CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER 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 475 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 476 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 477 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 478 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, 479 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 480 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, 481 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. 482

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. 483 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 484 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; 485 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, 486 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 487 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 488 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, 489 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 490 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 491 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 492 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 493 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 494 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 495 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. 496

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 497 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 498 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.”907 499

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 500 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 501 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 502 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 503 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 504 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 505 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 506 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 507 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 508 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 509 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.”919 510

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 511 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 512 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.926 513

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 514 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 515 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 Godolphin933 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 516 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.