Notwithstanding the active support of the Court and the energy of many agents, subscriptions to the fishery society filtered in but slowly. The sum collected for it in the London churches in the year 1661 amounted to the paltry total of £818, 6s. 4½d.—scarcely enough to set forth one buss,—and in the autumn of 1664 it was reported that the amount collected throughout England and Ireland was only £1076. The lottery, too, from which a great deal was hoped, gave rise to much corruption, confusion, and dispute, without notably enriching the society.[825] In these depressing circumstances recourse was again had to Parliament. On 5th March 1662 a “Bill to confirm his Majesty’s letters patent concerning the fishing trade” was introduced into the House of Commons and remitted to a committee; but it ultimately became transformed into a mere local Act dealing with pilchard-fishing.[826] The king was not yet discouraged. The Masters of the Trinity House were consulted in July as to the cost of ten busses he had resolved to build, and the amount required—£9000—was actually handed over to Mr Thomas King. Charles further offered to pay £200 to every person who had a new English-built fishing-buss ready for the fishing before the middle of the following year.[827] To facilitate the success of the society on the foreign markets, an Act was passed in 1663, after considerable discussion, to make the use of the Dutch system of curing and packing herrings compulsory, so as to avoid abuses, and bring the English-cured herrings into repute.[828]
At a meeting of the Privy Council a few months later, Sir William Batten, Sir Richard Chaterton, and Sir William Ryder were appointed to formulate proposals for the organisation of the Royal Herring Fishery, and, after consultation with Simon Smith and Mr Thomas King, it was resolved to adopt the Dutch system and regulations and to go on with the scheme.[829] The next step was the issue by the king in the spring of 1664 of another commission under the great seal, by which the Duke of York and thirty-six assistants were incorporated as Governors and Company of the Royal Fishery of Great Britain and Ireland; the Lord Mayor and the Chamberlain of the City of London were appointed treasurers.[830]
In spite of all efforts, such as they were, extremely little was done by the society before the outbreak of the second Dutch war. The slovenly way in which the business was managed and the corruption in regard to the finances were notorious. Pepys, who was a member of the council of the society, and had grave misgivings as to the issue of their labours, gives amusing glimpses of the proceedings in his Diary. He examined the accounts, and declared that “the loose and base manner that monies so collected are disposed of in, would make a man never part with a penny in that manner.” The Duke of York and the members did not even meet to read the king’s commission until July, and the later meetings were often futile from the want of a quorum. “A sad thing it is to see,” says Pepys, “so great a work so ill followed, for at this pace it can come to nothing but disgrace to us all.”[831]
The failure of the attempt to establish a great national fishery to expel the foreigner from the British seas, after five years’ endeavour, was very agreeable to the Dutch, who had watched the proceedings with close attention, and had tried, openly and secretly, to hinder success whenever they had an opportunity. Immediately after the Restoration, the States-General, anxious to come to a good understanding with Charles, sent special ambassadors to London to arrange a treaty of friendship and alliance, and to renew previous treaties.[832] The negotiations which ensued dealt, among other things, with the fisheries, the flag, and the sovereignty of the sea. The object of De Witt, the great Dutch Minister, was the usual one of his countrymen on similar occasions—viz., to secure as far as possible the commercial and other privileges which had been granted by the Intercursus Magnus. Charles, on the other hand, wished at the very least to retain all the concessions that Cromwell had secured by the treaty of 1654.[833]
When the Dutch ambassadors arrived, or at all events when they began negotiations in London, the House of Commons had already taken up the question of the fisheries. Action of this kind always occasioned the Dutch anxiety. They knew it was directed against their predominance in a vital industry, and that it was usually followed by troublesome claims to the sovereignty of the sea and to an exclusive fishing on the British coasts. Here were all those questions raised in threatening fashion in the Bill passed by the Commons and sent up to the Lords. Moreover, English privateers, sailing under Swedish colours, had lately been seizing Dutch herring-busses, and though protests were made by the ambassadors, no redress was obtained.[834] The debates and proceedings in the House of Commons attracted immediate attention in Holland.[835] De Witt at once took up a firm attitude. He declared that the new pretension of England to the dominion of the seas and for the ruin of the Great Fishery would meet with the most determined resistance of the Republic; and, while consoling himself with the thought that reason had always prevailed against it in the past, he urged the ambassadors to use every means in their power with the Peers and the king in order to frustrate it. The Marquis of Ormonde, who was an intimate friend of Beverwaert’s and one of Charles’s Ministers, was bribed to use his influence to the same end. This nobleman informed the ambassador that when he was asked to favour the fishery project, he had answered that while he desired the advantage of the nation as much as any man, it would be first necessary to prepare for war, as it was in reality an affair of state; and he took credit with his Dutch friend for having induced many members of Parliament to oppose the Bill.[836] Whether these intrigues had any influence in causing the fishery question to be so frequently “laid aside” in Parliament can only be surmised.
So much concerned were the States-General about the provisions of the Bill, that they despatched a special letter to be presented to the king, in the hope, as De Witt said, that the resolution of the Commons might be suspended and its execution prevented.[837] But when it became known in Holland that the Bill had been shelved by the dissolution of Parliament, and that Charles was unlikely to summon another Parliament for a long time, the ambassadors were told to withhold it, but at the same time to make its substance known to the Ministers, so that the king might learn of it indirectly. They were also warned to say nothing, in the negotiations for the treaty on which they were engaged, that might allow it to be supposed that the right of the Dutch to fish in the seas around the coast of England was derived from any treaty or compact, or from any concession on the part of England. On the contrary, it arose jure proprio from the law of nature and the law of nations, the stipulation in the treaty of 1495 merely expressing this mutual right of free fishery with the view of preventing violence on either side.
The negotiations dragged on slowly. The English commissioners showed no anxiety to discuss the questions of the fishery, commerce, or navigation, about which the Dutch were most concerned. Taking their stand on the Navigation Act, which Parliament had recently passed, they declined to listen to any proposal for free fishing on the English coast. The Dutch ambassadors grew hopeless of being able to conclude a treaty satisfactory to the States, and this feeling was strengthened by the jealousy and resentment which the English began to manifest concerning the simultaneous negotiations that were going on between Paris and The Hague.[838] Foreseeing the difficulties likely to arise with England over the fishery question, De Witt had made a dexterous move. In the negotiations with France for a treaty between the two countries, he proposed that an article should be inserted reciprocally guaranteeing the right of free fishing in the sea to the subjects of each nation against any that might endeavour to interfere with it. A similar proposal had been made to France in 1653, but was rejected owing to the desire of the French Government to avoid irritating Cromwell.[839] Even now, when international conditions were more favourable for its acceptance, the French looked askance at it, and asked the States to define precisely their position as to the right of fishery. They said in reply that they claimed the right of fishing in the open sea by the law of nations; that it was a right independent of any treaties, which merely illustrated and explained it, and was like the liberty of commerce and navigation—free and open to all. The two countries should therefore, it was urged, agree mutually to support one another in the free exercise of this common right. In substance this was clearly a demand that France should combine with them to resist the English pretension to the sovereignty of the sea, on the point in which it chiefly affected the United Provinces—namely, the fishery. The French met it by suggesting that, as a quid pro quo, the States should guarantee them in the same way against the claim of the English to make French ships lower their flag to them in the narrow seas. France, as we have seen, was not troubled by England about the fishery, although many French vessels fished off the English coast. On the other hand, the Dutch had formally agreed to strike to English ships by the treaty of 1654,—a ceremony that France declined to render, and avoided as far as possible. De Witt saw that if the States gave the guarantee desired, it would place in the hands of the French the power to compel them to take up arms against England at any time they chose, and he instructed the Dutch ambassadors, if they could not evade the proposal altogether, to request a declaration, in writing, of the precise claims concerning the striking of the flag which the King of France put forward as against the King of England. He said the obligation of the States to strike was indisputable; but it was not a recognition of England’s pretended dominion of the sea, but merely a formal deference that republics had always shown to monarchies. De Witt privately expressed the opinion that the French would hesitate to formulate in writing any claim of that kind, and the result proved his foresight. The French ambassador in London made certain overtures to Charles without receiving a satisfactory reply, and the French proposal for a guarantee about the flag was dropped.
A diplomatic tussle then took place as to whether the word “fishery” should appear in the treaty. The French were anxious to keep it out, and the Dutch as desirous that it should be expressly included. Later, De Witt seemed disposed to concede the point, provided other words could be found which would “clearly stipulate, in express terms, that if their subjects were molested in their fishery the French would carry out against those who molested them the guarantee promised.” At this stage, however,—March 1662,—the Dutch towns insisted on the fishery guarantee being absolutely explicit. The states most concerned—Holland and West Friesland—unanimously passed a resolution that if France refused to agree to the word “fishery” being inserted, the negotiations should be broken off and the ambassadors recalled. Louis XIV. then gave way. “I must admit,” he wrote to his ambassador in London, “that I have the same interest in this guarantee as the Dutch, since the right of fishing may just as well be refused by England to my subjects as to those of the States-General.”[840] The treaty was signed on 27th April 1662, and in the fourth article the two contracting Powers mutually agreed to assist one another in protecting their fishermen from those who might molest them.[841]
The stipulation in the treaty with France was a notable triumph for De Witt. For the first time in their history the Dutch had succeeded in formally binding another Power to help them in resisting the English claims to the sovereignty of the sea, so far as concerned the liberty of fishing. Should Charles II. wish to emulate the exploits of his father by sending a fleet to force licenses on the Dutch herring-busses, he would now have to reckon on the combined opposition of France and the United Provinces. The triumph was, however, a barren one, and the treaty had no practical effect. Within a few years the Dutch Republic was in the throes of war, first with England, and then with England and France, and other treaties took its place. It had, however, an immediate influence upon the policy of Charles, who feared an alliance of the two Continental Powers against England. When he heard of the negotiations about the fishery guarantee he tried, both at Paris and at The Hague, to prevent an agreement being reached, and the obstacles which he interposed delayed the conclusion of the treaty. Sir George Downing, the English ambassador in Holland, who had taken a prominent part in the debates in the Commons on the Fishery Bill, and whose hostile sentiments to the Dutch were notorious, took up an unusual attitude. He assured De Witt that since the United Provinces were a republic and did not seek to encroach on England, they might freely continue their fishery without fearing the least trouble; but England could never allow that France, a monarchy, and a bold and enterprising nation, should have unrestricted liberty of fishing on the English coasts. It was feared, he said, that by its fishery the abundance of mariners and the increase in shipping which would follow would make it formidable to England, and this the English, in accordance with their political maxims, would prevent. The French had frequently requested and received licenses for a limited number of vessels to fish in English waters, sometimes for the king’s table. If, therefore, he continued, the proposed guarantee were agreed to, the Republic as well as France would be de facto at war with England, because England would never leave the French fishermen at peace. The same language was used by Downing to many of the deputies of the States-General, in the hope of frightening them, but it made no impression. “I have declared to Downing,” wrote De Witt, “that sooner than acknowledge this imaginary sovereignty over the seas, or even receive from the English, as a concession, that freedom of navigation and fishing which belongs to us by natural right and the law of nations, we would shed our last drop of blood.”[842]
The inflexible attitude of De Witt, and the actual conclusion of the treaty with France, extinguished for a time the hope of compelling the Dutch to acknowledge the right of England to the exclusive fishing along her coasts, and the proposal was not pressed upon the ambassadors in London during the dilatory negotiations for the Anglo-Dutch treaty. With regard to the striking of the flag, Charles received more satisfaction. The tenth article of the treaty, which was signed at Whitehall on 4/14 September 1662, stipulated that Dutch ships, whether men-of-war or others, should strike their flag and lower their top-sails on meeting an English man-of-war on the British seas. It was indeed precisely the same clause as that contained in Cromwell’s treaty of 1654, except that certain verbal alterations were made in accordance with the change in the form of the English government.[843]