curing and packing herrings compulsory, so as to avoid abuses, and bring the English-cured herrings into repute.[828]

At a meeting of the Privy Council a few months later, Sir William Batten, Sir Richard Chaterton, and Sir William Ryder were appointed to formulate proposals for the organisation of the Royal Herring Fishery, and, after consultation with Simon Smith and Mr Thomas King, it was resolved to adopt the Dutch system and regulations and to go on with the scheme.[829] The next step was the issue by the king in the spring of 1664 of another commission under the great seal, by which the Duke of York and thirty-six assistants were incorporated as Governors and Company of the Royal Fishery of Great Britain and Ireland; the Lord Mayor and the Chamberlain of the City of London were appointed treasurers.[830]

In spite of all efforts, such as they were, extremely little was done by the society before the outbreak of the second Dutch war. The slovenly way in which the business was managed and the corruption in regard to the finances were notorious. Pepys, who was a member of the council of the society, and had grave misgivings as to the issue of their labours, gives amusing glimpses of the proceedings in his Diary. He examined the accounts, and declared that “the loose and base manner that monies so collected are disposed of in, would make a man never part with a penny in that manner.” The Duke of York and the members did not even meet to read the king’s commission until July, and the later meetings were often futile from the want of a quorum. “A sad thing it is to see,” says Pepys, “so great a work so ill followed, for at this pace it can come to nothing but disgrace to us all.”[831]

The failure of the attempt to establish a great national fishery to expel the foreigner from the British seas, after five years’ endeavour, was very agreeable to the Dutch, who had watched the proceedings with close attention, and had tried, openly and secretly, to hinder success whenever they had an opportunity. Immediately after the Restoration, the States-General, anxious to come to a good understanding with Charles, sent special ambassadors to London to arrange a treaty of friendship and alliance, and to renew previous treaties.[832] The negotiations which ensued dealt, among other things, with the fisheries, the flag, and the sovereignty of the sea. The object of De Witt, the great Dutch Minister, was the usual one of his countrymen on similar occasions--viz., to secure as far as possible the commercial and other privileges which had been granted by the Intercursus Magnus. Charles, on the other hand, wished at the very least to retain all the concessions that Cromwell had secured by the treaty of 1654.[833]

When the Dutch ambassadors arrived, or at all events when they began negotiations in London, the House of Commons had already taken up the question of the fisheries. Action of this kind always occasioned the Dutch anxiety. They knew it was directed against their predominance in a vital industry, and that it was usually followed by troublesome claims to the sovereignty of the sea and to an exclusive fishing on the British coasts. Here were all those questions raised in threatening fashion in the Bill passed by the Commons and sent up to the Lords. Moreover, English privateers, sailing under Swedish colours, had lately been seizing Dutch herring-busses, and though protests were made by the ambassadors, no redress was obtained.[834] The debates and proceedings in the House of Commons attracted immediate attention in Holland.[835] De Witt at once took up a firm attitude. He declared that the new pretension of England to the dominion of the seas and for the ruin of the Great Fishery would meet with the most determined resistance of the Republic; and, while consoling himself with the thought that reason had always prevailed against it in the past, he urged the ambassadors to use every means in their power with the Peers and the king in order to frustrate it. The Marquis of Ormonde, who was an intimate friend of Beverwaert’s and one of Charles’s Ministers, was bribed to use his influence to the same end. This nobleman informed the ambassador that when he was asked to favour the fishery project, he had answered that while he desired the advantage of the nation as much as any man, it would be first necessary to prepare for war, as it was in reality an affair of state; and he took credit with his Dutch friend for having induced many members of Parliament to oppose the Bill.[836] Whether these intrigues had any influence in causing the fishery question to be so frequently “laid aside” in Parliament can only be surmised.

So much concerned were the States-General about the provisions of the Bill, that they despatched a special letter to be presented to the king, in the hope, as De Witt said, that the resolution of the Commons might be suspended and its execution prevented.[837] But when it became known in Holland that the Bill had been shelved by the dissolution of Parliament, and that Charles was unlikely to summon another Parliament for a long time, the ambassadors were told to withhold it, but at the same time to make its substance known to the Ministers, so that the king might learn of it indirectly. They were also warned to say nothing, in the negotiations for the treaty on which they were engaged, that might allow it to be supposed that the right of the Dutch to fish in the seas around the coast of England was derived from any treaty or compact, or from any concession on the part of England. On the contrary, it arose jure proprio from the law of nature and the law of nations, the stipulation in the treaty of 1495 merely expressing this mutual right of free fishery with the view of preventing violence on either side.

The negotiations dragged on slowly. The English commissioners showed no anxiety to discuss the questions of the fishery, commerce, or navigation, about which the Dutch were most concerned. Taking their stand on the Navigation Act, which Parliament had recently passed, they declined to listen to any proposal for free fishing on the English coast. The Dutch ambassadors grew hopeless of being able to conclude a treaty satisfactory to the States, and this feeling was strengthened by the jealousy and resentment which the English began to manifest concerning the simultaneous negotiations that were going on between Paris and The Hague.[838] Foreseeing the difficulties likely to arise with England over the fishery question, De Witt had made a dexterous move. In the negotiations with France for a treaty between the two countries, he proposed that an article should be inserted reciprocally guaranteeing the right of free fishing in the sea to the subjects of each nation against any that might endeavour to interfere with it. A similar proposal had been made to France in 1653, but was rejected owing to the desire of the French Government to avoid irritating Cromwell.[839] Even now, when international conditions were more favourable for its acceptance, the French looked askance at it, and asked the States to define precisely their position as to the right of fishery. They said in reply that they claimed the right of fishing in the open sea by the law of nations; that it was a right independent of any treaties, which merely illustrated and explained it, and was like the liberty of commerce and navigation--free and open to all. The two countries should therefore, it was urged, agree mutually to support one another in the free exercise of this common right. In substance this was clearly a demand that France should combine with them to resist the English pretension to the sovereignty of the sea, on the point in which it chiefly affected the United Provinces--namely, the fishery. The French met it by suggesting that, as a quid pro quo, the States should guarantee them in the same way against the claim of the English to make French ships lower their flag to them in the narrow seas. France, as we have seen, was not troubled by England about the fishery, although many French vessels fished off the English coast. On the other hand, the Dutch had formally agreed to strike to English ships by the treaty of 1654,--a ceremony that France declined to render, and avoided as far as possible. De Witt saw that if the States gave the guarantee desired, it would place in the hands of the French the power to compel them to take up arms against England at any time they chose, and he instructed the Dutch ambassadors, if they could not evade the proposal altogether, to request a declaration, in writing, of the precise claims concerning the striking of the flag which the King of France put forward as against the King of England. He said the obligation of the States to strike was indisputable; but it was not a recognition of England’s pretended dominion of the sea, but merely a formal deference that republics had always shown to monarchies. De Witt privately expressed the opinion that the French would hesitate to formulate in writing any claim of that kind, and the result proved his foresight. The French ambassador in London made certain overtures to Charles without receiving a satisfactory reply, and the French proposal for a guarantee about the flag was dropped.

A diplomatic tussle then took place as to whether the word “fishery” should appear in the treaty. The French were anxious to keep it out, and the Dutch as desirous that it should be expressly included. Later, De Witt seemed disposed to concede the point, provided other words could be found which would “clearly stipulate, in express terms, that if their subjects were molested in their fishery the French would carry out against those who molested them the guarantee promised.” At this stage, however,--March 1662,--the Dutch towns insisted on the fishery guarantee being absolutely explicit. The states most concerned--Holland and West Friesland--unanimously passed a resolution that if France refused to agree to the word “fishery” being inserted, the negotiations should be broken off and the ambassadors recalled. Louis XIV. then gave way. “I must admit,” he wrote to his ambassador in London, “that I have the same interest in this guarantee as the Dutch, since the right of fishing may just as well be refused by England to my subjects as to those of the States-General.”[840] The treaty was signed on 27th April 1662, and in the fourth article the two contracting Powers mutually agreed to assist one another in protecting their fishermen from those who might molest them.[841]

The stipulation in the treaty with France was a notable triumph for De Witt. For the first time in their history the Dutch had succeeded in formally binding another Power to help them in resisting the English claims to the sovereignty of the sea, so far as concerned the liberty of fishing. Should Charles II. wish to emulate the exploits of his father by sending a fleet to force licenses on the Dutch herring-busses, he would now have to reckon on the combined opposition of France and the United Provinces. The triumph was, however, a barren one, and the treaty had no practical effect. Within a few years the Dutch Republic was in the throes of war, first with England, and then with England and France, and other treaties took its place. It had, however, an immediate influence upon the policy of Charles, who feared an alliance of the two Continental Powers against England. When he heard of the negotiations about the fishery guarantee he tried, both at Paris and at The Hague, to prevent an agreement being reached, and the obstacles which he interposed delayed the conclusion of the treaty. Sir George Downing, the English ambassador in Holland, who had taken a prominent part in the debates in the Commons on the Fishery Bill, and whose hostile sentiments to the Dutch were notorious, took up an unusual attitude. He assured De Witt that since the United Provinces were a republic and did not seek to encroach on England, they might freely continue their fishery without fearing the least trouble; but England could never allow that France, a monarchy, and a bold and enterprising nation, should have unrestricted liberty of fishing on the English coasts. It was feared, he said, that by its fishery the abundance of mariners and the increase in shipping which would follow would make it formidable to England, and this the English, in accordance with their political maxims, would prevent. The French had frequently requested and received licenses for a limited number of vessels to fish in English waters, sometimes for the king’s table. If, therefore, he continued, the proposed guarantee were agreed to, the Republic as well as France would be de facto at war with England, because England would never leave the French fishermen at peace. The same language was used by Downing to many of the deputies of the States-General, in the hope of frightening them, but it made no impression. “I have declared to Downing,” wrote De Witt, “that sooner than acknowledge this imaginary sovereignty over the seas, or even receive from the English, as a concession, that freedom of navigation and fishing which belongs to us by natural right and the law of nations, we would shed our last drop of blood.”[842]

The inflexible attitude of De Witt, and the actual conclusion of the treaty with France, extinguished for a time the hope of compelling the Dutch to acknowledge the right of England to the exclusive fishing along her coasts, and the proposal was not pressed upon the ambassadors in London during the dilatory negotiations for the Anglo-Dutch treaty. With regard to the striking of the flag, Charles received more satisfaction. The tenth article of the treaty, which was signed at Whitehall on 4/14 September 1662, stipulated that Dutch ships, whether men-of-war or others, should strike their flag and lower their top-sails on meeting an English man-of-war on the British seas. It was indeed precisely the same clause as that contained in Cromwell’s treaty of 1654, except that certain verbal alterations were made in accordance with the change in the form of the English government.[843]

In the earlier years of the reign of Charles II., comparatively little was heard of disputes about the flag, which afterwards became so frequent and important. One instance occurred in 1662, when a Dutch vessel that was in Yarmouth Roads without a commission was taken to the Downs for refusing to lower her sails to a king’s ship.[844] A case of much greater interest happened in the previous year, when Captain R. Holmes, in command of the Royal Charles, allowed the ship of the Swedish ambassador to pass him on the Thames without compelling it to strike. As the English Admiralty were always punctilious in enforcing the salute on state occasions, as when a foreign ambassador was concerned, Holmes for his remissness was deprived of his command.[845] The case of Holmes had some interesting consequences. It revealed once more the want of precise knowledge at the Admiralty as to the rules which should be followed in making foreign ships strike their flag. The Duke of York, who was the Lord High Admiral, was himself ignorant on the point, and he asked the principal officials about it--Sir George Carteret, the treasurer; Coventry, his own secretary; Sir William Batten and Sir William Penn, commissioners of the navy and experienced naval officers; and lastly Mr Pepys, who was the clerk to the navy. It appears, however, that though they all “did do as much as they could,” the information they possessed was of the scantiest kind. Pepys tells us that he knew nothing about it himself, and was forced “to study a lie” by fathering an improbable story on Selden, on the spur of the moment; but on the same evening the genial diarist bought a copy of Selden’s Mare Clausum and sat up at nights diligently studying it, with the view of writing a treatise “about the business of striking sail” to present to the Duke. After nearly six weeks’ inquiry and cogitation the Admiralty officials “agreed upon some things to answer to the Duke about the practice of striking of the flags,” which encouraged Pepys to persevere with his treatise, but it was never completed.[846]

A case of greater international importance occurred in the Mediterranean in the following year. Vice-Admiral Sir John Lawson was co-operating with De Ruyter against the Algerine pirates, and when the fleets met, the Dutch admiral saluted the English flag with guns and by lowering his own flag. Lawson returned the guns, but he did not strike his flag, as was the custom in distant seas, and De Ruyter, indignant at the slight, resolved not to strike his flag in future either, on the ground that he was not in British waters, and that he had verbal orders which authorised him in refusing. When De Witt heard of his intentions, he immediately sent instructions in the name of the States of Holland strictly to observe the treaty, and declaring that the lowering of the flag must not be confined to British waters, since that might be interpreted into subjection to English dominion of the seas. If the English admiral again declined to lower his flag in return, De Ruyter was merely to report the fact to the States.[847] The action of De Witt was not designed simply to avoid a quarrel. As will be seen later, it expressed his settled conviction and the fixed policy of the Republic on this thorny subject.

All such questions as to the flag and the fisheries were soon submerged in the second Dutch war. The causes which brought it about were at root the same as those which had led up to the first. Commercial jealousy was always a smouldering flame, ready to burst into a great conflagration. The English believed that the Dutch had juggled them out of their trade and trading rights in several quarters of the globe, and with some reason. But probably the real motive was succinctly stated by Monk, now Duke of Albemarle, when he said that the essential cause of the quarrels between the two nations was that the English wanted a larger share of the trade of the Dutch. Charles himself, like his great Minister, the Chancellor Clarendon, seems to have been disinclined to the war, which, however, was advocated strongly by the Duke of York, who supported the contention of the merchants that it would benefit English commerce. Accusations were levelled against the Dutch of having by fraud and stratagem driven English trade almost entirely from the East and West Indies, and greatly reduced it in the Mediterranean and in Africa. These complaints were echoed in Parliament, and in April 1664 a resolution was passed by the two Houses declaring that the wrongs and outrages committed by the Dutch on our merchants in India, Africa, and elsewhere were “the greatest obstruction of our foreign trade,” and that the king should be asked to “take some speedy course for redress.” John de Witt fruitlessly endeavoured by all honourable means to avert hostilities. The warlike and marauding expedition of Holmes (now restored to favour) against the Dutch settlements on the west coast of Africa and in America was followed, as it was bound to be, by the retaliatory expedition of De Ruyter, which gave the English the pretext for declaring war in the spring of 1665.[848]

The war was exceedingly popular in England, and large sums were willingly voted by the House of Commons. Pepys tells us that the Court were “mad” for it, and another contemporary writer says it was the universal wish of the people.[849] Thus no appeal to the national passion of Englishmen about the sovereignty of the sea was required on this occasion, and such references as were made to the subject were of a formal kind. One of the accusations which the Parliament flung at the Dutch was that they had “proclaimed themselves Lords of the South Sea; and, in contempt, shot at and use other indignities to our royall flag, thereby affronting his Majesty and this nation.” Then, in the preamble of the Act granting money for the equipment of a fleet, it was declared to be “for the preservation of his Majesty’s ancient and undoubted sovereignty and dominion in the seas”;[850] and in his instructions to the Duke of York as Lord High Admiral, the king said the great fleet he had prepared was “to assert his right to the dominion of the Narrow Seas,” and for the mastery of the sea and the security of navigation.[851] But these phrases were to be expected. For the same reason, popular literature on England’s dominion of the seas was on this occasion scanty, though some attempts were made to excite national animosity by the familiar arguments.[852]

The general course of the war, in which France, and then Denmark, combined with the United Provinces against England, does not concern us here.[853] It did not add fresh laurels to the brow of Charles II. as Sovereign of the Sea. Three great sea-fights took place--off Lowestoft, on 13th June 1665; in the Straits of Dover, from 11th to 14th June 1666 (the Four Days’ Battle); and off the North Foreland, on 4th August in the same year. In the first and last the English were successful; in the Four Days’ Battle the advantage lay with the Dutch; but the war ended in naval disaster and national humiliation for England. In June 1667, when the plenipotentiaries were quietly sitting at Breda leisurely engaged in arranging terms of peace, De Ruyter, with Cornelius the brother of John de Witt, suddenly appeared in the mouth of the Thames, and sent up a squadron which seized Sheerness and Chatham, and might have gone to London Bridge for all the king could have done to prevent it. They burned the best ships of the great fleet which was to have “asserted England’s dominion of the sea”; London was paralysed with consternation and amazement,--Pepys locked his father and wife in a bedroom to save them from the perils of a sack,--and while Monk, the one stout heart among them, posted down to Gravesend “in his shirt,” the libertine monarch was engaged with his mistresses in pursuing “a poor moth” about the supper-room! For many weeks afterwards, until the peace of Breda, De Ruyter rode triumphant in the narrow seas, and England was in terror of a French invasion, not knowing of the ignoble intrigue in which Louis and Charles were now engaged.

Passing from these notorious blots on English history, and before considering the relevant business in the negotiations for peace, a word or two must be said of some of the minor events and consequences of the war. During its continuance the fisheries of England, and still more those of the United Provinces, suffered severely. In January 1665, before war was declared, but when it was obvious it might break out at any moment, the States-General laid an embargo on the fisheries and on all shipping,--a measure which, it was reported in England, furnished them with 30,000 men for their navy. The stoppage of the fishing was a heavy blow to those dependent on it, and advantage was taken of the fact by the English, who tempted the Dutch fishermen by offering licenses, for a nominal payment, which would enable them to fish notwithstanding the war. The States of Holland, however, forbade the acceptance of the obnoxious licenses, “considering that it might be of very dangerous consequence, as making the inhabitants of these countries indirectly tributary to the King of England”; and the treasurer of the herring fishery at Maassluis, who had purchased some of them, was severely censured and forbidden to make use of them. Notwithstanding this patriotic resolution, it appears that private cupidity in some cases prevailed, and a few licenses were accepted in the following year. One of these, dated 21st November 1666, was granted on the petition of one, Gisbert Petersen, of “Scheveling” (Scheveningen), the captain of the “sailing waggons” of the Prince of Orange, who “wafted” the king on board his fleet at the Restoration. It gave him authority, in his vessel, the Young Prince of Orange, “to fish in any part of our seas, not being within ... leagues of land,” and to carry the fish which were caught to Holland; and in certain circumstances he was to have the freedom of English ports. The Scandinavian name of the recipient, and the circumstances recited, throw doubt on the genuineness of the case. The license was renewed on 7th June 1667.[854]

A much more interesting concession for fishing in all parts of the British seas, irrespective of distance from shore, was granted by Charles in the same year, though not to subjects of the United Provinces. The citizens of Bruges, in Flanders, where the king had received friendly treatment when in exile, petitioned him to allow all the sworn burgers and citizens of that city to fish “freely and frankly” at all times, to the number of fifty busses or other vessels fit for fishing, on the seas and coasts of his kingdoms; to enter the ports and rivers to buy necessaries, for shelter, and to dry their nets, and to depart without molestation, on giving security not to sell fish to his enemies.[855] Charles granted them a charter under the great seals of England and Scotland, giving them liberty to fish with fifty vessels at a time for herrings or any kind of fish in the British seas, up to the coasts or shores, with the privilege of drying their nets on land, and using English or Scottish ports in security. The Duke of Lennox and Richmond, the High Admiral of Scotland, and others concerned were commanded to treat the vessels of Bruges with friendship, “in whatever part of the sea, whether near the shores, in rivers, or ports” they might be.[856] The fishermen of Bruges continued to fish near our shores, in terms of this charter, and even from our harbours, until 1850, and the charter was regarded by the English authorities as spurious.[857]

By granting this charter, it is not unlikely that Charles also hoped to strike a blow at the fisheries of the Dutch Republic. While refusing to allow their subjects to accept any compromising English license or concession for fishing, the States-General tried to bring about a mutual and equitable arrangement. Early in 1665 they issued instructions that English fishermen should not be attacked till further orders; and in October of the same year--that is, when, in peaceful times, Dutch fishermen would have been taking part in the profitable fishing at Yarmouth--one of their naval officers delivered an official letter to the Bailiffs of that town, intimating that orders had been given to all their admirals, commanders, and captains at sea that no English fisherman was to be molested, and expressing a hope that a similar Christian forbearance (medelijdentheyt) might be shown to Dutch fishermen on the part of England. No answer was returned, but an emphatic response was made a week or two later when the Sapphire seized several Dutch fishing vessels and brought them into port,--a circumstance which also shows that the embargo had not been strictly observed.[858] In the following year the embargo was officially continued, the “small” or fresh-herring fishery carried on along the coast being excepted;[859] but after the defeat of the English fleet in the beginning of June, the deep-sea fishing appears to have been partially resumed. Early in August reports reached London from Yarmouth and Whitby that the Holland busses and doggers were fishing off the land, and had been seen by our fishermen. They were said to number 400 and to be guarded by eight convoyers, and it was rumoured the English fleet had gone in pursuit and sunk eighty busses; and a few doggers were in reality brought in. It was again reported later that a fleet of busses was fishing off the coast of Suffolk, attended by seventeen ships of war.[860] If the retaliation of the Dutch was less effective, it was because the English fishermen carried on their industry close to their own ports; to which, moreover, they were often confined by fear of the Dutch privateers, which boldly hovered about the coast, and the sight of a sail was enough to frighten them back.[861] After Van Ghent had burned the English ships in the Thames and the Dutch were supreme at sea, the States of Holland withdrew the embargo on the Great Fishery, and when peace was proclaimed the schuyts again took part in the autumn fishing at Yarmouth.[862]

It has been already mentioned that France, which had bound itself by the recent treaty to aid the United Provinces, declared war against England in January 1666, but Louis showed great reluctance to begin actual hostilities; and one of the diplomatic obstacles which served to delay the junction of the French and Dutch fleets referred to the striking of the flag. A French squadron of thirty sail had been equipped under the Duke de Beaufort, and Louis required that the Dutch admiral should salute not only the Admiral of France, but the vice- and rear-admirals; and further, that the French admiral should not be required to lower his flag in returning the salute of the Dutch. The States-General were willing that their admiral should strike to De Beaufort first, but they demanded that the latter should return the salute in a similar manner. The French, who were apparently anxious to be placed in the same position as England with respect to this ceremony, argued that the English did not re-salute the Dutch fleet by striking the flag, but only returned the guns, citing the treaty of 1662 and the actual practice; and they proudly boasted that the flag of the Admiral of France had never at any time been lowered to that of any nation. To this De Witt replied that they were willing to give the same respect to the French as they did to the English; that the re-salute was not expressly mentioned in the treaty because it was a well-understood custom on their own coast; and that in point of fact the English did return the salute, as had been done by Admiral Montague (the Earl of Sandwich) in 1661 and by Vice-Admiral Lawson on meeting De Ruyter. If on some occasions it was omitted by the English, it was on the seas they called “British,” and was to be attributed to the claim they pretended to the dominion of the seas--a claim which France and the Republic had solemnly agreed by treaty to resist. If a similar claim was now advanced by France, it would argue a like pretension to maritime sovereignty by a nation which had engaged itself to preserve the liberty of the sea. Moreover, the salute at sea between the fleets of two sovereign states was not an act of submission of an inferior to a superior, but one of civility, honour, and respect, and should therefore be mutual and equal. They, as a republic, offered to strike first, and to keep their flag lowered until the French admiral had struck and re-hoisted his flag. This discussion about the re-salute was prolonged, extending from June 1666 to July 1667, for De Witt was not a man lightly to agree to diminish the dignity of his country; and after the peace conference met at Breda, and De Ruyter was master of the sea, the Dutch roundly declared they would not strike to the French admiral at all, unless he agreed to return the salute by dipping his flag, but would only salute him with guns.[863]

At the conferences at Breda Charles had little right to expect that he would gain much, in view of the inglorious events at the end of the war. He retained New Amsterdam (re-named New York), which Holmes had taken in 1664, but he lost Poleroon and Surinam, and relinquished the claims which had been put forward to justify the war. An important concession was made to the Dutch by a modification of the Navigation Act, for a repeal of which they pressed, by a stipulation, in separate articles, that they might import into England in Dutch vessels all commodities produced or manufactured in Germany or Flanders, for which, it was claimed, the United Provinces were the natural outlet to the sea; and all the essential articles of the commercial treaty of 1662 were confirmed.[864] All pretensions to exclusive fishing off the British coasts were withdrawn; the old stipulations of the Burgundy treaties were not, however, renewed.

With regard to the “honour of the flag,” De Witt, in the preliminary negotiations, strove to come to an arrangement with France and Denmark, who were also parties to the treaty, to compel England to relinquish her claim to pre-eminence in this matter, especially by insisting that English vessels should return the salute by lowering their flag.[865] Charles was saved from this humiliation by the good offices of Louis, and the article in the treaty of 1662 was simply repeated in precisely the same words.[866] Another of the maritime articles gave less contentment in England. We have already seen how persistently the Dutch had struggled in deliberating on the terms of the treaty of 1654 to restrict the application of the term “British Sea” to the Channel. What they were then unable to accomplish was now conceded to them. In the usual article about the cessation of hostilities on the sea, it was specified that restitution of prizes should not be made if they were taken “in the Channel or British Sea within the space of twelve days, and the same in the North Sea; and within the space of six weeks from the mouth of the Channel unto the Cape of St Vincent.”[867] In the treaty with France, signed at Breda on the same day, the French plenipotentiaries took care that the terms English Channel or British Sea in the corresponding clause were omitted, the neutral if indefinite phrase “the neighbouring seas” (maria proxima) being substituted.[868] In the similar treaty with Denmark, the phraseology was even less tender to English susceptibilities--namely, “in the Northern Ocean and in the Baltic Sea and the Channel, &c.”[869] However trifling such points may appear to us now, they had a real importance in the seventeenth century, and the phraseology cited caused some heart-burning in England as being derogatory to our rights to the dominion of the British seas.[870]

For some years after the conclusion of peace at Breda, and indeed up to the opening of the third Dutch war, the question of the salute was a frequent subject of international discussion. Dutch statesmen had always wished to come to a definite arrangement with England about it, for they saw that to leave it in ambiguity while the English looked upon it as touching their national honour, was fraught with danger. A whole series of points was in doubt, any one of which might furnish occasion for war unless clearly defined and mutually understood. Was a whole fleet or squadron of the States to strike to a single English ship of war? Were they to strike to a frigate, or to a still smaller ship, such as a ketch, or only to ships carrying the flag of an admiral, vice-admiral, or rear-admiral? Was the salute to be returned by the English in the same way, by dipping the flag and lowering the top-sails as well as by guns? Within what parts of the sea was the salute to be enforced, or differentiated, or the re-salute given? English statesmen purposely left many of these points undefined, in order to gain as wide a recognition of the ceremony as was possible, and when disputes did arise with other Powers, to enable them to avoid war or to make war as circumstances and policy might determine. They held that England, and England alone, was the rightful interpreter of what was due to her flag by ancient custom. On the other hand, the Dutch Republic looked upon the whole business as a troublesome affair; and as the greatest commercial nation of the time, whose chief interest was peace, they naturally desired that the dubious points about the salute should be permanently settled.

Immediately after the conclusion of the Triple Alliance against France, at the beginning of 1668,[871] De Witt, taking advantage of the good feeling existing between England and the Netherlands, and especially of the presence of Sir William Temple as English ambassador at The Hague, proposed that a formal settlement should be made of the doubtful points concerning the striking of the flag. Temple, who was a staunch friend of the Dutch and was on intimate terms with De Witt, shared this opinion. He thought that by a slight concession, or by a definite agreement, England might count with some confidence on the support of the States-General in any future quarrel with other nations about the flag. The subject was formally raised by De Witt on a proposal for a union of the Dutch and English fleets, in certain contingencies, against France. He offered to give the same honour to the king’s ships at sea as their ambassadors gave to his Majesty’s person, “to uncover first and cover last”; but stipulated that any agreement about the flag must not be regarded as an acknowledgment of England’s pretension to the sovereignty of the sea, which the Dutch would “die rather than do.” Knowing that it was a “delicate” subject to broach with the King of England, he thought the negotiations might be opened by the States-General sending a polite letter to Charles, laying stress on the good relations between the two nations, and intimating that in order to prevent sinister encounters which any new sourness might occasion, they had issued orders to all their naval officers to strike their flag with every mark of civility on meeting with the royal flag of England. The king was then (according to the scheme) to inform the States-General that he had received this mark of deference to his royal dignity with singular satisfaction, and that he on his part would order his admirals and commanders to re-salute the States’ flag. Temple thought the matter was so “ticklish,” that it ought to be first broached verbally at a fitting opportunity; and De Witt, in advising the Dutch ambassadors in London to this effect, reminded them that the salute was merely a mark of honour and respect, and that if anything was put into writing this should be expressed. He added that he had never been able to understand how it could be conceived that the free element of the sea, or dominion over it, could belong to England or to any nation, and that in Holland the common right of sovereignty of all nations over it was held to be incontestable.

When, about a month afterwards, the ambassadors spoke to the king, he said he did not see how the question could be ambiguous, since it was provided for in the treaty. They pointed out that the re-salute was not mentioned, and then used the arguments which De Witt had put into their mouths about its being a ceremony of respect which it would be only reasonable and courteous to return, just as his Majesty would do, sitting on his throne, in response to the salutations of the ambassadors of the Republic; and they adduced one or two instances in which the English ships had returned the salute. Charles told them they were possibly thinking of the custom in the Mediterranean, which was different from all the other seas (meaning the British seas), and said he claimed nothing but the old practice; but he promised to look into the matter. The ambassadors did not press the subject further, and the important declaration they had been charged to make, that in future the States’ ships would refuse to strike unless the salute was returned in the same way, remained unspoken. Shortly afterwards, when the States were asked to send some of their warships to strengthen the squadron of Sir Thomas Allin, who was ordered to enforce the restitution of some English vessels seized by the French, they refused, unless the difficulties about the flag were first settled, and the discussion continued throughout the summer.

It is interesting to note, in view of the antecedents of the next war, that the ambassadors were instructed to say that the States’ fleet would not strike, even in the Channel, to a frigate or ketch, which did not customarily carry the royal flag in the main-top, but only to an admiral’s ship, or one carrying the royal flag. This contention was promptly set aside by the Duke of York and Lord Arlington (the Secretary for State); but De Witt, still clinging to the hope that a “regulation” might be arranged, asked the ambassadors to find out the instructions which were actually issued to the English captains serving in the Downs, the Channel, the North Sea, the Mediterranean, and the Ocean, as it was generally believed in Holland that outside the Channel neither side should strike the flag or lower the sails to the other, but that the States’ ships should first salute with guns alone, and the English answer with guns also. In any case, if the principal fleets of the two countries were combined for any purpose, or jointly brought into action, it was to be first arranged that they should salute one another with guns only, or at all events in an equal and reciprocal manner, the Dutch always giving the salute first; and the ambassadors were to insist earnestly and finally for a settlement.

The ambassadors informed De Witt that, as was shown in the copy of the instructions found on board the Charity, an English man-of-war taken by the Dutch in the battle of Lowestoft, in 1665, and which was published by Aitzema, the commander of an English man-of-war was to compel every foreign ship, or ships, to strike their flag in the British seas, and that in these seas no English king’s ship was to strike to any foreign ship. In all other seas the English ship was never to strike to a foreigner unless the latter struck first or at the same time. According to this, they said, a single English man-of-war could compel a whole fleet to strike their flags and lower their top-sails in the so-called British seas, and it was forbidden for it to strike in return. In all other seas, if the foreign ship did not strike, the English would not strike, and no salute would be exchanged. They said this was well known to be the regular formula in England, and no distinction was drawn between the Channel and other “pretended English seas.” The “British seas,” they said, according to the Admiralty instructions, extended to Cape Finisterre, in Galicia, and westwards, according to Selden, to America. It would be an excellent thing, they thought, if they could succeed in drawing a distinction between the Channel and the other seas, since their fisheries, the main object of solicitude, were carried on, not in the Channel, but in the North Sea. But as the whole subject was very delicate, they advised De Witt to pass from it for the time and to allow things to remain on their old footing; and to show the spirit in which the matter was regarded in England, they sent him specimens of the coin issued by Charles a few years before, which bore the king’s effigy on one side with the inscription Carolus a Carolo, and on the obverse the figure of Britannia, with the proud words, Quatuor Maria Vindico.[872] De Witt, who had just arranged with Temple that the matter should be brought to the notice of the king, acquiesced, but with reluctance. He expressed satisfaction that they now at least knew more about the English pretension, so that fresh hostility and war could be avoided on that point; but that an English frigate or ketch should claim to compel a whole fleet to strike was, he said, intolerable. And it was this very thing that Charles selected to force war upon the United Provinces a few years later.[873]

It was not only with the Dutch that discussions arose at this time as to the rights of the English to demand the salute. The astute Dutch statesman, as was his wont, began to pull diplomatic wires at other Courts in order to have the subject raised by them. The King of Denmark in the following year proposed to Charles that new regulations should be arranged with respect to the “salutes and civilities” at sea between the men-of-war of the two nations. Charles declined the invitation. He did not think it fit, he said, to make any new regulation on the salutes at sea, “since there has never been any question made of the constant practice in that matter, which we shall always observe.”[874]

A renewed attempt to convince the French that it was to their interest to curtail the English claim to the sovereignty of the sea had consequences little dreamt of by De Witt. The Dutch Minister, clinging to his principle, urged at Paris that Charles, who wished to be the supreme ruler of the sea, ought to be forced to modify his pretension and to give the salute in return. It had indeed been rumoured in London that the French king had decided to forbid his naval commanders to strike to the English, and even to compel both English and Dutch to strike to his own flag.[875] Louis certainly raised the question at the Court of St James’s, but in a different way. Colbert, his ambassador there, secretly revealed to Charles the confidential negotiations which the States-General had opened at Paris, in the hope that this mark of confidence would make more easy his policy of detaching the King of England from the Triple Alliance.[876] By this time Charles and Louis were drawing closer together, and in order to prevent chance disputes about the flag, a verbal arrangement was made through Colbert, in the summer of 1669, that no salutes should be exchanged between English and French men-of-war in the Mediterranean, nor should the ship of one be expected to go to leeward of the other. Instructions of this tenour were given to Sir Thomas Allin, who was on the point of leaving with a squadron to chastise the Barbary pirates.[877]

About this time the Duke of York and the officials of the navy began to devote close attention to the rules regulating the salute and the striking of the flag, and a number of memoranda were prepared which described recent precedents, and dealt with other points. With reference to recent practice, it was stated that the Earl of Sandwich had struck in return to De Ruyter in 1661 or 1662; that Sir John Lawson declared he would strike to none, and kept his flag aloft in Toulon harbour; while Sir William Berkeley, serving under Lawson, refused even to fire a gun on meeting De Beaufort, the Admiral of France, until he was assured that the report attributed to him that he would force the English to strike was unfounded. A statement was compiled of the number of guns fired in salute to English vessels arriving in various foreign ports, and rules were formulated with respect to the salutation of forts and on other points. The general custom was that “the sea should salute the land”--that is, the vessel first saluted the forts, except on extraordinary occasions, as when a prince or an important foreign embassy arrived. No foreign man-of-war was to be allowed to pass above the ports at Gravesend and Sheerness, or at any other harbour, without special permission from the Lord High Admiral or the governor of the fort; all vessels were to keep in their flag as long as they were in sight of the fort, and if they refused they were to be forced to comply; salutes of foreign flagships were to be answered gun for gun, and of other foreign ships with two guns less. As for the striking of the flag, the Earl of Sandwich and other naval authorities who were consulted intimated that the matter was too important for them to decide upon, and should be left to the king--a plain acknowledgment of its political character. The Duke of York, however, the Lord High Admiral, stated that the rule was that English ships were everywhere to be saluted first, and were not to strike in return, but only to answer with guns; but if a single English ship met a foreign fleet out of the British seas, it was to salute first with guns, but neither was to strike the flag.[878]

This activity at the English Admiralty may not have been wholly unconnected with the circumstances which ushered in the next war, but it was more probably due to the general revival of punctiliousness regarding the salute and similar naval ceremonies which took place at this time throughout Europe. Even the petty states in the Mediterranean became infected with the spirit of their powerful neighbours, and followed their example. At Genoa and Leghorn frequent disputes, and sometimes sanguinary encounters, occurred between the authorities and Dutch and English men-of-war as to the number of guns that should be fired, or the striking of the flag. French and Dutch men-of-war lying in the Tagus were only prevented by the governor of the castle from putting to the arbitrament of force the question whether the latter should strike to the former. At Civita Vecchia, at Glückstadt, at Dover, at Dieppe, at Kronberg, similar incidents took place. The Earl of Essex, going on a special embassy to the King of Denmark, and on board the king’s yacht, had a sharp dispute with the Governor of Kronberg, in the Sound, as to lowering his flag, which the Danish officer requested him to do. But Essex was well primed with precedents before he left England, and was able to maintain his refusal.[879] Though Dutch men-of-war engaged with spirit in such quarrels about the salute in foreign ports, their action was not countenanced by the policy of the States-General. On 16th May 1670 they instructed that the fort of Kronberg should be saluted by Dutch vessels in such manner as the King of Denmark might require; and on 3rd February next year the States of Holland issued a general order that their men-of-war should salute those of other sovereigns on their coasts, within the reach of the guns of batteries or forts, in the precise manner that the Government of the country might demand, leaving it entirely to the discretion of that Government to return the salute or not, just as they pleased. Every foreign Government, they added, was sovereign within its own jurisdiction, and every foreigner was a subject there.[880]

XIII. CHARLES II.--continued

THE THIRD DUTCH WAR.

The “honour of the flag” and the sovereignty of the sea were now about to gain a shameful notoriety in connection with the third Dutch war, which Charles, from the basest personal motives and in the most treacherous manner, suddenly sprang upon the Republic. At that time, and for long afterwards, European policy turned upon the ambitious designs of Louis XIV. Laying claim to the Spanish dominions, he overran the Low Countries in 1667 with an army of 40,000 men. The rapidity of the conquest and the display of formidable military power filled Europe with alarm; and the United Provinces, which lay nearest the scene of danger, were thrown into apprehension as to their own safety. In England popular feeling was very hostile to France, and Charles, after some hesitation, despatched Sir William Temple to The Hague to conclude an alliance against France, which he succeeded in accomplishing in a few days--in January 1668,--and it was adhered to by Sweden. The Triple Alliance thus formed was hailed with enthusiasm in England, and it abruptly and effectually checked Louis in the execution of his plans. Deeply mortified, the French king bent his energies and talents to detach Charles from the League, in order to wreak his vengeance on the Dutch Republic, and he succeeded even better than he expected. Charles was deeply in debt, and the expenses of his Court were heavy. His relations with the Parliament were becoming strained and difficult. Mistrust was growing up between him and his subjects, and, mindful of the fate of his father, he thought it prudent to secure in secret a wealthy and powerful ally lest rebellion again broke out in England. Within a year of the signing of the Triple Alliance Charles was gained over by France, and the compact was sealed in the disgraceful secret treaty of Dover in May 1670. Under the treaty Charles was to receive a large yearly pension from Louis, and aid in case of insurrection; he was to avow and re-establish the Roman Catholic religion in England when it could be done with safety; and he was to begin hostilities against the Dutch Republic when Louis required him by furnishing 4000 men and fifty ships of war, for which he was to receive a subsidy of £120,000, and to gain as his share of the spoils of conquest Walcheren, Sluys, and Cadsand. Louis crowned the dishonourable compact with the appropriate gift of a new mistress to his royal ally--Mademoiselle de Kerouaille, afterwards the Duchess of Portsmouth, who well served the interests of France.[881]

In order to carry out his part of the iniquitous bargain, it was necessary for Charles, as the vassal of France, to deceive his subjects and his Parliament as well as his public ally, the Dutch Republic. He had first to get money for the armaments, for which the subsidy from France was insufficient, and he had then to discover some pretext for the war which would make it least objectionable to the English people. For the former purpose he resorted to a bold subterfuge. The sentiment of both the Parliament and the people was hostile to France, and advantage was taken of this circumstance to obtain a subsidy under false pretences. When Parliament met in October 1670 the Lord Keeper, by the king’s commands, made a speech on the state of public affairs, in which he enlarged on the king’s need of supply; pointed to the great strengthening of the French navy and the decay of our own; urged the necessity of fitting out in the ensuing year a fleet of fifty sail; and dwelt upon the obligations placed upon the king by several treaties to exert himself for the good of Christendom, mentioning among others the Triple Alliance and the League with the United Provinces. The trick succeeded. Parliament, uneasy at the recent journey of Louis to Flanders and the naval preparations in France, voted a sum of £800,000.[882]

It was also indispensable to foment ill-feeling against the Dutch, and to devise disputes with them so as to prepare the way for a rupture. Some time before this, at Genoa, a Dutch commander, Captain Braeckel, who had led the attack on the English ships at Chatham in 1667, had hoisted under the Dutch colours some English flags which he had taken on that occasion, in derision of the English in the port. Charles demanded reparation and the punishment of Braeckel; and the States-General ultimately ordered the trophies to be given up, and sent them to London.[883] Later, the king complained that the States-General had allowed him and the English people to be insulted by lampoons, medals, &c., commemorating the exploits of the Dutch fleet in the Thames in 1667, the king suing for peace at Breda, and so forth. The States-General, when the king continued to press these complaints, seized all copies of certain lampoons and destroyed the dies of several of the medals. Charles then boldly accused the Grand Pensionary De Witt of having carried on a confidential correspondence with France with the object of inducing that Power to take up arms against England. The accusation was meant to prejudice the Dutch in the eyes of the Parliament; and the States, to prove their sincerity, sent fresh proposals for an alliance, to which Charles replied that they should first have offered him subsidies. The apprehension of the States that the king was inclined to force a quarrel on them was not lessened by intelligence they received that he had abandoned the Triple Alliance, and especially by the recall of Sir William Temple from The Hague in 1670,--a step that followed the seizure of Lorraine by Louis.

Affairs were ripening to the wished-for crisis, and Charles now sought for a decisive pretext, which, while making war inevitable, would lessen its unpopularity in England. Such a pretext was to be found in the “honour of the flag.” No cry was more likely to rouse resentment in the people than that the flag had been insulted and the sovereignty of the sea threatened. To insult the flag was to insult the nation. The king was well aware from the repeated declarations of the States-General that they would never willingly acknowledge England’s sovereignty of the sea: they had said they would “rather die first.” He was also doubtless fully acquainted with the fixed opinion of the Grand Pensionary that to claim that the whole Dutch fleet should strike to a single frigate or a ketch was “intolerable.” He contrived his measures accordingly, and decided to send one of his yachts to pass through the States’ fleet, on their own coast, and to fire upon them if they did not strike their flags in the accustomed manner. The matter was deliberately considered. The clause in the treaty of Breda was not very clear as to whether a yacht, or even a man-of-war, could compel the whole Dutch fleet to strike, and on the Dutch coast. Just about the time Temple returned from The Hague, Sir Leoline Jenkins, Judge of the High Court of Admiralty, wrote a confidential letter to Sir Thomas Allin, the commander of the Blue, asking him to find out secretly, “as if for his own satisfaction,” whether there were any “ancient seamen” at Trinity House or elsewhere who were on board the Happy Entrance when it carried the Earl of Arundel to Holland in 1636, and if so, whether they remembered that on entering the road of Goeree, in Holland, Admiral Tromp, who was at anchor there, struck his flag to it; and similar information was asked in regard to other cases of like import in 1637 and later. The question was also put to Sir Thomas, “How far the British Sea, or British Ocean, does in common reputation extend itself; and whether all that which washes the coasts of the Low Countries, as well as that which runs upon the French coast, has been anciently deemed and reputed to be British Sea?” Jenkins explained that he had been desired by the king to obtain proof of the striking of the flag as secretly as possible; and the two chief points were, (1) “Had not the French and the Dutch always struck to the king’s flag even on their own coasts? and (2) that a single ship of ours, if commissioned for war, though never so inconsiderable in its strength, did make whole squadrons and fleets of the neighbouring nations to strike, and particularly the Spaniards near the Spanish Netherlands and the subjects of the United Provinces near their coasts?”[884]

The reference to the French and Spaniards was no doubt meant to conceal the real significance of the inquiry. The reply of the admiral seems not to have been preserved, but a later memorandum of Jenkins answers the questions as to the striking of the flag at Goeree, and in the other cases, in the affirmative. The Trinity House, whose opinion was also asked, said that it had been commonly received by them from their predecessors that the British seas “extend to Cape Finisterre, or the North Cape” (sic), and that the sea which washes the coast of the Low Countries and France had been always reputed part of the British seas. “To know how far it does extend northwards,” they ingenuously added, “we desire you will please to consult those authors who have treated on that subject, it not being known to a certain by us.”[885] They had been unable to meet with any persons who knew about the alleged cases of striking, so that Jenkins must have obtained the information about them from other sources.

There can be no doubt that Charles was advised by the authorities he consulted on the ambiguous points in the article of Breda that (1) any king’s ship, however small, commissioned for war, was a “man-of-war” in the sense of the treaty, and could call upon the whole Dutch fleet to strike; (2) that the British seas included those washing the coasts of the United Provinces; and (3) with respect to the previous custom referred to in the treaty, that the Dutch had struck on their own coasts.

Thus fortified in law and precedent, the way was clear for Charles to pick a quarrel with the States about the striking of the flag, and he despatched, not a man-of-war, nor even a frigate, but his yacht, the Merlin, for the purpose. Ostensibly it was sent to bring over Lady Temple, who had, by his wish, remained in Holland since her husband’s departure, but with orders to pass through the Dutch fleet then cruising in the Channel, and to fire at them until they struck their flags or fired back at the Merlin. As the French ambassador, who was in the secret, tersely put it to his Court, “the captain is to use all his powder, so as to give good cause for a quarrel.” The Merlin on her way to Holland passed through the Dutch fleet, but owing to a heavy gale she could not get near enough to execute the king’s commands. She appears, however, to have met two Dutch men-of-war convoying the herring-busses, who exchanged guns with her but did not strike their flag.[886] But in returning, early in August, with Lady Temple on board, the Merlin, with the royal standard flying, came upon the States’ fleet lying at anchor beyond the Goodwins, six leagues from the coast of Zealand and sixteen leagues from England. The little yacht, while still at a distance, began to fire at the Dutch flagship. De Ruyter did not reply at once, but the Lieutenant-Admiral, Van Ghent, thinking that it was merely a question of the salute, returned the guns in the usual manner, and was not a little surprised to receive for his pains a discharge of cannon-balls. He sent an officer on board the yacht for an explanation, and Captain Crow, the commander of the Merlin, informed him that he had been sent to bring the English ambassadress with her family from Holland, and had orders to make the Dutch fleet lower their colours wherever he met with it. On hearing this, Van Ghent, on the pretext of paying a compliment to Lady Temple, whom he had frequently met at The Hague, went himself on board the Merlin. He told Captain Crow that the point he had raised was one on which he had received no orders from the States, and that he could not concede the claim without express commands. He declared his willingness to pay due respect to the English flag according to the former practice, but he thought it could scarcely be contended that the admiral and the whole fleet should strike on their own coast to a single vessel, and that vessel a yacht, which was only a pleasure-boat, or at least served only for a passage, and could not pass for a man-of-war. It was at all events, he said, a question which should first be submitted to inquiry by the two Governments.

Captain Crow was puzzled and perplexed, and on Van Ghent’s departure he appealed to Lady Temple as to what he should do. She, seeing he did not relish his job and would be glad to get out of it by her help, shrewdly told him that he knew his orders best and what he ought to do, and begged him not to mind her or her children. After firing another gun, the Merlin continued her voyage to England, leaving the Dutch fleet with their flags displayed, and without having fired a single angry shot in reply. Very naturally, Charles was irritated at the miscarriage of his plan. He had hoped for a sharp and unequal contest about the flag, the news of which would have rung from end to end of England and enabled him to drag the country into war to resent the affront. Crow was thrown into the Tower, “for refusing to do his duty towards the Dutch men-of-war who refused to strike to the king’s flag.” The Privy Council debated whether a frigate, the other class of vessel to whose status De Witt had objected, should not be hastily despatched to the Dutch fleet to draw the spark which the Merlin had failed to elicit, by firing on every ship that refused to take in her flag. Probably the device was deemed to be too transparent; but it was rumoured that the captain of the Reserve, which left Deal a few days later for Portsmouth, had received instructions to fight the Dutch fleet if he met them and they did not strike,--a rumour which, it was reported, “deads the hearts of people lest we should have war with Holland.”

Meanwhile, Sir Leoline Jenkins was requested to inquire into the case of the Merlin, presumably to see what could be made of it. He examined Lady Temple and others, and drew up a memorandum embodying the information he had received as to the extent of the British seas and the precedents of striking to the English flag off foreign coasts.[887] After citing the precedents at Goeree and elsewhere, he expressed an opinion against calling witnesses in such cases “for fear of chicane,” declaring that we had “a constant uninterrupted possession of the prerogative, with the highest notoriety that public immemorial reputation can give, in the British seas, and that the onus of making proof as to the non-use and enjoyment of it in some certain places or rencounters, as for instance the Dutch coast, or when a small sail of ours met a fleet of theirs, was cast by the law and by reason upon our opposers.”[888] The English Government did not make any immediate protest to the States-General about Van Ghent’s refusal to strike to the yacht, possibly lest they might proffer satisfaction and dispose of the episode; but Charles boldly told the Dutch ambassadors that he thought the conduct of their admiral had been premeditated.

Up to this time the Dutch had failed to discern the danger which was approaching. After the Merlin incident indeed, as Temple tells us, the Dutch ambassadors in London, “with as ill noses as they have, began to smell the powder after the Captain’s shooting.” But relying on the well-known animosity of the English people and Parliament to France, and their aversion to a rupture of the Triple Alliance, they fondly clung to the belief that the incident was one of the temporary misunderstandings about the flag which would be readily cleared up. The States-General were equally undiscerning, and perhaps a little more obtuse. They adopted a course which, however proper it might have been under other circumstances, now served only to play into the hands of Charles. A manifesto was prepared declaring that by the terms of the treaties with England the salute was to be regulated according to the custom in the past; that it could not be claimed except in British waters, where--as their High Mightinesses thought it well to remind the king--it was offered only as a mark of courtesy, and not in recognition of England’s pretension to the sovereignty of the sea. And in order that their intention might be perfectly clear, they instructed De Ruyter to draw up a set of rules prescribing the salute to be given in future by the Dutch fleet to English or French men-of-war on the Dutch coast, which was to be confined to the exchange of guns without striking the flag at all.

Thus, by their own maladroitness as it happened, the States were drawn into precisely the dispute that Charles had been longing for--a dispute about the flag and the sovereignty of the sea. He replied by sending Downing to The Hague, in December 1671, as ambassador extraordinary, with a sheaf of peremptory and intolerable demands. The choice of the ambassador was in itself significant of much, for Downing was known to be repugnant to the States-General, partly from his overbearing and quarrelsome disposition, still more because of his unconcealed enmity to the Dutch people. He was to demand free trade for the English in the Dutch plantations in the Indies; redress and satisfaction for the pamphlets and medals insulting to the king; above all, he was to present to the States-General a memorial requiring that they should “solemnly and clearly acknowledge, in writing, the king’s right to the dominion of these seas, and that they neither do nor will dispute it, but expressly engage themselves that all ships or fleets of theirs, however numerous, shall, upon warning given by any ship or ships of war, carrying English colours, of what rate or bigness soever, strike their top-sails and lower their flags, as has been ever practised.” As a pendicle to this, he was to demand that Van Ghent should be “exemplarily punished for the insolent affront done by him to a small English man-of-war [the Merlin] in refusing to strike.” If within a fortnight no answer was received to this “memorial,” Downing was to present a sharp and peremptory note demanding an immediate reply, and if he did not get it within another week, he was instantly to quit The Hague, without giving any notice of his intention to go.

While Downing was away on his explosive mission, Boreel, the Dutch ambassador in London, was beguiled with smooth words in order to lull the States-General into a feeling of security. On the eve of his departure, Downing told him he was going to The Hague with the object of strengthening the good understanding between the two countries, and Charles treated the ambassador with the most friendly courtesy. The ease with which the Dutch were being hoodwinked caused much amusement in Paris. But Charles was not yet quite ready. He needed a great deal more money than what was left of the £800,000 which the House of Commons had voted. Afraid to summon Parliament again, or to levy taxes under the prerogative as Charles I. had levied the ship-money, he had recourse to the daring expedient of closing the Exchequer, by which he robbed the public creditors of some £1,200,000, causing widespread ruin and commercial panic. A little later, on 21st January 1672, the first quarterly instalment of the subsidy of three million livres from Louis was landed at Rye, and escorted to the Tower by forty men of the Guards and a trumpeter. Now in possession of ample supplies, Charles hastened to throw aside the mask. Downing played his arrogant part at The Hague, refusing to allow any debate as to the justice of his demands. When he suddenly called for his passports, the States-General began to awaken to a truer sense of their position, menaced as they also were by imminent peril from France. Adopting the advice of the deluded Boreel, that by yielding on the question of the flag they would remove any inclination the English people had for war with them, since England really cherished enmity against France, the States-General agreed to comply with the claims of Charles respecting the salute. The concession was still joined with the offensive proviso that they gave it only as a mark of respect to a powerful monarch: it was, moreover, to be conditional on the maintenance of the Triple Alliance. Downing told them the offer came too late, and slunk away home, reaching London on 6th February, where the king, displeased with his management of the affair, sent him to the Tower “for not having obeyed the orders sent him.”

The flight of Downing threw the States-General into consternation. Meerman, previously their ambassador at the English Court, was despatched in haste to London to renew the offer about the flag, to agree to the dismissal of Van Ghent, and to tender large subsidies for the king’s privy purse. At the audience with Meerman and Boreel, Charles skilfully evaded their proposals and expressed surprise that they had not submitted a formal signed paper. This they made haste to do, and they were then informed that it was ambiguous and obscure, but in what particulars they could not learn. They next submitted a draft to Arlington and Lauderdale, the English commissioners appointed to treat with them, with the request that they might amend it as they thought fit, but they were haughtily told that it was none of their business to draw up papers for the Dutch. Finally, they signed a written engagement to give satisfaction about the flag, but at the conference appointed for its reception the English refused to consider it, saying the time for negotiations was now past.[889]

The time was now obviously ripe for a declaration of war; but Charles before taking this step had resolved on an audacious and treacherous stroke, by which he hoped to gain much plunder for himself while diminishing the resources of the Dutch. In spite of the solemn obligations of treaties for the temporary security of their shipping even if war broke out, it was decided to attack and capture Dutch merchant vessels in time of peace. Here also a ready excuse might be found by contriving disputes about the striking of the flag. As early as 26th January, Sir Robert Holmes sent an express to Arlington recommending the seizure of a Dutch fleet laden with salt and wine, which lay wind-bound at the Isle of Wight, under the convoy of three or four States’ men-of-war. He said that in Holland there was a great scarcity of salt, and that without it they could not carry on their fishery or provide for their garrisons; the capture of the salt fleet would thus overwhelm them in ruin even greater than would the loss of their East Indian fleet. But ships were apparently not ready for this venture--and, besides, it was not salt that Charles wanted. On 18th February orders were sent to the Mediterranean to take and sell, or to destroy, all Dutch shipping. On 5th March Charles wrote to the Duke of York commanding that, as he had received many indignities from the States-General, and his demand for reparation against one of their subjects who refused to strike his flag remained unanswered, such men-of-war as were ready at Portsmouth should immediately put to sea and seize and bring into port, with their cargoes intact, any Dutch vessels they met with, and destroy those that resisted. Another royal command on the following day included Hamburg vessels in the piratical order, since Dutch ships often sailed under that flag; and in this missive, as a sort of moral salve, the king announced that he had resolved to make war on the States-General.

The first capture was made on 8th March, and when Boreel demanded restitution, he was told, boldly but incautiously, that the Dutch ships would be seized everywhere. The Cadiz fleet returning to the United Provinces had a very narrow escape, having passed up Channel on the day Holmes received his instructions. On the next day, 13th March, off the Isle of Wight, he fell in with the Smyrna fleet of fifty-six merchant vessels returning home from the Mediterranean with rich cargoes of silks, plate, cochineal, gums, &c., estimated to be worth over a million pounds. It was upon this fleet that Charles had been counting. Eleven States’ men-of-war acted as convoy to the merchantmen, many of which were also heavily armed as fighting ships. To deal with this formidable force Holmes at first had only five ships, having failed to effect a junction with Spragge’s squadron, from the selfish design, it was alleged, of keeping the prize-money among as few as possible. The Dutch fleet, which had been warned of their danger by Boreel, were on the alert. On the approach of the English the armed vessels moved into line to protect the defenceless merchantmen. Lord Ossory, in the Resolution, bore up to the Dutch vice-admiral and gave him a “warning piece” to strike his flag, and as he took no notice of it, Ossory gave him another and “placed it in him.” Sir Robert Holmes, in the St Michael, treated Captain Adrian de Haas, who commanded the convoy, in the same way, and when the latter sent his lieutenant on board the St Michael to ascertain the cause of shooting, he was promptly clapped into the hold, “having, it seems,” as the English official account says, “given some saucy language to Sir Robert.”[890] The St Michael then poured in a broadside and the fight began. It continued until night, and was resumed on the following day, when Holmes was reinforced by three other ships, and on the day after that, as the Dutch fleet made its way up the Channel, defending itself with the greatest valour. The English were hopelessly outnumbered. They sank one Dutch man-of-war and captured another, with four or five of the merchant vessels, but all the others safely reached port. The English ships which were beaten off were so terribly battered and cut up that they could scarcely make their way back to the Downs. On the St Michael alone thirty-four men were killed and fifty-six wounded, as well as “a great many” missing.

Charles was deeply disappointed at losing the booty on which he had calculated. He was further annoyed when he found he could not confiscate the whole of the cargoes actually taken, and which Holmes with vainglorious exaggeration boasted “would give him credit for £200,000 at least.” When the question came to be decided whether the captured ships were lawfully good prize, Holmes and his officers showed the greatest reluctance to be examined. Included in the cargoes were goods belonging to Spaniards and subjects of other nations, but notwithstanding this the Council wished to confiscate everything. Sir Leoline Jenkins, Judge of the High Court of Admiralty, opposed this design with great energy. The confiscation of Dutch ships and property in time of peace might be colourably made under the pretence that the owners refused to strike their flag and were the aggressors. But to condemn neutral goods on board as lawful prize would be, Sir Leoline said, to introduce “a new law of war, not so honourable for us to endure from others when his Majesty shall be at peace and his neighbours at war.” He declared that no hostile act of the Dutch, supposing them the aggressors, could involve a stranger not party to it, before a public declaration of war; and as he threatened to resign his office if the course was persisted in, the Council gave way, and restitution was made of the property of neutrals.[891]

The iniquity of this shameful and deliberate attack on Dutch shipping in time of peace was not extenuated or obscured by the plea of the English Ministry that it had been caused by the obstinacy of the Dutch in refusing to strike the flag. The opinion of Europe was expressed in the remark of a French diplomatist at one of the German Courts, that “when the king, his master, made war on the States-General, he would not do so like a pirate.” An immediate result of the onslaught on the Smyrna fleet was to convince not only the States-General, but the French Court, that Charles was in earnest, and the formal declaration of war could not be longer delayed. On 17th March 1672, the day after Churchill brought the tidings to London, an Order in Council was issued to print and publish the declaration of war against the States-General. In this long, verbose, and rhetorical document of eight pages Charles tried hard to justify his flagrant violation of treaties. The real reason of the war could not be avowed, but every complaint that had at any time been levelled against the Dutch was now dragged forth, accusation being piled on accusation. The accumulated charges connected with the East Indies, the West Indies, and Surinam were revived and aggravated; the safety of trade, upon which the wealth and prosperity of the English people depended, was in danger; the king and nation were declared to have been insulted by lampoons and caricatures. But, as was to be expected from the antecedents, a principal ground of rupture was found in the flouting by the Dutch of the right of England to the honour of the flag and the sovereignty of the sea. “The right of the flag,” the king declared, “is so ancient that it was one of the first prerogatives of our royal predecessors, and ought to be the last from which this kingdom should ever depart. It was never questioned, and it was expressly acknowledged in the treaty of Breda; and yet this last summer it was not only violated by their commanders at sea, and that violation afterwards justified at The Hague, but it was also represented by them in most Courts of Christendom as ridiculous for us to demand. An ungrateful insolence! That they should contend with us about the dominion of these seas, who, even in the reign of our royal father, thought it an obligation to be permitted to fish in them, by taking of licenses and for a tribute.” Notwithstanding all these provocations, the king continued, he had patiently waited expecting satisfaction. To the memorials sent to them they had at last replied to this effect: “That in this conjuncture they would condescend to strike to us, if we would assist them against the French; but upon condition that it should never be taken for a precedent hereafter to their prejudice.” The concluding negotiations were mendaciously summarised by saying that after the return of Downing the States-General sent over an extraordinary ambassador, who declared he could give no satisfaction till he had consulted his masters. “Wherefore,” said the king, “despairing now of any good effect of further treaty, we are compelled to take up arms in defence of an ancient prerogative of our crown, and the glory and safety of our kingdoms.”

Louis’ declaration of war, of fewer words and greater dignity, followed; arrangements were completed for the union of the English and French fleets, and no difficulty was made about the salute. Charles, while taking so high and imperial a tone in the declaration of war about the ancient and sacred rights of the English flag, immediately relinquished them to his royal ally and paymaster. For the first time in history the French fleet was put on an equality with the English in the British seas. Orders were issued that if an English squadron under a vice-admiral was sent to the Mediterranean to be commanded by a French admiral, the latter was to be saluted in the same manner as he was saluted by French vice-admirals. When an English frigate was sent to Brest with a despatch for the Comte d’Estrées, the Vice-Admiral of France, it was ordered if it met the French squadron appointed to join the English fleet to salute them as if they were English ships, and to treat the French Vice-Admiral as if he were English. Charles sent similar commands to the Governors of Portsmouth, Dartmouth, Dover, and other places--that the French ships were to be saluted as if they were English. Thus not only in the Mediterranean, but in the Channel and in English ports, the English flag was to be lowered to that of France--a proposition that might have made the old sea-dogs turn in their graves.[892]

The junction of the allied fleets was followed, on 28th May, by the fierce and sanguinary battle of Solebay. The victory was indecisive, but the advantage lay rather with the Dutch. De Ruyter withdrew to his own coast, and the English were too much crippled to follow.[893] No other great sea-fight took place in 1672, but in September Sir Edward Spragge employed his squadron against the Dutch fishermen. Just before the declaration of war the States-General laid an embargo on their fishing vessels; but they removed it in September,[894] and towards the end of the month it was reported that a hundred Dutch busses, convoyed by twenty frigates, were fishing off the Norfolk coast. On the 22nd Spragge’s squadron, showing no colours, appeared off Yarmouth, and greatly frightened the English herring fishermen, who thought the Dutch fleet was upon them. By noon on the 24th he had captured eleven Dutch doggers and 117 prisoners; two of the doggers had licenses from the English Government, and were released later. By the end of the month the prizes numbered about thirty doggers, one buss, and a privateer, with over 300 prisoners,--not a very large haul,--while about 200 others had been chased home, and many nets, which the fishermen had cut and left in the water, were destroyed. Spragge having thus, as he reported, “cleared these seas of fishermen except our own,” returned to the Thames.[895]

While the Dutch maintained the contest at sea with honour and success, they were overwhelmed on land. A great French army, under Turenne, Condé, and other celebrated generals of the age, poured into the Provinces. Town after town, fortress after fortress, surrendered to the invaders, and the Prince of Orange, with the remnant of his small army, retired into Holland. It seemed inevitable that the Republic, contending with the two most powerful states in Europe and bereft of allies,--for Sweden as well as England had been detached from the triple league,--would soon be subjugated. The States-General, in despair, sued for peace. Two ambassadors were sent to Louis and two to Charles. Louis offered them impossible terms, and allowed ten days for acceptance or rejection. Charles refused to see them at all, but sent them to Hampton Court along with Boreel, who had not yet left England; and there they remained for some weeks carrying on a sort of backstairs negotiation. Then the king, fearing they might intrigue with his own subjects, who were in sympathy with them, dismissed them early in August. But becoming apprehensive at the unexpected rapidity of the French conquests, he despatched the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Arlington, and soon also Viscount Halifax, to negotiate anew with Louis, and to inform him of the overtures for peace from the States-General. On their way they passed through Holland, where they had several interviews with the Dutch Government and the Prince of Orange. After renewing the league with Louis at Utrecht, and agreeing that neither king should conclude peace except with the consent of the other, the conditions on which Charles was willing to make peace were formulated. The States were asked to undertake, on demand, to banish perpetually any person guilty of treason against the king, or of writing seditious libels; to pay £1,000,000 sterling towards the cost of the war; to invest the Prince of Orange with the sovereignty of the United Provinces, or at least to confer upon him the highest offices; and to surrender as security to the king Walcheren, the city and castle of Sluys, as well as the isles of Cadsand, Goeree, and Voorne. With regard to the sovereignty of the sea, they were to yield the honour of the flag without the least reserve or hesitation, so that whole fleets were to lower their top-sails and strike their flags to a single English ship carrying the king’s flag, in any part of the British sea up to the coasts of the United Provinces. The States-General were, moreover, to agree to pay to the King of England, for ever, the sum of £10,000 a-year for permission which the king would grant them to fish for herrings on the coasts of England, Scotland, and Ireland.[896]

The demands of Louis were even more oppressive to the Dutch, and threatened them in what they held most dear--their religious liberty, for the sake of which they had formerly fought so long and so heroically against the tyranny of Spain.

In this crisis of their history despair and fury seized upon the people. The Ministers were blamed for the misfortunes of the country; a popular tumult burst forth in favour of the Prince of Orange; and John de Witt, the clear-eyed statesman who had so long held the helm and steered the Republic through so many dangers and difficulties, was foully murdered in circumstances of great brutality--a fate which his brother shared. The young Prince infused his own invincible spirit into the people. The terms of peace were rejected, and a supreme effort was made to save the country by the method which had been adopted against Alva and Requesens just a century before: the dykes were opened and the land laid under water, causing the enemy to retreat. The steadfast courage of the Prince of Orange and the growing alarm at the designs of France at last brought allies to the States. Spain and both branches of the house of Austria espoused their cause, and German troops came marching to the Rhine.

But the ally on which the Dutch most relied was the Parliament of England. It had now been prorogued for nearly two years, and Charles was at last forced to summon it by his need of money to carry on the war. When it met, the members were told by the king that he had been forced into a war which was just and necessary both for the honour and the interest of the nation, and he referred them to his declaration, in which the reasons were given. He also defended the Declaration of Indulgence to dissenters, which had been designed to favour the Roman Catholics, and about which the country was greatly agitated. The Earl of Shaftesbury, as Chancellor, enlarged on the same themes. Against the Dutch he levelled such charges as were contained in the declaration of war. They had broken treaties about the East Indies and Surinam, “and at last,” he exclaimed, “they came to that height of insolence, as to deny the honour and right of the flag, though an undoubted jewel of this crown, never to be parted with; and by them particularly owned in the late treaty of Breda and never contested in any age.” He accused them of disputing the king’s title to it in all the Courts of Christendom, and of having made great offers to the King of France if he would stand by them against England. They were branded as the common enemy to all monarchies, and especially to that of England, “their only competitor for trade and power at sea,” who alone stood in their way to a universal empire as great as Rome. They had, he said, slighted all negotiations and refused all cessation of hostilities; and the king, he claimed, in entering on the war had only carried out the maxims of the Parliament which had advised the last war, and had then judged it necessary to extirpate the Dutch, laying it down as an eternal maxim, “delenda est Carthago, that government is to be brought down.” The Parliament was then asked to vote further supplies.

At first, while avoiding the least approbation of the war, Parliament passed a resolution that they would grant eighteen months’ assessments, at the rate of £70,000 a-month, for the king’s “extraordinary occasions”; but this was designed merely to allow them time to deal with the Declaration of Indulgence before Charles could afford to dismiss them. The contest with the king on this question ended in victory for the Parliament, which then passed the Test Act, disqualifying Catholics for all offices under the crown. The king was still resolved to pursue the war. The money voted by Parliament served to equip a fleet; and as the Duke of York was made ineligible owing to the Test Act, Prince Rupert took his place as admiral. In May 1673 the combined naval forces of France and England sought out De Ruyter on his own coast, and three battles were fought in the summer,--on 28th May, 4th June, and 11th August,--both sides claiming victory; but the Dutch prevented the projected landing of English troops, and compelled the allies to retire to their own coasts.[897]

By this time, however, the king saw he could not with safety continue to carry on the war much longer. Spain, which had already declared war against France, threatened to do the same against England unless peace was made, and this would destroy the lucrative English trade with that country. The war was intensely unpopular in England, and the seamen fought without heart. The timid conduct of the French squadrons in the various battles excited deep and widespread resentment. It was on all sides rumoured that Charles had sold his country in order to carry out the selfish designs of Louis. The subsidies, moreover, were soon exhausted, and it would be necessary to ask Parliament again for more money. It was clear that the appeal which Charles had made to the spirit or vanity of the nation with respect to the honour of the flag and the sovereignty of the sea had thoroughly failed, although inspired and mercenary pens did what they could to arouse enthusiasm. These efforts were indeed a measure of the unpopularity of the third Dutch war. Before it broke out certain authors had handled the theme. The learned Prynne, who lost his ears for opposing Charles I., became a subservient supporter of his son; and, as Keeper of the Records in the Tower, he published an erudite, but confused, book in which the absolute right of the King of England to the dominion of the surrounding seas was maintained.[898] In a very different kind of book, one Captain John Smith repeated current arguments and misstatements on the same topic, especially with reference to the fisheries, for he had been one of the agents of the Fishery Society of Charles I. He makes a statement that must have caused the king, if he saw it, some surprise at his modesty in asking only £10,000 or £12,000 from the Dutch. He had heard, he says, that the “composition” of the Hollanders for leave to fish on our coasts was an annual rent of £100,000 and £100,000 “in hand”; and as none of it had been paid into the Exchequer, he computed the arrears then to be over £2,500,000, a sum which, he very truly remarked,--and it is the sole truth in the statement,--“would come very happily for the present occasions of his Majesty.” Like many others before him and after him, he advocated the building of a fleet of busses and the prohibition of the Hollanders from fishing in the British seas.[899] Still other writers laid stress on the close connection between the sovereignty of the sea and trade, commerce, and navigation;[900] and after the war broke out more pointed attacks were made against the Dutch. They were accused of invading our fisheries without license from the king, refusing to strike sail, disputing our dominion of the seas, and by artifice supplanting us in trade and commerce.[901]

None of those works was of much account, and the Ministry felt the need of obtaining the services of an able writer to stimulate ill-feeling against the Dutch, and in particular to answer a well-reasoned pamphlet which the Dutch had widely circulated in refutation of the reasons for the war given in the king’s declaration. The States-General did not reply to that document, but Wicquefort did so in the pamphlet referred to, which was entitled “Considerations on the Present State of the United Netherlands.” The tone of his reply was extremely temperate. The writer insisted on the difference between the striking of the flag and the sovereignty of the sea; the former was merely a ceremony of respect which all republics paid to monarchies, and not in the least a sign of subjection or an acknowledgment of sovereignty, and as such it had been regulated in the treaty of Breda. The States had always resisted the claim that a whole fleet of theirs should strike to a single English ship. In 1654 Cromwell had abandoned a similar claim on their objecting; and as the article in the treaty of Breda was the same as the one agreed to in 1654, it was unjust to construe it now in the sense of the article which Cromwell had withdrawn. On that ground alone, therefore, it could not be maintained that Van Ghent and the whole Dutch fleet were bound to strike to the king’s yacht. Moreover, the article applied only to the British seas, and the writer argued that that meant the Channel and not the North Sea, citing the seventh article of the treaty of Breda as to the cessation of hostilities. Since the Dutch fleet were lying at anchor off their own coast when the king’s yacht passed, they were not obliged to strike, because they were in the North Sea, and not in the British seas at all. The conclusion was drawn, and as we have seen justly, that the king had sent his yacht for the deliberate purpose of getting a ground of quarrel. As for the sovereignty of the sea, the States attributed to God alone such dominion as the king usurped to himself. They therefore refused Downing’s demands, which had been put forward to give the king a pretext for war. To admit them would ruin the United Provinces, which lived by commerce and the liberty of the sea. As for the fisheries, they had never asked for permission to fish from the King of England; and though in 1636 licenses were forced upon some of their defenceless fishermen by English men-of-war, that was an act of violence from which no right or title could be derived, and the attempt was relinquished at the demand of the States-General, and had not been repeated.

The cogent arguments of the Dutch writer were well fitted to confirm the general opinion in England as to the cause of the war, and the Court promptly secured the services of Henry Stubbe, a clever, versatile, and prolific writer, to refute them. His answer to Wicquefort was considered by the private committee on 15th May 1672,[902] and it was published anonymously in the following month.[903] The spirit in which Stubbe entered into his task is revealed in a letter he wrote to Secretary Williamson. “The rule I go by,” he said, “is this: that no nation is more zealous for their honour than the English; that if they are put into a great passion they forget their particular interests and animosities.”[904] He therefore tried as much as he could to inflame the public mind.

The Justification, though rabid in tone, is in many respects an able book. It differs from many of the controversial works of the day in that the author, however oblique may be his inferences from them, does not, so far as we have observed, pervert and misquote the documents he cites. It is unnecessary to particularise his arguments on the sovereignty of the sea. They were drawn mainly from Selden, Welwood, and other authors, and partly from certain State Papers which the Ministry placed at his disposal. The striking of the flag by foreigners was, of course, declared to be a regality, and “paramount to all treaties”; it was a “fundamental of the crown and dignity of the King of England.” The attack on the Smyrna fleet, which Wicquefort denounced and made the most of, was justified by their refusal to strike their flags, the instructions issued to the admirals of England for four hundred years compelling them to seize all ships which refused. The universal dominion which the king possessed over the British seas was thus formulated: (1) the regality of fishing for pearl, coral, amber (!), &c., and the “direction and disposal” of all fishes “as they shall seem to deserve the regards of the public”--a somewhat cryptic claim; (2) the prescribing of the laws of navigation to foreigners as well as to the king’s own subjects; (3) the power of imposing customs and taxes upon those navigating or fishing in them; (4) jurisdiction in regard to maritime delinquencies; (5) the duty of foreign ships to strike their flags and lower their top-sails to the king’s “floating castles,” the ships of war, by which “submission they are put in remembrance that they have come into a territory wherein they are to own a sovereign power and jurisdiction, and receive protection from it.” It was admitted that the sea was free for commerce and innocent passage; but both might be refused if there was suspicion of danger, and that the imposition of tribute for fishing, convoy, or the maintenance of lights and beacons did not infringe the liberty of commerce.

The work appears to have pleased his employers, for immediately after its publication Stubbe began the composition of another on the same lines--to vindicate the “honour” of his Majesty and the kingdom. In this he wished very much to deal with the lampoons and “scandalous pictures” circulated in Holland, “thereby to raise a due passion and resentment in the English,” especially one which represented the English ambassadors at Breda kneeling in supplication to their High Mightinesses the States-General; and Sir Joseph Williamson, who was then in Holland with Buckingham and Arlington, was asked to bring over specimens of these. He told Williamson that in his new work, which he proposed to entitle “An Apology for the King’s Majesty’s Declaration, By an Old Commonwealth Man,” he would represent to the English people his Majesty’s “generous concern for his subjects’ welfare and trade,” and his admirable prudence in the noble conduct of affairs; he would excuse his stop of the Exchequer and the Declaration of Indulgence, and descant upon the growth of the Dutch by contumelies to the king and nation. Stubbe was also anxious to obtain, besides the pictures and medals, a manuscript book which he had seen, containing an account of the transactions between the Dutch and the Commonwealth. This was in the possession of Thurloe, who had been Secretary under Cromwell, and he refused to produce it, until a warrant issued by Lord Clifford compelled him to give it up.[905]

The second work was published in 1673, and Stubbe did all that he promised to do, copiously illustrating it with figures of the objectionable medals and pictures, and greatly abusing the Dutch.[906]

But all such efforts to stir up animosity against the Dutch and to convince the public and Parliament of the justness of the war completely failed, and Charles was forced to enter into negotiations for peace. Immediately after the battle of the Texel, in August 1673, a congress of the Powers which had assembled at Cologne began its deliberations to arrange terms of peace, under the mediation of Sweden. The English plenipotentiaries were Sir Leoline Jenkins and Sir Joseph Williamson, and the instructions given to them by Charles included the following:--“The principal points we shall insist upon,” said the king, “beyond the particular ones relating to general amity, commerce, &c., are these following: First, To have the honour for the future paid to the flagg of England, which hath been practised and acknowledged by them in all former times. Secondly, A million of pounds sterling to reimburse us in some part the expenses we have been at in making the war. Thirdly, Ten thousand pounds per annum as an honorary acknowledgment for the great benefit that Republic reaps for the fishing on our coasts, and two thousand pounds more for the like liberty they enjoy upon the coast of our kingdom of Scotland.”[907]

The terms of peace now offered, it will be observed, were much less exacting than those demanded in the previous year, and the request for an express acknowledgment of the king’s sovereignty of the sea was dropped. The Dutch plenipotentiaries at the outset of the proceedings said little difficulty would be raised about the question of the flag, but they demurred to the demand to pay tribute for liberty of fishing.[908] This thorny subject was threshed out on either side with all the old arguments which were used in the times of James and Cromwell. The Dutch pled possession, prescription, treaties; the English replied that the treaties had expired in subsequent wars, and were abrogated by the separation of the Provinces from the House of Burgundy, with whom the treaties were made. A new point was raised to show that no right could now be claimed under the Burgundy treaties. If they were still in force, why had the citizens of Bruges in the Spanish Netherlands, subjects of the King of Spain, who was the successor and descendant of the Dukes of Burgundy, and the very people in whose favour the Magnus Intercursus was made, petitioned the King of England as lately as 1666 for a license to fish in the British seas, a privilege which had been granted to them?[909] To this the Dutch replied that the right to the fishery did not spring from the treaty of 1495, which had been made merely to avoid contests that previously occurred. As the result of conferences with the Dutch representatives, the Swedish mediators informed Jenkins and Williamson that the States-General would not consent to an annual payment for the right of fishery, but they suggested, as the Prince of Orange had done once before, that the matter might be compromised by the payment of a lump sum. Charles declined this proposal, but he reduced the amount of the yearly payment he asked by half--to £5000 for the English fishery and £1000 for the Scottish. The conference was at the same time informed that it was then, and always would be, the “passion” both of king and subject in England to assert and preserve the great royalty of the fishery.

Since the Dutch would not agree to the payment of an annual tribute for the liberty to fish, and Charles would not agree to a lump sum, the mediator suggested that the Dutch might be asked for a small yearly payment for the privilege of drying their nets on shore. This ingenious device roused the suspicions of the English delegates, who feared the tabling of a clause which would represent the tribute as for the use of the land and not for the liberty of fishing. Charles agreed with them in refusing the compromise, telling them that the article about the fishing was “to be barely and solely for the liberty of fishing on his Majesty’s coasts,” and was not to be mixed up with any question of drying nets. They were also told to make it clear that his license was to be a “successive permission” only, from his Majesty to the Dutch, for liberty to fish, and to take care, not to part wholly with his right in the fishery to them. By an arrangement of this nature Charles and his successors would have been free to follow the example of the kings of Denmark in dealing with the dues at the Sound--that is, in gradually raising the amount.[910]

Passing from this subject to the question of the flag, it was soon apparent that the Dutch had been too sanguine in thinking there would be little difficulty in dealing with it. The mediators, in drawing up a protocol of the English demands, had modified the article put in concerning the flag. The English had confined themselves to the bare words “the right of the flag” (“le droit du pavillon”), to which the Swedes added, “in the manner your Excellencies (the Dutch ambassadors) projected.” The Dutch, in short, had expanded the meaning of the nineteenth article of the treaty of Breda so as to omit the troublesome and objectionable words “the British seas,” their proposed article being “that ships of the United Provinces meeting British ships at sea should lower the top-sail and the flag, in such manner as the same had ever been previously observed.” Jenkins and Williamson strongly opposed the omission of the phrase “the British seas.” They declared that the King of England had a special right and immemorial prerogative in those particular seas, but if he grasped at the same honour in all places, not only the Dutch but all the world besides would have reason to dispute it with him. They said further that the king wished that yachts, by name, and all vessels whatsoever in his service and carrying his colours, flag, or jack, should have the same honour paid to them. They also objected to the clause “in such manner as,” &c., as being vague and open to misunderstanding, and insisted that it should be set down clearly what the Dutch were to do and how they were to do it in the future. They wished, in short, to bind the Dutch by an express stipulation to the view that the meaning of the clause in the previous treaties was that whole fleets should strike to any single vessel in the king’s service in the British seas, while leaving “the British seas” undetermined; and they tabled an article to that effect. Both the Dutch and the mediators objected to this clause as asserting positively that to have been the custom in former times, and saying that to admit it would be to condemn themselves in what they had done in regard to the Merlin. They were quite willing, they said, to do the thing for the future, but it was unreasonable to ask them to avow so openly that they had been in the wrong in not doing it hitherto. To this the English replied that it was most certainly and notoriously an ancient right of the crown of England, of which they had proofs in all ages, and that to omit the words would be to accept of the ceremony as a courtesy and not as a right.

At this stage, however, the king sent them a new article about the flag, defining in part the limits within which the Dutch were to be asked to strike, and these were from Cape Finisterre to the North Cape in Norway. These surprising boundaries had been suggested a year or two before as the limits of the British seas by the Masters of the Trinity House (p. 478), and no doubt Charles meant them to be so considered. They were derived primarily from Selden’s Mare Clausum, and the southern limit, Cape Finisterre, had been for some time incorporated in the Admiralty instructions.[911] The Dutch were thus to be asked to strike to English ships along almost the whole extent of the western coasts of Europe, a distance exceeding two thousand miles.

The English plenipotentiaries did not like this article. They informed Lord Arlington that when they were preparing the one they had already submitted, they had wished there had been means to ascertain the bounds of our seas as well as there was for clearing up the point regarding whole fleets striking to a single ship; but they had concluded that the king and the Lords of the Committee (for foreign affairs) looked upon it as a thing so invidious and difficult as not to be attempted at that juncture. They explained that they would receive no assistance from the French ambassador or the mediators, all of whom, they clearly perceived, had difficulty in containing themselves from disputing the right of striking at all. As long as they confined the claim to the British seas they were not afraid of opposition, since they had overwhelming evidence as to the usage. But if they insisted on the limits of Cape Finisterre and the North Cape, and supported their contention with arguments from geography or tradition, or if they were asked to produce proofs or instances as to “the matter of fact” near those limits, they foresaw that objections would be raised which they were not sufficiently instructed to answer. No doubt, they continued, it might be advantageous to fix some limits in order to lessen the chance of disputes, but even if mathematical lines could be laid down and agreed upon, it would not remove all ground of quarrel. Besides, to fix definite bounds would place upon themselves a burden which properly lay upon their adversaries; for when the king’s right of the flag was established as incontrovertible within the British seas, if any one who was called upon to strike declared he was not in the British seas, he would have to prove it. This long disquisition failed to convince the king. He insisted that the previous article, in which the term “British seas” alone occurred, should be withdrawn and the new article with the specified limits substituted.[912]

The influence of certain important changes in political affairs which had taken place since the congress met now made itself strongly felt at the deliberations. The position and the prospects of the United Provinces had greatly improved. The States-General had succeeded in entering into alliances with the Emperor, the King of Spain, and the Dukes of Brandenburg and Lunenburg. In the field the movements of the Prince of Orange and his allies caused Louis to abandon his conquests with even greater rapidity than he had made them. The English Parliament, too, from which the Dutch had reason to hope for much, was about to assemble. It was thus natural that the Dutch ambassadors and the representatives of their allies at the congress should take a higher tone in dealing with the peace proposals. Some of the conditions which had been put forward by France and England were now declared to mean “utter ruin” to the Dutch, or their “eternal servitude”; and among them was the demand of Charles for a payment for liberty of fishing, which it was asserted would make them tributary to England. The English plenipotentiaries employed all the arguments they could discover in Selden’s Mare Clausum and other similar works, and in the volume of State Papers with which they were provided, to convince the congress that fisheries might be “appropriated” on the high seas as well as in rivers and lakes, and that the King of England had the exclusive right to the fisheries off his own coasts. They cited the example of Genoa with the tunny fishery, the treaties between England and Denmark concerning the fisheries on the Norwegian coast and at Iceland, the licenses of the kings of Denmark, the English licenses to French fishermen and the grant to Bruges, the Act of Richard II., and the licenses forced by the Earl of Northumberland on the Hollander busses in 1636. They even displayed the original documents showing King James’s expostulations with the Dutch in 1618, and the charter granted to Bruges. It was all in vain. The times had changed. The Dutch ambassadors could now afford to pass the matter off with a raillery. They told Jenkins and Williamson that they “would bait the herrings, as men do carps, to come and feed upon their coasts, and then they would be in possession of a liberty to fish”; adding that they would then allow the English to fish upon the Dutch coast without fear of molestation. More seriously, they said that since no similar stipulation had been allowed in any previous treaty, the States-General trusted to the goodness of the king to pass over the article on that occasion; and Beverning, who was one of the Dutch representatives, recalled how he had discussed the whole matter with Cromwell in 1653, who had withdrawn the claim to the fishery.

No one, neither the mediators nor even the French, the allies of Charles, gave the English ambassadors any encouragement to insist on the fishery article; and finally De Groot informed them, in language more forcible than elegant, that his countrymen would rather “burst” than submit to any acknowledgment in that matter, and that he believed the States would sooner forbid their subjects to fish at all than to ask leave to do so of the crown of England.

The English ambassadors were forced to tell the king that they had no hope of obtaining consent to the article about the fishery, unless indeed the Parliament (which had by this time strongly and boldly shown its sympathy with Holland) “should happen to stand vigorously by his Majesty in this demand which he is pleased to make.” They suggested--almost, one may think, with a touch of irony--that the Dutch might be offered, as an alternative, “a Bill,” like the proclamation of James in 1609, or the Act of 2 Richard II. that laid an impost of sixpence a ton on our own fishing vessels, “wherein,” they added, “if strangers be not intended (as we humbly conceive they are), they may be more expressly taken in.”[913]

Although it was on the fishery article that the negotiations stuck most, difficulties also continued to arise about the one on the flag. The Dutch said they were willing to do anything that had been done in former times by way of respect to the crown of England; they could not do it as a right, nor could they do anything that might be construed to be an acknowledgment of the king’s claim to the dominion of the British seas. They were unable to admit, without proof, that it was the former practice for a whole fleet of theirs to strike to a single English ship; and while again affirming their willingness for this to be done in future, they declined to make any express recognition of it as a right in the treaty, saying that it would be “abundant courtesy” if they admitted the words Maria Britannica, as in all their other treaties; it was a term, moreover, which the French could not be brought to admit into their treaty of Breda, insisting on the term maria proxima instead. The English representatives would not condescend to adduce proofs as to the past usage. The king, they said, would not allow an observance so ancient and notorious to be questioned as a matter of fact, any more than that England was an ancient monarchy; and they did not ask for a fuller stipulation than in the article proposed by Cromwell. On the other side, it was pointed out that Cromwell had given up all the points raised, especially the striking of a whole fleet; and, moreover, they could not allow that all the tract of sea between the North Cape and Cape Finisterre was the British Ocean, and they hinted they were willing to strike all the world over without any limitation of places. The English ambassadors wrote to Arlington that although they had not been instructed to claim as British the sea between the limits named, yet, if these limits were adhered to, the Dutch would not fail to alarm the Dane and the Swede, the French and the Spaniard. They were justly suspicious of the too generous offer of the Dutch to strike in all seas. They saw in it the design to make the special right possessed in the British seas, in virtue of the king’s sovereignty there, less certain and evident in future ages, and to transform it into a mere mark of civility. Charles gave way to a slight degree. In February 1674 he sent on another article, in which the northern limit was brought down from the North Cape to the middle point of the Land-van-Staten in Norway.[914]

By this time, however, negotiations for a separate peace between England and the United Provinces had been begun in London, and the sluggish congress at Cologne, slowly evolving a general peace, broke up and dispersed. Charles was driven to negotiate separately by the action of the Parliament, which financial necessities had forced him to summon in October, and which lost little time in showing its ill-humour with his policy. In his opening speech he stated that he had hoped to be able to announce the conclusion of an honourable peace, but the Dutch, he said, had treated his ambassadors at Cologne “with the contempt of conquerors,” and had other thoughts than peace; and he asked for supplies. Shaftesbury, as usual, filled in the picture. The king, he said, had expected to meet them with the olive-branch of peace, but the obstinacy of the Dutch had foiled the negotiations, although his Majesty’s concessions had been so great. “He could not,” he continued, “be King of Great Britain without securing the dominion and property of his own seas: the first, by an article clear, and not elusory, of the flag; the other, by an article that preserved the right of the fishing, but gave the Dutch permission, as tenants, under a small rent, to enjoy and continue that gainful trade upon his coasts.” But the Dutch, he said, would not agree to any article on the flag that was clear or plain, and they refused any article about the fishery except such a one as might convey to them the right of inheritance for an inconsiderable sum of money, “though it be a Royalty so inherent in the crown of England, that I may say (with his Majesty’s pardon for the expression) he cannot sell it.” “There is not,” continued the Chancellor, “so lawful or commendable a jealousy in the world, as an Englishman’s of the growing greatness of any Prince at sea. If you permit the sea, our British wife, to be ravished, an eternal mark of infamy will stick upon us.” It was therefore the duty of Parliament to provide the king with more money.[915]

Parliament was not to be cozened by fair words or beguiled by the oratorical tropes of Shaftesbury. The Commons boldly affirmed they would vote no more money unless it appeared that the Dutch were so obstinate as to refuse all reasonable conditions of peace; and with regard to other matters they showed a bellicose spirit. The king resolved to prorogue them suddenly, and went unexpectedly to the House of Peers and sent for the Commons. When Black Rod approached to summon them the door was hastily closed, the Speaker was hurried into the chair, and the following motions were instantly put: that the alliance with France was a grievance; that the evil counsellors about the king were a grievance; that the Duke of Lauderdale was a grievance and not fit to be trusted or employed. Before the motions could be passed, Black Rod, knocking loudly in the king’s name, was admitted, and the House rose in confusion. A scene so reminiscent of the days of his father could hardly be lost on Charles. It was clear that it would be impossible to continue the Dutch war if its continuance depended on Parliament voting money for it.

Shortly afterwards the king found it necessary to summon Parliament again, and, changing his attitude, he condescended to submit to them, for their opinion, certain propositions for peace which the States-General had communicated through the Spanish ambassador. At the same time he sent privately for John Evelyn, who had been for some time engaged on a history of the second Dutch war, and asked him to write something “against the Hollanders about the duty of the flag and fishery,” no doubt with the intention and object of influencing the opinion of Parliament.[916] Parliament acted with promptitude. They passed a resolution, on 27th January 1674, recommending the king to make a speedy peace. Louis, who saw how things were tending with the Parliament, having advised the same course, Sir William Temple was summoned from his orchards a few days later and requested to proceed to The Hague to conclude the treaty. On the eve of his departure, the Marquis de Frezno, the Spanish ambassador, announced that he had received full powers from the States to treat and conclude a peace. The negotiations were thereupon conducted in London between Sir William Temple and the Marquis, and they went on so smoothly and speedily that the treaty was signed at Westminster on 9th February. The two points that caused the greatest difficulty were the flag and the recalling of the English troops from the French service: the claim for tribute for liberty to fish was dropped altogether.[917]

The article relating to the flag differed from the corresponding articles in the previous treaties. It was as follows:--

“The said States-General of the United Provinces, duly acknowledging, on their part, the right of the above-mentioned most serene prince, the King of Great Britain, to have honour paid to his flag in the seas to be hereafter named, will and do declare and agree, that all and singular the ships and vessels belonging to the said United Provinces, whether ships of war or others, whether single ships or in squadrons, which shall meet with any ships or vessels whatsoever belonging to the most serene prince, the King of Great Britain, whether one or more, carrying his Britannic Majesty’s ensign, or flag called the Jack, in any of the seas from the Cape called Finisterre, to the middle point of the land called van Staten, in Norway, the foresaid ships or vessels of the United Provinces shall strike their flag and lower their topsail, in the same manner and with the like testimony of respect, as hath been customary in any time or place heretofore, by any ships of the States-General or their predecessors to any ships of his Britannic Majesty or his predecessors.”[918]

* * * * *

Most writers who have dealt with the subject have followed Temple in thinking that this article was a great triumph for English diplomacy. “The point of the flag,” said Temple, “was carried to all the height his Majesty could wish; and thereby a claim of the crown, the acknowledgment of its dominion in the narrow seas, allowed by treaty from the most powerful of our neighbours at sea, which had never yet been yielded to by the weakest of them, that I can remember, in the whole course of our pretence; and had served hitherto but for an occasion of quarrel, whenever we or they had a mind to it, upon other reasons or conjectures.”[919]

Temple’s eulogy of his own diplomacy was hardly justified. The Dutch had offered a similar article at Cologne; the striking of the flag had been provided for in previous treaties, and it was not in the least, as Temple should have known well (for De Witt often told him), and as the wording of the article shows, an acknowledgment of the dominion of England in the narrow seas. There is nothing in the article of the Westminster treaty that the Dutch were not perfectly willing to concede at Cologne. It was an improvement on the arrangement in previous treaties, inasmuch as the northern and southern limits of the seas in which the Dutch were to strike were defined, and it was made clear that the Dutch were to strike to a single English ship.

But in truth the real diplomatic victory lay with the Dutch. The striking of the flag is expressly described in the article as a ceremony of “honour” and a “testimony of respect,”-- a qualification and attenuation not to be found in the previous treaties. By the introduction of these words the Dutch gained a point they had long contended for. Equally pertinent was the omission of the term “British seas,” which is found in all the earlier treaties,--an omission for which Charles was in part responsible. The ceremony “of respect” was to be paid “in any of the seas” between Cape Finisterre and Van Staten; and while the Dutch refused to consider those seas British, the English plenipotentiaries at Cologne were unable to contend that they were British. The limits fixed were therefore, as Sir Philip Meadows observed, “too wide for dominion and too narrow for respect”;[920] for we never claimed dominion in the Sea of Norway or the Bay of Biscay, and the Dutch offered to strike to the king’s flag all over the world. There is little doubt that the part of the article in which Charles was most interested was that relating to the striking of a squadron to a single ship of his, as it furnished a sort of justification for the action of the Merlin before the war. Temple himself was most anxious that the “former custom” referred to in all the previous treaties should be clearly defined; and Charles was entirely satisfied with the article.[921]

Notwithstanding Temple’s satisfaction as to the article on the flag, it did not end disputes on the subject. In the year in which the treaty was concluded, and in the year following, several episodes occurred. One of them concerned personages no less eminent than the English ambassadors who had been at Cologne, and it formed a practical commentary on the fruitless negotiations in which they had been engaged. Sir Leoline Jenkins and Sir Joseph Williamson did not return until after the conclusion of peace, and when the king’s yacht, the Cleveland, which had been sent to bring them over, was lying at anchor off the Briel, with Sir Leoline on board, a yacht of the States passed between it and the shore without striking its flag or firing any guns. When a message was sent from the Cleveland to the commander of the yacht, who was ashore, telling him he should have struck his flag, he only shrugged his shoulders and said he had the States’ ambassadors bound for England aboard. The Cleveland then weighed anchor and went about a league seawards, where the Dutch yacht and a man-of-war were lying. Again no flag was lowered to the king’s yacht, and the English captain asked Jenkins what he should do. Jenkins adduced the case of Tromp’s striking to the Earl of Arundel in Goeree Road, and also of Prince Maurice’s yacht, which a few days before had struck “to the kitchen-yacht in the canal of Delf-Haven, between the houses.” The captain then remembered that the Dutch had struck to him in that very place as he passed up to Rotterdam, and he proceeded to take vigorous measures to compel the “duty.” A shot was fired “under the forefoot” of the States’ man-of-war, and after a “convenient” interval another over his poop, and then a third between his masts. This brought a boat from the man-of-war to say that the States’ ambassadors were “much astonished” at the shots being fired, and that they would not strike, as they were within their own ports. But when Sir Leoline Jenkins sent a formal request to Van Beuningen, one of the Dutch ambassadors, the man-of-war took in its flag, and the incident ended.[922] In the following year Sir Leoline Jenkins was again a passenger on board one of the royal yachts, the Charles; on reaching the Maes a Holland man-of-war saluted with five guns, but kept its pennant flying, and only took it in and repeated the guns after two shots had been fired at it by the Charles; the men-of-war at the Briel also saluted with their pennants struck.[923]

In the spring of the same year Captain Herbert in the Cambridge encountered six French ships off Dungeness which refused to strike, and returned the fire, their admiral saying it was the King of France’s ship, and did not strike. They outsailed the Cambridge, said Herbert, which was no match for them. A few weeks later a French privateer in the same locality refused to strike to the Garland; and the tables were turned on the English by a Dutch privateer, which fired on a Whitby merchant vessel for not striking quick enough, and fined the master six shillings and eightpence for each shot expended, as well as beating and abusing him.[924] A case of quite a different kind, unique indeed, as it appears, occurred at the end of 1675. On the return of the Quaker ketch to England the officers charged the commander, Captain Joseph Harris, with having lowered his top-sails to a Spanish man-of-war, supposed to be an Ostend privateer, in the Bay of Biscay, to the great dishonour of the king. He was tried by a court-martial, found guilty, and condemned to be shot to death at such time and place as the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty should appoint.[925] He was, however, reprieved and then pardoned.[926]

Difficulties not infrequently occurred with merchant vessels, and even with fishing-boats, over this matter of the flag. We find Pepys writing to Captain Binning of the Swan, at Yarmouth, telling him that while he should take care that the Dutch “do their parts of civility towards his Majesty’s flag,” he ought not to impose upon them any “innovation,” the reference being to the taking of twelve barrels of herrings from each of the offenders in lieu of carrying them into port.[927] Foreign merchant vessels, especially Spanish and French, were sometimes brought into port and their masters tried before the High Court of Admiralty for refusing to strike to English men-of-war. By the strict law of the Admiralty such vessels might have been forfeited, but this extreme course was apparently rarely or never taken, the usual punishment inflicted being fine and imprisonment. Cases of this kind were naturally apt to raise unpleasant questions with foreign Powers, and they had to be dealt with cautiously. In 1675, when two Frenchmen were brought before the court for this offence, the judge, Sir Thomas Exton, appealed for advice to Sir Leoline Jenkins, then at the Congress of Nimeguen, and was warned by him to be very careful how he dealt with the case. He advised him to meddle as little as possible with the French edicts of 1555 and 1584 (see p. 117), under which the French Admiralty claimed similar rights, and to “stick to the terms of the indictment of the Spanish Captain at the Old Bailey,” adding that although much might be said plausibly on the subject of striking, that indictment had never been attacked; and he argued against the seizure and forfeiture of the ship.[928]

After the third Dutch war several works appeared in which the claims of England to the salute and to the sovereignty of the sea were maintained. It has been already mentioned that at the beginning of 1674, when the Dutch offers of peace were received in London, the king asked Evelyn to write something against the Dutch about the flag and fishery. As the occasion was pressing, Evelyn extracted the introductory part of his work on the second Dutch war (a work which was never completed), and after submitting it to the king, published it under a rather misleading title.[929] Notwithstanding the haste shown, the book appeared too late. Peace had been concluded, and the Dutch ambassador complained about it to the king. Charles ordered it to be recalled, but with characteristic artifice he instructed that the copies which were seized publicly to pacify the ambassador should be immediately restored to the printer, by which means the sales at least were much increased.[930] About the book itself little need be said. It is an ill-digested and unveracious account of England’s claim to the sovereignty of the sea and the fishery, founded on Selden, Boroughs, and less reputable writers. The author computed the arrears of “rent” due by the Dutch, and which he said they had engaged to pay for liberty of fishing, at over £500,000; and he falsified the amount of “license-money” received by Northumberland in 1636, although the Earl’s journals, and many other documents, were placed at his disposal. The most severe criticism of the work was made by the author himself, in a long and remarkable letter which he sent to Pepys a few years later, in which he repudiated, seriatim, all the “evidences” he had adduced in favour of the English pretension.[931]

Another book of more influence than Evelyn’s, because it was for a long time considered the standard work on the maritime law of England, and went through many editions, was published by Molloy two years later; and in it the English pretension received perhaps its most arrogant expression.[932] Notwithstanding the terms of the treaty of 1674, the author declared that the striking of the flag was not a mere ceremony of respect, but an absolute acknowledgment of England’s sovereignty of the seas, the king granting foreigners a general license to pass through his seas, “paying that obeisance and duty, like the services when Lords grant out estates, reserving a rose or peppercorn, the value of which is not regarded, but the remembrance and acknowledging their benefactor’s right and dominion.” Molloy held that by the treaty of 1674 the dominion of the British seas was “ascertained” to extend from Cape Finisterre to Van Staten, in Norway, and similar opinions on this and on the subject generally were expressed by other writers on naval matters, as by Godolphin[933] and Zouch,[934] and by most writers on Admiralty affairs during the remainder of the century and well into the next.

With respect to the fisheries, the failure of the previous attempt to establish a great fishery society did not deter others from being proposed. Efforts were indeed made throughout nearly the whole of the reign of Charles to keep the subject alive. An elaborate report was prepared by Dr Benjamin Worsley, who was Secretary to the Council for Trade and Plantations, on the Dutch fisheries and the best means by which a fishery could be established in this country with good hope of success. He stated that the least valuation generally placed on the Dutch herring fishery was £3,000,000, and that it was said to employ 1600 busses. Detailed reasons were given for the belief that success would not attend any attempt to establish a great fishery in England, unless it received the active support of the king and Parliament, and unless we were able to undersell the Dutch in the markets, which he thought by a change of methods we might be able to do.

Various efforts were made, openly and surreptitiously, to induce Dutchmen to settle at Yarmouth and Dover; the king even issued a declaration to encourage this in June 1672. But the schemes failed, and Sir Arnold Braems suggested that £3000 of the amount expected to be paid by the Dutch for the liberty of fishing should be devoted to bringing over busses and men.[935] Early in 1675 a detailed scheme was laid before Charles for the setting up of a fishery company with forty busses and a capital of £40,000, the estimated profit in the first year being placed at £31,463.[936] Among the objections urged to the setting up of the fishery by the king were the want of seamen and experienced curers; the acquaintance of the Dutch with the markets and their spare living, which would enable them to undersell us; and the laziness of English seamen. These objections were apparently answered satisfactorily,[937] and in 1677 Charles issued a commission to the Duke of York, the Earl of Danby, and others for a new society, to be called “The Company of the Royal Fishery of England,” granting a number of privileges and £20 per annum from the customs of the port of London for each buss or dogger. Stock was subscribed to the amount of about £12,500, which was spent in purchasing busses; but as they were Dutch-built and manned by Dutchmen, the French, then at war with the United Provinces, seized six of the seven belonging to the company and brought the work to a stop. Although the company was reconstructed later, and an attempt to raise £60,000 to carry it on made with some success, the death of the king and the troubles which followed caused the enterprise to be suspended. Thus the endeavours of Charles II. to create a great national fishery in England were no more successful than those of Charles I.

XIV. JAMES II. AND AFTER

In the short and troubled reign of James II. little was heard of the claims of England to the sovereignty of the sea. Bad king as James was, he rescued the navy from the deplorable condition into which it had sunk in the later years of Charles,--of which Pepys has left so graphic a picture,[938]--and the naval officers continued to enforce the routine duty of the flag; but the domestic troubles with which he was surrounded prevented him from turning it to account against any of his neighbours, even if he had been so inclined. And with the Revolution of 1688 the whole aspect of the question was changed. The English pretension, as we have seen, had been specially directed against the United Provinces, but when the Prince of Orange was called to the English throne as William III., and was thus the ruler in both countries, it was not to be expected that he would show much zeal in continuing the policy of the Stuarts against his own countrymen.

It is true that in the treaty which was concluded between England and the Dutch Republic in 1689, the article on the flag in the treaty of Westminster was repeated and confirmed. This, however, was very much a matter of routine and formality, though it must be said the Dutch ambassadors in London complained that William was as obstinate and punctilious about the question of the flag as any purely English sovereign could have been.[939] But from this time until well on in the next century England and the United Provinces were united as allies in the great wars with France. There was thus little room for serious disputes with them about the flag, the right to the herring fishery, or the sovereignty of the sea, even if the desire had existed. Against France, however, William made use of the customary language as to the English sovereignty of the sea. In the spring of 1689, after William had been proclaimed King of England, Louis XIV. foresaw the formidable coalition that would be formed against him, and he boldly issued what was virtually a challenge to England on the subject. He published an ordinance on 15th April in which he not only prohibited his officers from giving the first salute to ships of other nations carrying flags of equal rank to their own, but ordered them to demand the salute from foreign vessels on whatever seas or coasts they might encounter them, and to compel them by force if they refused.[940] That this challenge of Louis to dispute the sovereignty of the sea was not too presumptuous was shown in the following year, when the combined fleets of England and Holland were defeated by the French off Beachy Head. In the declaration of war against France, in May 1689, the ordinance of Louis was made one of the reasons for hostilities. “The right of the flag,” said William, “inherent in the crown of England, has been disputed by his orders, in violation of our sovereignty of the Narrow Seas, which in all ages has been asserted by our predecessors, and which we are resolved to maintain, for the honour of our crown and of the English nation.”[941] They were strange words to come from the mouth of one who was Prince of Orange as well as King of England, but the times were changing and such phrases were soon to become merely empty forms.

With respect to this ceremony of the flag, which the English professed to regard as an acknowledgment of their sovereignty on the sea, it may be said that from this time on it ceased to have much importance in international affairs. The instructions issued by the Admiralty to the naval officers continued to be explicit enough, and they indeed suffered but little change for another century. The commander of one of his Majesty’s ships, on meeting with any ship or ships belonging to any foreign prince or state within his Majesty’s seas (which, it was explained, extended to Cape Finisterre, Van Staten not being mentioned), was to “expect” such ship or ships to strike their top-sail and take in their flag, “in acknowledgment of his Majesty’s sovereignty of those seas,” and if they refused or offered to resist, they were to be compelled to do so. Within his Majesty’s seas his Majesty’s ships were in no wise to strike to any; and in other parts only if the foreign ship struck first or at the same time, except in a foreign harbour or in a road within gunshot of a fort or castle, in which case a salute with guns was to be given if the commander of the fort agreed to answer gun for gun. If any British ship was so far forgetful of its duty as not to salute the king’s ship by striking the top-sail as it passed by, when it might be done without loss of the voyage, they were to be “brought to the Flag” to answer their contempt, or reported to the Admiralty for proceedings to be taken.[942] Similar instructions were issued in succeeding reigns, the injunction to compel by force those who refused to strike being limited to flag officers and commanders.[943]

Disputes as to striking appear to have been much less common in the latter part of the seventeenth and in the eighteenth century than they were previously, but they sometimes occurred; and the ceremony seems to have been enforced on Dutch ships, though they were allied with the English fleet at the time. At all events, the Lords of the Admiralty in 1694 wrote to the Duke of Shrewsbury saying that the instructions required the respect of the flag from all nations whatsoever, without any distinction, and that Sir Cloudesley Shovel had been advised to that effect.[944] At this period, as indeed always, the Danes were very punctilious as to Kronberg Castle on the Sound being saluted with proper respect by foreign ships, and in 1694 Shrewsbury advised the Admiralty that the king had signified his pleasure that all ships of war sent to the Sound should salute Kronberg with three guns only, upon assurance that their salute would be returned by the castle with a like number of guns.[945]

Early in the reign of Anne, in 1704, a sanguinary encounter took place with reference to the striking of the flag that equalled if it did not surpass in brutality any case that happened under Charles. An English squadron under the command of Admiral Whestone fell in with a Swedish man-of-war convoying some merchant vessels. The Swedish commander refused to strike to the English admiral, on the ground that he had received strict injunctions not to do so to any flag whatever, even in the Channel, and thereupon the English proceeded to compel him by force. After about 150 Swedes had been killed or wounded, as well as many English, the unlucky man-of-war, with all the merchantmen, was brought into Yarmouth Roads.[946] Another case of a different kind happened in 1728, early in the reign of George II. A French man-of-war, the Gironde, under the command of Mons. de Joyeux, on going into Plymouth Sound on 23rd November, was hailed by an English frigate, which demanded that he should salute the fortress and the frigate. The Frenchman replied that the bad weather had prevented his sending an officer to the governor to agree about a salute, but that he owed none to the frigate, which carried a pennant only, it being usual to salute none but flags; and he passed quickly into the port, where the captain of another frigate sent to ask him if he would not salute the commodore, who carried a bare pendant, and he returned the same answer. On coming out again on the 29th the frigate called upon him to strike his pennant, and on his refusal threatened to fire upon him. M. de Joyeux, feeling that it was by no means proper to hazard his ship under the cannon of the castle and the batteries, then complied, and also saluted the fort with eleven guns, as previously arranged. This “insult” was made the subject of complaint by France, and when all the papers had been submitted to the king he instructed that the officer responsible, Lieutenant Thomas Smith of the Gosport, should be forthwith dismissed the service as having in this particular exceeded his instructions.[947]

In the writings of the naval historians of last century one may find expressed the views which were then prevalent in naval circles as to the striking of the flag and the sovereignty of the sea generally. They claimed for the crown of England an exclusive propriety and dominion in the British seas, both as to the right of passage and the right of fishing, and the widest limits were assigned to those seas. Thus Burchett, who was Secretary to the Admiralty, defined them as follows in 1720: On the east they extended to the shores of Norway, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands, so as to include the North Sea; on the south they were bounded by the shores of France and Spain to Cape Finisterre, and by a line from that Cape westwards to meet the western boundary, thus comprising the Channel, the Bay of Biscay, and part of the Atlantic Ocean; on the west they extended to an imaginary line in the Atlantic in longitude 23 degrees west from London, passing from the southern boundary to latitude 63 degrees north; and on the north they were bounded by this parallel to the middle point of Van Staten. These were declared to be the British seas proper, in which the crown had the most absolute dominion and the right to the honour of the flag from all other nations; but in addition, it was stated that on the north and west as far as America and Greenland the crown had also “most ample rights” in virtue of first discovery and occupation.[948]

No doubt much of the claim put forward by these writers on behalf of the maritime dominion of England was stereotyped, and had more form than substance. Entick, indeed, in 1757, although asserting the right of Great Britain to an absolute sovereignty of the sea, and to the striking of the flag as an acknowledgment of it, himself described this duty as “but an indifferent honorary ceremony.” The changed point of view in which the matter was regarded was shown also in the declaration of war by Great Britain against the United Provinces in 1780, because they had joined the Armed Neutrality. It contained nothing referring either to the flag or to the sovereignty of the sea; and it was doubtless as a mere matter of form and precedent that a brief article relating to the striking of the flag was inserted among the preliminary articles of peace, drawn up at Paris in 1783, and in the definitive treaty of peace concluded with the United Provinces in the next year.[949] The time was approaching when this ceremony was to pass away altogether as a symbol of our maritime sovereignty, even in the eyes of Englishmen. There was little need of claiming it as an acknowledgment of our actual naval supremacy during the greater part of the eighteenth century, for it was obvious to all the world that British sea-power was supreme. From the reign of Anne onwards the naval force of Great Britain was overwhelming, and formed a determining factor in the history of Europe. This country was undisputed mistress of the seas,--or tyrant of the seas, as our enemies preferred to put it,--and our old rival, the Netherlands, was left far behind in the race for naval power as well as in commerce.[950] Nor was it longer necessary to insist on the honour of the flag in order to stimulate the valour of our seamen, to keep alive the spirit of maritime glory in the nation, or to evoke the reverence of foreign peoples. The forcing of all foreign ships to strike in the British seas became a political encumbrance unsuited to the times. It was allowed to fall into disuse when its inconvenience had long outgrown any utility it had possessed, and the battle of Trafalgar, in 1805, gave the opportunity of departing from the ancient claim. The naval power of France and Spain having been humbled, it was thought a convenient time spontaneously to abandon a pretension which “could not probably have been maintained much longer except at the cannon’s mouth.”[951] The Admiralty, with the approbation of the Government, accordingly omitted the arbitrary article from their instructions for the fleet.[952]

In the closing years of the seventeenth century and the earlier part of the next there were many signs that the era of claiming an exclusive sovereignty over extensive regions of the sea was passing away; and that, on the other hand, the policy of fixing exact boundaries for special purposes, either by international treaties or national laws, was taking its place. Such signs may be observed in the writings of public men, as in the letter of recantation which Evelyn indited to Pepys in 1682 (see p. 514), which included a long reasoned argument against the English pretensions. Still more to the point was the appearance of an extremely able work by Sir Philip Meadows in 1689, immediately after the Revolution, in which these pretensions were subjected to the most destructive criticism.[953] Meadows had considerable experience of public affairs. As Latin Secretary to Cromwell’s Council--an office to which he was appointed in 1653 in order to relieve the poet Milton, whose blindness interfered with his duties--he was conversant with the negotiations then proceeding with the Dutch; and later, as ambassador to Denmark and then to Sweden, he had opportunities of acquainting himself with the claims to maritime sovereignty put forward by those countries. The keynote of Meadows’ work was, that as the dominion of the seas was apt to become a specious pretence to a war between England and Holland, while the real causes of such a war were hidden and remote, nothing would conduce more effectually to preserve a lasting peace than a true knowledge and right understanding of the matter. If the claim of England as expounded by Selden was to be considered the proper standard of right and wrong between us and other nations, “if what was well written must be fought for too, not being to be gained but by a longer tool than a pen,” then the King of England would be cast upon this hard dilemma--either of being involved in endless and dangerous quarrels with all his neighbours abroad, or of having his honour and reputation prostituted at home, as tamely suffering “the best jewel of his crown to be ravished from it.” The English pretension, he pointed out, differed from that of Venice, inasmuch as it related not to a bay or gulf, but to a sea open on both sides which formed the passage of communication for the northern and southern nations of Europe. Persistence in the pretension would therefore result in war between the island and the Continent, as to whether the island should have the sea to herself, or whether the Continent should have a share of it with her. No nation had ever acknowledged the claim of England, which, moreover, was not enforced, because if one foreigner did violence to another, outside the King’s Chambers, but in the Channel or any part of the so-called British sea, he did not come under the jurisdiction of the King of England but under that of his own state.

While strenuously opposing the pretensions to the sovereignty of the sea, Meadows agreed with all other authors in holding that every country had an exclusive right to certain parts of the sea adjoining its coasts: the difficulty was to fix the bounds. “If there is no certain standard in nature,” he says, “whereby to ascertain the precise boundaries of that peculiar Marine Territory I am now speaking to, which belongs to every prince in right of his land, yet, by treaty and agreement, they may easily be reduced to certainty. For, as to the judgment and opinion of private persons, we cannot fetch from thence any true measure; for though they all agree unanimously that there is something due of right, yet they vary in the quantum, or how much. Therefore the surest way is to prescribe the limits of fishing betwixt neighbouring nations by contract, and not by the less certain measure of territory. For, if no bounds be fixed, how many inconveniencies, and what a licentious extravagance, may such a liberty run into?” The Dutch, he said, unless boundaries were fixed, might dredge for oysters on the coast of Essex, as they did formerly; or fish within the mouth of the Thames, or in our creeks, havens, and rivers; and it was unreasonable not to draw a distinction as to fishing between natives and aliens. Meadows therefore, foreshadowing modern practice, urged that the boundaries of exclusive fishing should be determined by treaty, and he prepared a draft article for the consideration of those concerned.[954] In a later unpublished treatise he advocated much the same method of mutual agreement with France, with respect to the striking of the flag, as had been formerly proposed by Richelieu--that in our half of the Channel they should strike to us, and that in the half next France we should strike to them.[955]

Whether or not the writings of Meadows had any influence upon the practice, or, what is more likely, merely reflected the change in opinion that had begun, it is from about this time that we find instances of definite boundaries being fixed, usually in connection with the rights of fishery, instead of the vague claims that commonly prevailed. The first case of the kind happened indeed a few years earlier. In a treaty between James II. and Louis XIV., which was concluded in 1686, concerning the rights of trading and fishing in the British and French possessions in America, it was agreed that the subjects of each were to abstain from fishing or trading “in the havens, bays, creeks, roads, shoals or places” belonging to the other, and the liberty of innocent navigation was not to be disturbed.[956] Though no definite limit was laid down in this treaty, the meaning of the terms used was well understood; they were practically the same as those used in the proclamations as to neutral waters in 1668 and 1683. They are interesting as being the first definitions of the kind which apply to the coasts of America, and they do not materially differ from the terms used in the treaty of 1818, the interpretation of which has given rise to so much dispute. Another example for a different purpose is to be found in a convention between France and Algeria in 1689, which established a limit of ten leagues along the Mediterranean coasts of France in connection with the operations of the Barbary corsairs.[957]

In the treaty above referred to, between Great Britain and France, the rights of trading and fishing went together. This was a very common thing in those times, particularly in remote seas, where the two pursuits were often combined, and it was especially the case in the northern seas which were supposed to be under the sway of the King of Denmark. The disputes which occurred between Denmark and the United Provinces of the Netherlands are of interest in this regard, since they reveal the methods and the stages by which a defined boundary was eventually substituted for a general claim to maritime dominion. They show, moreover, that at the end of the disputes Great Britain stood by the side of Holland in opposing the Danish pretension to mare clausum, and was altogether in favour of the free sea. It was apparently the assertion of James I. to a monopoly of the whale-fishing at Spitzbergen (see p. 181) that induced Denmark to put forward a similar pretension with regard to Greenland. As early as 1615 a Danish man-of-war demanded a contribution from Dutch whalers for liberty to fish there, and the King of Denmark complained to the States-General that their subjects were carrying on the fishery without his license and contrary to his rights. The Dutch opposed this claim and sent armed ships to the scene, which kept the Danes from active interference. A little later, in 1623, Denmark raised fresh complaints in connection with the fishing at Jan Mayen, an island discovered by the Dutch, and which, therefore, according to the charter of the Dutch Arctic Company, belonged to them. In 1639 Danish men-of-war again interfered with Dutch whalers, this time at Spitzbergen, in virtue of a decree prohibiting fishing without a license from the King of Denmark; but the firm attitude of the States-General, whose fleets were then all-powerful, cooled the ardour of the Danes. Denmark also raised difficulties in connection with the cod-fishing in the northern seas. In 1616 foreigners were prohibited from fishing either at Færöe, Iceland, or on the coast of Norway, an injunction renewed in 1636 and 1639, and various limits were assigned with respect to the cod-fishing at Iceland. In 1636 the Norwegian Government declared that the exclusive right of fishing pertained to subjects within a distance of four to six Scandinavian leagues from the coast, which is equal to from sixteen to twenty-four geographical miles. The Danish claim to mare clausum also included a monopoly of trade in those remote regions, and the Hanseatic towns as well as the Dutch were forbidden to carry on traffic with the natives. But the efforts of Denmark to preserve a monopoly of fishing and trading in the Arctic seas were intermittent and ineffectual. The great Dutch Arctic Company (Noordsche Compagnie), by their charter granted in 1614, were entitled not only to the exclusive right, so far as concerned Dutchmen, “to trade and fish from the United Provinces on or to the coasts of the lands between Nova Zembla and Davis’ Strait,” including Spitzbergen, Barent’s Island, and Greenland, but also to the possession and fishery of any islands they might discover in those seas. The rights granted to this powerful company were thus directly opposed to the Danish claim to mare clausum, and owing to the preponderating naval force of the United Provinces, which was behind them, they eventually prevailed. In February 1691, after the defeat by the French of the allied British and Dutch fleets off Beachy Head and the suspension of the Dutch whale-fishing by reason of the war, King Christian V. issued another decree prohibiting whale-fishing at Greenland to all but Danish subjects; and in the following year Hamburg was forced to conclude a treaty with Denmark to enable her citizens to carry on fishing and navigation in Davis’ Strait.

It was at this time, nevertheless, that Denmark substituted a fixed limit at other parts of her dominions for her previous vague and general claim to maritime sovereignty. By a decree of 26th June 1691, the sea between the south coast of Norway and the coast of Jutland, within a straight line drawn from Cape Lindesnæs to Harboore in Rinkjobing, a distance of over a hundred geographical miles, was declared to belong to Denmark; and it was further ordained that in places where the king possessed only one of the coasts, the sea was under his dominion up to the distance at which the land was lost sight of--i.e., within the range of vision. At the end of the following year (3rd December 1692) another edict was issued declaring that no one without royal authority would be allowed to carry on whale-fishing within ten Norwegian leagues, or forty geographical miles, of the coast.[958] This tendency of Denmark to formulate defined boundaries in the seas along her coasts was carried further, as we shall see, in the eighteenth century.

Within the areas above mentioned, Denmark enforced her authority with considerable vigour. In 1698 a Dutch ship was seized and confiscated for fishing at the Færöes; and in the period 1738-1740 great energy was displayed in repressing violations of the Danish decrees. Several Dutch ships were fired on by Danish men-of-war for trading at Greenland; the crews were turned adrift in open boats, and the vessels taken to Copenhagen, where they were condemned as prize in the Admiralty Court. In retaliation, a Danish ship was seized at Amsterdam, and then Danish men-of-war fell upon the Dutch doggers fishing around Iceland, about a hundred in number, captured four, and dispersed the others without, it was alleged, offering to molest the British and French smacks fishing along with them. While bringing the captured doggers to Denmark, one of them managed to escape, and carried off to Holland the prize crew on board, consisting of a Danish midshipman and three seamen--an episode that recalls John Brown’s experience in 1617. These occurrences were naturally followed by diplomatic controversies. Denmark at first based her action in seizing the doggers on a decree of 1733, reserving to her own subjects the exclusive right of fishing and navigating within four leagues of the coast of all Danish possessions in the Arctic seas; and the Dutch were accused of carrying on an extensive illicit trade at Iceland, under cover of fishing. The States-General used the familiar arguments about the freedom of the seas for fishing and navigation, urged long-continued possession, and cited an old treaty of 1447 which gave the Dutch the right to navigate “usque ad Boreæ oras.” Then Denmark placed her case on its ancient basis, declaring that the kings of Denmark and Norway had enjoyed from time immemorial the dominion of the northern seas, and were therefore entitled, even according to the teaching of Grotius, to the exclusive fishing. They denied that the Dutch had ever possessed the right of fishery in these seas, alleging that clandestine acts, punished as soon as discovered, could not be construed into possession. This revival of dominium maris called forth an energetic protest from the States-General, and affairs took a bellicose turn. Denmark sent a squadron north to maintain her claims, and Holland provided an armed convoy for her whalers and Iceland cod-smacks, “to defend themselves against the pretensions of the Danes.” Hostilities were averted by the intercession of Sweden, and of the British and French Ministers at Copenhagen, in favour of the Dutch Republic and the freedom of the seas.

Occasional disputes of the same kind occurred between Denmark and the United Provinces later in the century. In 1757 a Dutch ship was arrested--it was said in the open sea--on the ground that it had been trading in Davis’ Strait, and the matter was adjusted a few years later by an undertaking that the Dutch vessels would refrain from trading within the precincts of the Danish possessions. The States-General in 1762 issued a placard to this effect, and they also sent a ship of war to enforce it. In 1776 an English brigantine and two Dutch vessels were seized for trading at Greenland, and condemned by the Danish Admiralty Court, and although on the protests of the British and Dutch Governments the vessels were released, compensation for detention was refused.[959]

Other and later examples of the tendency alluded to, of fixing definite limits for the rights of the state in the seas washing its territories, may be found in the international treaties, which were concluded during the eighteenth century, concerning the rights of fishery on the coasts and islands of the British possessions in North America, a region of the world which has furnished numerous examples of agreements of the kind. One of these, in 1686, has been already mentioned. By the great treaty of Utrecht in 1713, following Marlborough’s successful campaigns on the Continent, France ceded Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to Great Britain; but certain concessions were made to French fishermen, who, of course, previously enjoyed the right of fishing there, which subsequently for a long period formed a fertile source of trouble and dispute. In addition to certain privileges as to landing and drying fish, French subjects were to be free to fish in the seas, bays, and other places to thirty leagues from the south-east coast of Nova Scotia.[960] Half a century later, by the treaty of Paris in 1763, at the conclusion of the seven years’ war, Canada was ceded to Great Britain, and the concessions to French fishermen at Newfoundland were confirmed, with some modifications. Liberty of fishing was also granted to them in the Gulf of St Lawrence, subject to the condition that they did “not exercise the said fishery, except at a distance of three leagues from all the coasts belonging to Great Britain, as well those of the continent as those of the islands situated in the said Gulf of St Lawrence.” On the coasts of the island of Cape Breton, outwith the Gulf, they were not to fish within fifteen leagues of the shore.[961] These provisions concerning the fishery in the Gulf of St Lawrence and at Cape Breton were confirmed twenty years later by the treaty of Versailles in 1783, the article regarding Newfoundland being at the same time modified.[962]

In these various treaties the fisheries were dealt with in a special and exceptional manner, in connection with the cession of the adjacent territories by France to Great Britain. The French fishermen had always enjoyed the right of fishing in these seas in virtue of the ownership of the land; and though full sovereignty over the latter was acquired by Great Britain, the liberty of fishing, under certain restrictions, was continued notwithstanding the transference of territory. The fisheries of Newfoundland and Canada were of great importance. They were highly valued by France as forming nurseries of seamen for her navy, and for this reason the preliminary treaty of 1762 was severely criticised by the Opposition in the British Parliament, and especially by Pitt, who perceived that the concessions with respect to the fisheries would enable France to revive her naval power.[963]

A concession still more extensive, on the same principle, was granted by Great Britain to the newly-established United States of America in the treaty of 1783, by which their independence was recognised. The question of the rights of fishery was very fully discussed in the negotiations which preceded the treaty; and though Great Britain did not deny the right of American citizens to fish on the Great Banks of Newfoundland, or in the Gulf of St Lawrence, or elsewhere in the open sea, she denied their right to fish in British waters, or to land on British territory for the purpose of drying or curing their fish. A compromise was arrived at, and the treaty provided that the people of the United States should continue to enjoy, unmolested, the right to take fish of all kinds on the Newfoundland Banks, in the Gulf of St Lawrence, and at “all other places in the sea where the inhabitants of both countries used at any time heretofore to fish”; also on such parts of the coast of Newfoundland as British fishermen should use, and “on the coasts, bays, and creeks” of all other parts of the British-American dominions. They were further permitted to dry and cure their fish on unsettled parts of the coast of Nova Scotia, the Magdalen Islands, and Labrador, so long as these parts remained unsettled.[964] It will be observed that by this treaty the liberty of fishing in the territorial waters of the British possessions in America was conceded to the citizens of the United States, who had exercised the fishery before their independence was declared. They continued to enjoy the right which they had had as British subjects after they had ceased to be British subjects, and they did so until the war of 1812.

With regard to the fisheries at home, in whose interest James I. had originally raised the question of the sovereignty of the sea, the clamour against the Dutch gradually died out, or was only heard at intervals and received but scant attention. Pamphleteers continued to denounce the liberty allowed to foreigners to fish along the British coasts, and drew the usual picture of the great national advantage that would flow from the creation of native fisheries to rival those of the Dutch.[965] Under James II., William, Anne, and the Georges, the policy of fostering the fisheries by protective legislation and by means of organised societies or associations was continued, with but little good result. The most serious attempt was made in the middle of the eighteenth century, when an Act was passed[966] for the incorporation of “The Society of the Free British Fishery,” giving power to raise a stock of £500,000, and guaranteeing 3 per cent interest on the sum raised within eighteen months,--which amounted to £104,509,--as well as conferring various privileges and immunities, including a tonnage bounty to encourage the equipment of busses. This society, which was incorporated in the autumn of 1750, with the Prince of Wales as Governor, had a chequered career. Its headquarters were pitched at Southwold, Suffolk, where docks were built and buildings erected. In 1756 it possessed thirty busses and six “yagers” to carry the pickled herrings to Hamburg and Bremen, the masters of the busses being Dutch or Danish, and the crews chiefly from Orkney, the fishing being carried on at the Shetlands and down the coast to Yarmouth. Financial and other difficulties were encountered, some of the vessels being taken by French privateers, and all the remaining busses and effects were sold in 1772 for £6391. Half a century later, the relics of some of the discarded busses were dug out of the mud at Southwold.

The Act above referred to was the parent of many others designed to encourage the fisheries, chiefly by providing bounties; but probably more effective than such measures in stimulating the native industry was the decay which overtook the fisheries of the Dutch. This decay was no doubt due to several causes, but among the chief must be reckoned the frequent maritime wars of the eighteenth century in which the United Provinces were engaged. Their herring-busses were often captured or destroyed, sometimes in large numbers at a time, as in 1703, when a French squadron fell upon them at Shetland and burned many of them--variously stated at from 150 to 400.[967] Not infrequently their herring fishery was entirely suspended, it might be for a series of years, owing to the inability of the States-General to protect the fishing vessels from the French or the British cruisers; and such interruptions told seriously upon a business which depended so largely on the export trade of the cured herrings. From these repeated blows the Dutch fisheries never recovered, and the fleets of busses gradually dwindled. In 1703, 500 of them fished at the Shetlands and southwards along the coast; half a century afterwards there were but little over 200; and in the later years of the century the number sank as low as 120, which scarcely exceeded the vessels from Denmark, Prussia (Emden), and Belgium. Thus the part of the pretension to the sovereignty of the sea which related to the fisheries along the British coasts was gradually solved, the British fisheries, now the greatest in the world, rising on the ruins of the Dutch.

SECTION II.

THE TERRITORIAL WATERS