The Sovereignty of the Sea / An Historical Account of the Claims of England to the Dominion of the British Seas, and of the Evolution of the Territorial Waters

by Thomas Wemyss Fulton

When Tromp was on his way to Calais, and about half seas over, a small Dutch vessel fired a gun and came up to him, and communicated the intelligence that a week earlier a Dutch convoy had been attacked by the English for not striking their flags; and, above all, that the seven homeward-bound merchant vessels which had been under their charge, with valuable cargoes on board, were at that moment lying at anchor off the English coast, and, it was believed, in danger from the English fleet.[718] The occurrence referred to took place on 12th May. Captain Young, in the President, while off the Start, accompanied by two other English men-of-war, fell in with seven Dutch merchantmen from Genoa and Leghorn, convoyed by three men-of-war, with their flags displayed. Young sent a boat to their admiral to request him to strike his flag “before any blood was shed in the controversy,” which he did. But the vice-admiral, contrary to the custom in the narrow sea, came to the windward of Young, and refused to strike, telling him to come on board and strike the flag himself. The President then poured a broadside into the Dutch ship, together with a volley of small-shot, and several broadsides were exchanged before the vice-admiral struck, and then the rear-admiral did the same. On Young demanding the vice-admiral or his ship to carry into port to make good the damage done, he was told by the admiral that he himself had not interfered so long as it was only a question of striking the flag, but if he attempted to seize the ship he would resist him; and the matter was carried no further. “I do believe,” said Young, “I gave him his bellyful of it, for he sent me word he had order from the State that if he struck he should lose his head.”[719] It is probable that the Dutch vessels encountered the north-east gale that forced Tromp from his anchorage; at all events, they were brought by their convoyers along the English coast to Fairlight,[720] between Hastings and Winchelsea, where they cast anchor; then the Dutch captain who had been attacked, Joris van der Saen, went in search of Tromp to tell him of their plight.

On hearing his story, Tromp instantly turned about and made straight for the English coast, which he had left only a few hours before. In this case, at all events, his instructions were explicit. He had been ordered to prevent Dutch vessels from being visited or searched, and to recover them if captured. Blake, on seeing the Dutch fleet returning, stood off to meet it. He did not know the real reason that had made Tromp alter his course: he had passed the merchant-ships a few days after their meeting with Young, and had done nothing to them. He believed that Tromp was seeking an occasion of quarrel, and watching for an advantage to brave them on their own coast. The Dutch admiral came on with his flag at the main-top, and when he was well within range, Blake fired a gun across his bows to make him strike, and after an interval a second, and yet again a third at his flag; the ball going through the main-sail and killing a man on deck. Tromp then, still with the States’ colours aloft, fired a single gun at Blake’s flag, ran up a red flag,—the prearranged signal for battle,—and poured a broadside into Blake’s ship, and the two fleets entered into a fierce encounter.[721] The fight lasted from four or five o’clock until nine, Blake being assisted by Bourne, who came from the Downs with his small squadron and assailed Tromp in the rear. The Dutch fleet, with the loss of two ships, gradually drew off towards the French coast, and Blake kept his position all night and anchored some leagues off Dungeness.

This was the first great fight over the striking of the flag, and it occasioned immediate war between the two countries. Encounters on a small scale had been not infrequent before, but no foreign fleet had hitherto ventured to challenge an English fleet in this way off the English coast. Tromp himself, thirteen years before, when he possessed an overwhelming force, readily struck his flag to Pennington’s small squadron in the Downs. After the battle attempts were made to justify Tromp’s action, but not at all on the ground that the demand for him to strike his flag to the English admiral was unjust or contrary to custom. Blake was accused of having precipitated the battle. Tromp, it was said, had men aloft ready to strike the top-sails, or had already done so; he had sent a man up to strike his flag; he was preparing to send his boat to Blake after the second gun was fired to ask him the reason of his firing, and so forth. But the Dutch admiral well knew the custom of the narrow sea, and had no need to ask Blake the reason of his firing across his bows.[722] When the nature of his instructions with reference to saluting is considered, along with his memorandum and the discussions connected with it, his action before Dover Castle on the day before, and the variation in his own subsequent accounts of his intentions and proceedings, the inference is strong that he had resolved not to strike to the weaker fleet of the Commonwealth.

In London the news of the battle aroused intense indignation. It was everywhere believed that Tromp had deliberately attacked the English fleet,—an opinion confirmed by the commissioners, of whom Cromwell was one, sent to Dover to inquire into the facts. The meeting of Joris van der Saen with Tromp, which had been seen from the English fleet, was viewed in a sinister light. The little Dutch ship was thought to have carried instructions from the States for Tromp to make the attack. The Parliament thought so also: “They found too much cause,” they said, “to believe that the Lords the States-General of the United Provinces have an intention by force to usurp the known rights of England in the seas, to destroy the fleets that are, under God, their walls and bulwarks, and thereby expose this Commonwealth to invasion at their pleasure.”[723] It was in vain that the States disowned responsibility for Tromp’s action and sent over a copy of their instructions to him, showing that he had been commanded to avoid the English coast. The ambassadors appealed to the Council to hold their hand until the States-General had made an inquiry. Tromp was cautioned to use the greatest circumspection, so that while preserving the reputation of his country, nothing further should be done to widen the breach with England. And now, when too late, the Dutch Government came to a definite decision as to the striking of the flag. Tromp was expressly ordered to strike his flag on meeting the English fleet, according to the manner that had been customary when England was under its kings; and not to attack them, but only to defend himself if assailed.[724]

The States also sent over a special ambassador, Adrian Pauw, the Grand Pensionary of Holland, and the most venerable and influential personage in the Republic, to assure the Parliament of their pacific intentions, and to strive to maintain peace. He urged that the encounter of the fleets should be looked upon as an “accident,” and that a joint inquiry should be made and the admiral found to have been in fault duly punished. He proposed, further, that regulations should be drawn up for the fleets, so that in future such disputes might be avoided,—not, he said, that it was the wish of the States to dispute the honour and the dignity of the English Republic, which they esteemed the first and greatest in Europe.[725] But the Parliament insisted that the States should first pay them the costs and compensate them for the injuries they had sustained by the Dutch naval preparations and Tromp’s attack, and give security for an alliance between the two countries. Meanwhile, the Parliament had been seizing Dutch vessels and preparing for war, while in the United Provinces feeling was rising steadily and angrily against England. The ambassadors were recalled and the naval preparations on both sides pushed on with energy.

It was well understood that the most vulnerable part of the States lay in their shipping and fishery. A day or two after the news of Blake’s encounter with Tromp reached London, the Council issued instructions to Major-General Dean, who commanded the troops in Scotland, that in view of the fishery carried on every year by the Dutch about Orkney and Shetland, the forces there should be increased.[726] A month later, on 26th June, before the ambassadors had left London, Blake himself sailed northwards with a fleet of about sixty ships, with a double object of putting a stop to the Dutch herring fishery and intercepting their homeward-bound East-Indiamen, which were expected to return to Holland by way of the Shetlands.[727] On 12th July he sent forward in advance eight frigates to discover the Dutch convoying men-of-war, which they soon fell in with, guarding the herring-busses, to the north of Buchan Ness. They were twelve in number, and after a stubborn fight of over three hours’ duration, towards the end of which the English frigates were reinforced by other five, they were all taken, before the main fleet came up. The English wounded were sent in three of the captured ships to Inverness; other three ships were so much shattered that they were sunk. While the fight went on, most of the herring-busses escaped and made their way homewards with all speed, but about thirty were taken by the English. Blake dealt with them very leniently. He took from them “a taste and toll” of herrings, and then sent them home with this “lesson,” that they “fish no more in those seas without leave from the Republick of England.”[728] For this humane action Blake was subsequently blamed, on the ground that the busses might have been made use of in establishing a native fishery, while the detention of their crews would have helped to cripple the resources of the Dutch in manning their fleets.[729] The same generous spirit was shown towards the French boats that fished in the Channel, which were excepted from the general seizure of French shipping, unless they acted improperly.[730] In the course of the war, however, it became the rule for both the Dutch and the English vessels to bring into port all the fishing-boats captured from the enemy.

After Blake dispersed the Dutch busses, the States of Holland at first thought of calling home the rest of the herring fleet (only about 600 or 700 had returned), and for that year to put a stop to the fishing, which had just begun; but it was finally decided to continue it with twenty-four armed busses and six men-of-war as a guard,—a conclusion, no doubt, helped by the gentle way in which the English admiral had dealt with the busses that fell into his hands. When English herring-boats were seized and taken to the Netherlands, Holland, which had the greatest stake in the fishery, tried to induce the States-General to release them, and to issue orders that British fishermen were not to be molested, in the hope that such forbearance would be imitated in England. But the policy failed, and orders were given to do the English fishermen all harm possible. In the following year the States-General forbade the whaling-ships sailing for Greenland, but they did not prohibit the herring fishery, though the greater number of the busses were kept at home by the prudence of their owners. Many were captured by English cruisers. More than fifty were taken by the English fleet on the Dutch coast in May 1653, most of them being brought into Aberdeen and there sold. Some of those seized in the course of the war were handed over by the Council of State to the London Corporation for the Poor, to be used in fishing on the English coast. On the other hand, the English fishermen suffered greatly. The Iceland and North Sea fishing came almost to a stop, and men-of-war had to guard the herring and mackerel boats. In September 1653 the Council sent a force of men and three “fit and nimble” ships to the Shetlands to ply about the islands, to intercept the enemy’s trade of fishing, with what results do not appear.[731]

But the operations against the enemy’s fisheries played only a small part in the war. The struggle for the command of the sea was concentrated in many fierce battles between the contending fleets in 1652 and 1653. The exploits of Blake, Dean, Monk, and Penn on the one side, and of Tromp, De Ruyter, Evertsen, and De With on the other, are famous in the naval history of the two countries; and although victory finally rested with England, there were times when the actual control of the British seas was in the hands of the Dutch. It was on one of those occasions that the Dutch admiral was said to have hoisted a broom at his mainmast-top as a sign that he would sweep the seas of all Englishmen. Tromp unexpectedly appeared in force in the Channel in the winter of 1652, and on 30th November he defeated Blake off Dungeness. From that date till the end of February in the following year no English fleet was able to oppose him. The Dutch were “lords and masters” of the sea, and English commerce suffered severely. But the popular story about the broom seems to have uncertain foundation. It was first set afloat in two English newspapers, published on 9th March 1653, after the decisive “three days’ battle.” In one it was said that Tromp had set forth “a flag (or standard) of Broom; and being demanded what he meant by it, reply’d, That he was once more going to sweep the Narrow Seas of all Englishmen.” The other paper gave a letter from the Nonsuch frigate at Portsmouth, stating that the Hollanders had probably gone home after the battle, and that “their gallant Mr Trump when he was in France (we understand) wore a flagg of Broom, and being demanded what he meant by it, replied that he was going to sweep the narrow seas of all English men.” The story is not mentioned by Dutch authorities, and is now generally discredited, but in an earlier century the broom had been used in this way by a Dutch admiral to signalise a victory in the Baltic;[732] and it is said that after the two days’ battle in the following summer, when the Dutch had been driven from the sea, the English fleet rode triumphant off the Texel with a broom displayed at their mast-heads, perhaps in ironical parody of Tromp.

While the fleets were contending for actual dominion over the sea, the Parliament took care to keep alive the historic claims to maritime sovereignty and to place them well before the people. As early as 25th June 1652—the day before Blake sailed away to the north in quest of the herring-busses—they passed a resolution: “That it be referred to the Council of State to prepare a declaration to assert the right of this Commonwealth to the Sovereignty of the Seas, and to the fishery; to be made use of when the Parliament shall see cause.”[733] No time was lost, for on the same day the Council remitted the instruction of the Parliament to the Committee for Law and Examinations, with the request that they should bring the declaration to the Council with all speed, and Bradshaw was desired to see that this was done.[734] Apparently, for the use of the Committee in drawing up this declaration, Mr William Ryley, the Keeper of the Records in the Tower, made transcripts of several of the records in his charge referring to the sovereignty of the sea, as the ordinance of King John, Edgar’s charter, the mandate of Edward I. to the Bailiffs of Yarmouth, the rolls of the same king concerning Grimbald, and of Edward III. on the laws of the sea, and some others.[735]

It was soon apparent to the Council that the task of again attempting formally to vindicate the claims of England to the sovereignty of the seas, while Selden’s Mare Clausum was at their disposal, would be like painting the lily. They therefore instructed the Committee for Foreign Affairs “to take order for printing the book called Mare Clausum and Mr Dugard to print it.”[736] But simply to reprint Selden’s work, with its fulsome dedication to Charles II., and in the Latin tongue, would not have served the purpose in view, and it was then resolved to translate it. This task was assigned to Marchamont Needham, who had deserted the royalist cause and placed his pen at the service of the Commonwealth, writing the Mercurius Politicus, in which he had latterly the assistance of Milton.[737] The translation was rapidly made, and the work was published later in the year.[738] And just as the original had been dedicated to the king, so now the translation was dedicated to “the Supreme Authority of the Nation, the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England”; and so pleased were the Council of State with it that they, on 8th November, ordered two hundred copies for their own use, and paid Needham £200 for his labours, as the book, they said, “learnedly asserted the rights and interests of the Commonwealth in the adjacent seas, and would be of good use for these and future times.”[739]