The authorities in Scotland lost no time in preparing statements recounting in detail the outrages and insolences committed by the Dutch fishermen; but an impartial perusal of the complaints leaves little doubt that they were greatly exaggerated. The Dutch fishermen were accused of going ashore in large numbers and chasing, taking, and slaying sheep; they “intromitted” with growing timber, trod down all the corn they could find, induced the best and ablest of the native fishermen to join them, or even took them by force; entered the kirks, where they broke down the seats and polluted the pulpits; carved their names on the green pastures; took uninvited rides on the horses in the fields, “to the great hurt of the owners”; and made free with the eggs and young of seafowl on the uninhabited isles, to the hurt of the proprietors. In the long catalogue of their supposed outrages on land, two were more important. It was alleged that they gave refuge to thieves and malefactors, so that justice could not reach them; and that some years before they seized an honest young woman who was selling stockings among them and held her head-downwards on an eminence in sight of the whole fleet, owing to which she died later. Among their offences at sea they were charged with shooting at native fishermen, “catching of their small netts and lynes within those huge long netts” that they used, and which they laid hard by the shore, “whereas before they approached not nearer the coasts than fourty (sic) myles.” By fishing near the shore they had impoverished the whole trade of fishing; before they began to do so the herrings came close in, so that the poorest fisherman could enrich himself, while the shoals were now broken up and dispersed. So near did the busses come in stormy weather that they fished “hard by gentlemen’s doors,” where the fishing was “appropriate to the owners of the land nearest adjacent for their own fishing in the time of storms when they could not go to sea for the entertaining of their houses.”[332]
Since the States-General appeared to be tardy in admitting the offences with which their fishermen were charged, the king wished strong measures to be taken by the Council in Scotland, and he instructed Lord Binning, his Secretary there, to take steps “for interrupting and staying the Hollanders to fish in his seas within sight of the land.” The Council, however, pointed out in a very humble tone that inasmuch as it was a matter which concerned not only “thir Hollanders, who ar your Maiesties confederatis, pretending thair awne interes thairin, ather be right or lang possessioun,” but also the whole of the kingdom, it would be better if the king’s proposals were first imparted to the Privy Council in England. They requested, further, that the ambassador in Holland should again expostulate with the States as to the injuries caused to the king’s subjects by their “unjust usurpation to fish within sight of his Majesty’s land,” and to urge them to issue a proclamation to prohibit, under heavy penalties, their people from all further fishing within his Majesty’s seas, which, they said, ought by the Law of Nations to be exclusively reserved for his own subjects. They advised the king to make the States clearly understand that if they continued any longer in their “oppression,” he would so provide for the maintenance of his right and the freeing of his people as his honour and justice required; and if the answer was not satisfactory he might then resolve upon the “next expedient,” and the Council would be ready to obey whatever he should command.[333]
The States-General, while they did not go so far as the Council desired in prohibiting their fishermen from approaching near to the land, did all that they reasonably could do to prevent injuries being committed on the Scottish people. After an inquiry was made among those taking part in the great herring fishery, without any evidence being forthcoming in support of the Scottish complaints, they published an edict forbidding their subjects, under pain of severe punishment “as pirates and malefactors,” from interfering with the Scottish fishermen, with whom they were enjoined to maintain “true friendship, neighbourliness, and good correspondence.”[334] In forwarding a copy of this proclamation to the king, the States said that they had issued it for his satisfaction, and had given strict orders to their captains to apprehend any one who acted contrary to it. But they expressed the hope that he would not permit the fishermen of the United Provinces to be disturbed or troubled in the liberty and freedom of taking herrings throughout the whole sea, of which liberty they were in immemorial possession, and it had been confirmed to them by several treaties, in particular by that made in 1551 between the king’s predecessor and Charles V. The prosperity of their country, it was added, depended on navigation, traffic, and fisheries, and the freedom of these had been provided for in treaties.[335] James, however, was far from satisfied. He sent on the missive to the Privy Council in Scotland, with the request that the rolls and registers should be searched to see if any record existed of any such treaty, whether “with the said Emperor or any other potentate of the Low Countries.” The States, he said, had promised to send a copy of it, but they had not done so, and in the meantime he would cause the rolls in London to be searched.[336]
The negotiations with the States-General dragged on throughout the summer without much result, and in August James took the sudden resolution again to demand from the Dutch fishermen the payment of the assize-herrings. This was doubtless caused by the receipt of a letter from Sir Dudley Carleton, informing him that the herring-fishers had gone that year to the coast of Scotland with extraordinary convoy, the number of their men-of-war having been doubled, and expressing the hope that notwithstanding this the king would send some one to make the usual demand in a peaceable manner; otherwise, said Carleton, the Hollanders “will think his Majesty has laid aside his pretension.”[337] James accordingly wrote hurriedly to the Council at Edinburgh, saying it was necessary to make requisition of his duties from the Hollanders fishing on the coasts of Orkney and Shetland, in order both to keep possession of the fishing and to foil any plea from the States-General that no such duties had been demanded of them. He had intended, he said, to send a ship of war, but those which were ready were otherwise engaged, and there would not be time to equip a vessel in England before the Hollanders returned from the fishing. The Council were therefore instructed to fit out with all expedition either his own pinnace or any other ship which could conveniently be procured, and to send it to the North Isles with such person as the deputy of the Duke of Lennox should choose, who was to be instructed “in fair tearmes and calme and peciable maner to crave oure said dewties, and accept of any suche answer as they sall gif him, without making any furder questioun or dispute in the mater.”[338] Here was another Brown mission over again; but James forgot, if indeed he ever knew, that at that time of year the Dutch herring fishermen would be very far from the North Isles, and fishing along the English coast.[339] The fact was well known at Edinburgh, but, for whatever reason, it was not pointed out to the king; and the Council, urged to use “exceeding great haste,” chartered a Leith vessel, the Restore, put Mr Patrick Bruce on board to demand the tax from the Hollanders, along with a notary “to give instruments thereupon,” and despatched it on its bootless errand to the Shetlands. No Hollanders could be discovered, and the Restore came back to Leith.
The reason of the king’s action, as well as of Carleton’s advice, is doubtless to be sought in the desire to strengthen the case against the Dutch in view of an expected special embassy from The Hague, whose appointment was now mooted, and which was designed to settle various differences between the two countries that had become acute. Besides the herring fishery, which was a never-failing subject of dispute, there was the trade in cloth, the East Indies, and the “Greenland” whale fishery, about which it is necessary to say something here.
Allusion has already been made to this phase of the controversy respecting mare clausum which sprang up in the Arctic seas, and was now mixed up with the question of the liberty of fishing on the British coasts. Towards the end of the previous century English whalers, for the most part in the service of the Russia or Muscovy Company, frequented the coasts of Greenland, and the northern seas which had been opened up to English enterprise by the voyages of Willoughby and Chancellor;[340] and early in the next century they also began to catch whales at Spitzbergen, where they were found in enormous numbers.[341] The whalers of other nations followed in their wake, and in 1612 two Dutch vessels arrived at Spitzbergen to take part in the fishery, and although from their ignorance of the methods they failed of success that year, a company (Noordsche Compagnie) was formed at Amsterdam to continue the venture under better conditions.[342] The Muscovy Company, whose whalers in 1612 got within nine degrees of the North Pole, sighting 700 whales and bringing back 17,[343] became jealous of competitors. In 1613 they procured from King James a charter by which they were entitled to exclude all others, foreigners as well as subjects, from sailing to Spitzbergen; and in that year they dispatched thither a fleet of seven armed vessels to defend their rights by force as well as to catch whales.[344] In the seas at Spitzbergen they found a number of other whalers from Spain and France, as well as two Dutch ships which had returned to the fishery. The English vessels immediately attacked them, and drove most of the intruders away.[345] The Englishmen then set up a cross on the shore with the king’s arms on it, and they called the land “King James’s Newland.” It is noteworthy as indicating the attitude and practice towards France throughout almost the whole of the disputes about mare clausum, that the French whalers were allowed to continue their operations, subject, however, to the payment of a tribute of whales or train-oil, while the two Dutch ships were despoiled of their catches and fishing-gear and were sent home empty. On their arrival at Amsterdam the ill-treatment to which they had been subjected was naturally resented, and representations to King James were made through the ordinary channels, but without success. The Dutch founded their case partly on the general principle “that according to the practice of all times and peoples, navigation, fishery, and the use of the shore were free and common to all,” and partly on the claim of prior discovery. Spitzbergen, they said, was discovered by Jakob van Heemskerk, a Dutchman, in 1596; they had therefore at least as good a right as the English or any other nation to the fisheries there. On the other hand, the powerful Muscovy Company argued that Spitzbergen was discovered by Willoughby in 1553, and accordingly belonged to England; and the king adopted this view, notwithstanding the elaborate case drawn up by the famous cosmographer, Plancius, on the other side, which was submitted to him.[346] The seas around Spitzbergen were held to pertain to the British seas, and to be under the maritime dominion of the King of England,—a claim which Selden attempted to vindicate later.
Fig. 8.—Dutch Whalers at Spitzbergen. After Van der Meulen.
Having failed by diplomacy to obtain recognition of what they believed to be their plain rights, the States resolved to oppose force by force. Early in 1614 a new Dutch company was formed, and exclusive privileges were conferred on it “to navigate, trade, and fish, from the Netherlands on or to the coasts of the lands between Nova Zembla and Davis’ Straits,” including therefore Greenland and Spitzbergen.[347] A tax of “last-money” was established, and in the same year eighteen Dutch whalers, armed, and convoyed by three States’ men-of-war, left Holland for the Arctic seas, prepared to maintain their right to freedom of fishery by fighting for it if necessary. The English whalers did not venture to attack so powerful a squadron, and as the Hollanders came in 1615 and 1616 in even greater force, they were for these three years enabled to carry on their whale-fishing without molestation. In 1617, however, their convoyers having been reduced in numbers, they were again assailed by the English; one of the Dutch vessels was despoiled, and their “cookeries,” or the buildings on shore in which the oil was made, were destroyed. Then in 1618 the Dutch reappeared, and in strength sufficient not only to maintain the right they claimed, but to make reprisals. They attacked, despoiled, and drove off thirteen English ships, most of which returned to England empty, and the Muscovy Company were loud in their complaints to the king. They put their loss at £66,436, 15s., besides the spoiling of the ships and the killing of the men.[348]
At this time, as we have seen, James was pressing more than ever for the recognition of his claims to the herring fishery in the British seas, and it may be easily imagined how he was moved by the news of this fresh “outrage” at Spitzbergen. At a meeting of the States-General in October, the British ambassador used strong language in animadverting on these “violencies, robberies, and murders” committed by the Dutch on the king’s subjects in the Arctic seas, on the injuries inflicted on the English in the East Indies, and on other matters in dispute; and he demanded that the embassy so repeatedly promised by the States should be sent to England without any further delay. The embassy in question had been originally proposed by the Dutch with the view of arranging the differences as to the trade in cloth and the herring fishery. Their diplomacy through the ordinary channels had, however, been so successful in preserving their freedom of fishing, notwithstanding the harassing efforts of the king, whom they invariably foiled, that they preferred to procrastinate, and the proposed embassy had from time to time been put off. But now the minatory demands of Sir Dudley Carleton were reinforced by the insistence of the Dutch East India Company, for it had been proposed in England to arrest the vessels of that company in the Channel in reprisal for the wrongs done to the English in the East Indies, and one of their ships had just narrowly escaped capture.[349]