[346] A Trew Declaracion of the Discoverie of the mayne Landes, Islandes, Seas, Ports, Havens, and Creekes, lyenge in the North-West, North, and North-East partes of the World, State Papers, Dom., lxxvi. 51. Muller, op. cit., 121, 123. Carleton, Letters, 7.
[347] Groot Placaet-Boeck, i. 670. Aitzema, Saken van Staet en Oorlogh, ii. 336. State Papers, Dom., xcix. 36.
[348] Ibid., xcix. 36-41. M’Pherson, Annals, ii. 287. Muller, op. cit., 131.
[349] Carleton, Letters, 312.
[350] They were Johan van Goch, Ewout van der Dussen for Gelderland and Holland, and Joachim Liens for Zealand. Holland had at first intended to send Grotius. Ibid., 306.
[351] Among the Cæsar papers in the British Museum (Lansd. MSS., 142, fol. 383) there is one dated 23rd December 1618, containing extracts “noted out of a book called Mare Liberum sive de Jure quod Batavia, &c., Lugd. Bat., 1609,” together with notes from Welwood’s De Dominio Maris, answering the assertions in that book. It was doubtless a memorandum to be used in the conferences with the Dutch ambassadors; and on the back of it are scrawled jottings difficult to decipher, headed, “The Kinges Speeche touching the Dutchemen’s fishing upon the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland,” to the following effect: “1. The treaty never so opportune as now when they fearest it most and their State least settled; in ill terms with France and Spain. 2. In the East Indies we can match them, and so in the north voyage (Greenland ?). The French King taketh part with Barnevelt. The King of Spain prepareth against Venice. What the King of Denmark, the Princes of the Union, the ... and the rest of the Protestants think of any falling out with the Low Countries.” It may be noted that this memorandum contains no reference to Selden’s Mare Clausum, which the author stated was submitted to the king this year ([see p. 366]).
[352] The king to the Council, 7th November 1618. Reg. Privy Counc. Scot., xi. 631.
[353] Reg. Privy Counc. Scot., xi. 462.
[354] Lord Binning to the king, 27th November 1618. Melrose Papers, ii. 631. The statement was to the same effect as that previously referred to. A Mr Bruce of Shetland stated that while of old the Hollanders used to carry on the greater part of their fishery forty miles and more from the land, yet they came usually within fourteen miles before shooting their nets; that in the time of the late Earl of Orkney they came still nearer, within six or seven miles; while now they came so close that their nets were sometimes torn on the rocks. Sir Gideon Murray to Lord Binning, 26th November 1618. MSS. Advoc., 31. 2. 16.
[355] Earl of Dunfermline to Lord Binning, 27th November 1618. MSS. Ibid. “Concerning the Hollanders fishing in our seas,” he said, “for all the search and tryall I have made, whilk has been my uttermost, I can wryte or send to you little more nor before, in effect nothing.” The Constable of Dundee searched all his records, the records of the Admiralty were explored, and all those in Edinburgh Castle and in the city archives, as well as many in the keeping of private persons, and every one likely to know anything about the matter was communicated with; but “nothing to the purpose” was found, “nor no recorde of any wryte made for the Hollanders’ use in 1594 or any other time.” The “wryte” of 1594, it is to be remembered, was a long treaty made by James himself. Copies were ultimately discovered of the treaties of 1531 and 1541, but nothing to the point. Copies of the treaty and of other documents referring to it were obtained, apparently from Holland, in 1619, and were ordered to be preserved in his Majesty’s Register in Edinburgh Castle (Reg. Privy Counc. Scot., xii. 22); but in 1630 and 1631, when they were again wanted, they could not be found. State Papers, Dom., Chas. I., ccvi. 46.