[867] Treaty of Breda, Art. vii. It may have been in connection with the interpretation of this clause that the High Court of Admiralty asked the Trinity House their opinion as to the end of the English Channel westwards, and got the following answer: “We shall not presume,” said the Masters, on 2nd January 1668, “to determine matters that have for some ages past been controverted, and for anything that we at present know have not had a full resolution or any precedent for deciding questions relating thereunto;” but the opinion of “the past and present age,” with which they concurred, was that when any commander brought Scilly N.N.W. he had entered “the Channel of England.” Brit. Mus. Add. MSS., 30,221.
[868] Treaty of Peace and Alliance between Charles I. and Louis XIV., concluded at Breda, 21/31 July 1667. Article xvii.
[869] Treaty of Peace and Alliance between Charles II. and Frederick III., concluded at Breda, 21/31 July 1667. Art. ii.
[870] In the negotiation of subsequent treaties, controversy was usually occasioned about the wording of these articles relating to the date of cessation of hostilities on the sea, the United Provinces or France pointing to the treaty of Breda as a precedent, while the English took their stand on Cromwell’s treaty of 1654. In the treaty of Ryswick in 1697, between the United Provinces and France, the term “British Channel” was employed in conjunction with the Baltic and North Sea (Art. ii.); and in the treaty between William III. and Louis, signed at Ryswick on the same day, the words were “in the British and North Seas, as far as the Cape St Vincent” (Art. x.) In the negotiation with France in 1712 for a suspension of hostilities, the French insisted on the words, “the seas which surround the British Isles,” citing the treaty of Breda, while the British were equally obstinate to have the term in maribus Britannicis inserted, as in the treaty of 1654, arguing that the “error” of Breda had been rectified in the later treaty of Ryswick; the result being that in one article “the Channel, the British Sea, and the North Sea” were specified, and in another the phrase was “in the Channel and North Sea.” Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, VIII. i. 306. Burchett, A Complete History of the Most Remarkable Transactions at Sea, &c., p. 38.
[872] This was the farthing known later as the “Lucas farthing,” from the gibes of Lord Lucas in his attack on the king’s policy made in the debate on the Subsidy Bill in the House of Lords in 1670. Speaking of the scarcity of money in the kingdom, he said: “What supply is preparing for it, my Lords? I hear of none, unless it be of copper farthings; and this is the metal that is to indicate, according to the inscription on it, ‘The Dominion of the Four Seas.’” Parl. Hist., iv. 473.
[873] “Omtrent het point van de Vlagge, saegen wy alhier seer gaerne iets seeckers gedetermineert, ten minsten dat wy moghten weten waer mede men buyten nieuwe feytelyckheydt ende Oorloge konde verblyven; dat een Fregatje ofte een Kitsje een gantsche Oorloghs-Vloote soude doen strycken, is notoirlyck intolerabel.” De Witt to Meerman, 12/22 June 1668. The same to the same, (29 Feb.)/(9 March), 3/13, 7/17 April, (24 April)/(4 May), (22 May)/(1 June) 1668. De Witt to Meerman and Boreel, 17/27 March, (29 May)/(8 June) 1668. Meerman to De Witt, (28 March)/(7 April), 6/16 June 1668. De Witt’s Brieven, iv. Sir William Temple to Lord Arlington, 2/12 Feb., 6/16 March 1668; the same to the Lord-Keeper Bridgeman, (25 Oct.)/(4 Nov.) 1668. Works, iii. 134, 199, 348. State Papers, Dom., 1668, ccxxxv. 49, 62; ibid., 1665, cxxiii. 67. Aitzema, Saken van Staet en Oorlogh, v. 390.
[874] The king to the Duke of York, 31st Oct. 1669. State Papers, Entry Book, 31, fol. 37.
[875] Pepys’ Diary, 20th Dec. 1668, viii. 184.
[876] Pontalis, op. cit., ii. 24.