But in truth the real diplomatic victory lay with the Dutch. The striking of the flag is expressly described in the article as a ceremony of “honour” and a “testimony of respect,”— a qualification and attenuation not to be found in the previous treaties. By the introduction of these words the Dutch gained a point they had long contended for. Equally pertinent was the omission of the term “British seas,” which is found in all the earlier treaties,—an omission for which Charles was in part responsible. The ceremony “of respect” was to be paid “in any of the seas” between Cape Finisterre and Van Staten; and while the Dutch refused to consider those seas British, the English plenipotentiaries at Cologne were unable to contend that they were British. The limits fixed were therefore, as Sir Philip Meadows observed, “too wide for dominion and too narrow for respect”;[920] for we never claimed dominion in the Sea of Norway or the Bay of Biscay, and the Dutch offered to strike to the king’s flag all over the world. There is little doubt that the part of the article in which Charles was most interested was that relating to the striking of a squadron to a single ship of his, as it furnished a sort of justification for the action of the Merlin before the war. Temple himself was most anxious that the “former custom” referred to in all the previous treaties should be clearly defined; and Charles was entirely satisfied with the article.[921]
Notwithstanding Temple’s satisfaction as to the article on the flag, it did not end disputes on the subject. In the year in which the treaty was concluded, and in the year following, several episodes occurred. One of them concerned personages no less eminent than the English ambassadors who had been at Cologne, and it formed a practical commentary on the fruitless negotiations in which they had been engaged. Sir Leoline Jenkins and Sir Joseph Williamson did not return until after the conclusion of peace, and when the king’s yacht, the Cleveland, which had been sent to bring them over, was lying at anchor off the Briel, with Sir Leoline on board, a yacht of the States passed between it and the shore without striking its flag or firing any guns. When a message was sent from the Cleveland to the commander of the yacht, who was ashore, telling him he should have struck his flag, he only shrugged his shoulders and said he had the States’ ambassadors bound for England aboard. The Cleveland then weighed anchor and went about a league seawards, where the Dutch yacht and a man-of-war were lying. Again no flag was lowered to the king’s yacht, and the English captain asked Jenkins what he should do. Jenkins adduced the case of Tromp’s striking to the Earl of Arundel in Goeree Road, and also of Prince Maurice’s yacht, which a few days before had struck “to the kitchen-yacht in the canal of Delf-Haven, between the houses.” The captain then remembered that the Dutch had struck to him in that very place as he passed up to Rotterdam, and he proceeded to take vigorous measures to compel the “duty.” A shot was fired “under the forefoot” of the States’ man-of-war, and after a “convenient” interval another over his poop, and then a third between his masts. This brought a boat from the man-of-war to say that the States’ ambassadors were “much astonished” at the shots being fired, and that they would not strike, as they were within their own ports. But when Sir Leoline Jenkins sent a formal request to Van Beuningen, one of the Dutch ambassadors, the man-of-war took in its flag, and the incident ended.[922] In the following year Sir Leoline Jenkins was again a passenger on board one of the royal yachts, the Charles; on reaching the Maes a Holland man-of-war saluted with five guns, but kept its pennant flying, and only took it in and repeated the guns after two shots had been fired at it by the Charles; the men-of-war at the Briel also saluted with their pennants struck.[923]
In the spring of the same year Captain Herbert in the Cambridge encountered six French ships off Dungeness which refused to strike, and returned the fire, their admiral saying it was the King of France’s ship, and did not strike. They outsailed the Cambridge, said Herbert, which was no match for them. A few weeks later a French privateer in the same locality refused to strike to the Garland; and the tables were turned on the English by a Dutch privateer, which fired on a Whitby merchant vessel for not striking quick enough, and fined the master six shillings and eightpence for each shot expended, as well as beating and abusing him.[924] A case of quite a different kind, unique indeed, as it appears, occurred at the end of 1675. On the return of the Quaker ketch to England the officers charged the commander, Captain Joseph Harris, with having lowered his top-sails to a Spanish man-of-war, supposed to be an Ostend privateer, in the Bay of Biscay, to the great dishonour of the king. He was tried by a court-martial, found guilty, and condemned to be shot to death at such time and place as the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty should appoint.[925] He was, however, reprieved and then pardoned.[926]
Difficulties not infrequently occurred with merchant vessels, and even with fishing-boats, over this matter of the flag. We find Pepys writing to Captain Binning of the Swan, at Yarmouth, telling him that while he should take care that the Dutch “do their parts of civility towards his Majesty’s flag,” he ought not to impose upon them any “innovation,” the reference being to the taking of twelve barrels of herrings from each of the offenders in lieu of carrying them into port.[927] Foreign merchant vessels, especially Spanish and French, were sometimes brought into port and their masters tried before the High Court of Admiralty for refusing to strike to English men-of-war. By the strict law of the Admiralty such vessels might have been forfeited, but this extreme course was apparently rarely or never taken, the usual punishment inflicted being fine and imprisonment. Cases of this kind were naturally apt to raise unpleasant questions with foreign Powers, and they had to be dealt with cautiously. In 1675, when two Frenchmen were brought before the court for this offence, the judge, Sir Thomas Exton, appealed for advice to Sir Leoline Jenkins, then at the Congress of Nimeguen, and was warned by him to be very careful how he dealt with the case. He advised him to meddle as little as possible with the French edicts of 1555 and 1584 ([see p. 117]), under which the French Admiralty claimed similar rights, and to “stick to the terms of the indictment of the Spanish Captain at the Old Bailey,” adding that although much might be said plausibly on the subject of striking, that indictment had never been attacked; and he argued against the seizure and forfeiture of the ship.[928]
After the third Dutch war several works appeared in which the claims of England to the salute and to the sovereignty of the sea were maintained. It has been already mentioned that at the beginning of 1674, when the Dutch offers of peace were received in London, the king asked Evelyn to write something against the Dutch about the flag and fishery. As the occasion was pressing, Evelyn extracted the introductory part of his work on the second Dutch war (a work which was never completed), and after submitting it to the king, published it under a rather misleading title.[929] Notwithstanding the haste shown, the book appeared too late. Peace had been concluded, and the Dutch ambassador complained about it to the king. Charles ordered it to be recalled, but with characteristic artifice he instructed that the copies which were seized publicly to pacify the ambassador should be immediately restored to the printer, by which means the sales at least were much increased.[930] About the book itself little need be said. It is an ill-digested and unveracious account of England’s claim to the sovereignty of the sea and the fishery, founded on Selden, Boroughs, and less reputable writers. The author computed the arrears of “rent” due by the Dutch, and which he said they had engaged to pay for liberty of fishing, at over £500,000; and he falsified the amount of “license-money” received by Northumberland in 1636, although the Earl’s journals, and many other documents, were placed at his disposal. The most severe criticism of the work was made by the author himself, in a long and remarkable letter which he sent to Pepys a few years later, in which he repudiated, seriatim, all the “evidences” he had adduced in favour of the English pretension.[931]
Another book of more influence than Evelyn’s, because it was for a long time considered the standard work on the maritime law of England, and went through many editions, was published by Molloy two years later; and in it the English pretension received perhaps its most arrogant expression.[932] Notwithstanding the terms of the treaty of 1674, the author declared that the striking of the flag was not a mere ceremony of respect, but an absolute acknowledgment of England’s sovereignty of the seas, the king granting foreigners a general license to pass through his seas, “paying that obeisance and duty, like the services when Lords grant out estates, reserving a rose or peppercorn, the value of which is not regarded, but the remembrance and acknowledging their benefactor’s right and dominion.” Molloy held that by the treaty of 1674 the dominion of the British seas was “ascertained” to extend from Cape Finisterre to Van Staten, in Norway, and similar opinions on this and on the subject generally were expressed by other writers on naval matters, as by Godolphin[933] and Zouch,[934] and by most writers on Admiralty affairs during the remainder of the century and well into the next.
With respect to the fisheries, the failure of the previous attempt to establish a great fishery society did not deter others from being proposed. Efforts were indeed made throughout nearly the whole of the reign of Charles to keep the subject alive. An elaborate report was prepared by Dr Benjamin Worsley, who was Secretary to the Council for Trade and Plantations, on the Dutch fisheries and the best means by which a fishery could be established in this country with good hope of success. He stated that the least valuation generally placed on the Dutch herring fishery was £3,000,000, and that it was said to employ 1600 busses. Detailed reasons were given for the belief that success would not attend any attempt to establish a great fishery in England, unless it received the active support of the king and Parliament, and unless we were able to undersell the Dutch in the markets, which he thought by a change of methods we might be able to do.
Various efforts were made, openly and surreptitiously, to induce Dutchmen to settle at Yarmouth and Dover; the king even issued a declaration to encourage this in June 1672. But the schemes failed, and Sir Arnold Braems suggested that £3000 of the amount expected to be paid by the Dutch for the liberty of fishing should be devoted to bringing over busses and men.[935] Early in 1675 a detailed scheme was laid before Charles for the setting up of a fishery company with forty busses and a capital of £40,000, the estimated profit in the first year being placed at £31,463.[936] Among the objections urged to the setting up of the fishery by the king were the want of seamen and experienced curers; the acquaintance of the Dutch with the markets and their spare living, which would enable them to undersell us; and the laziness of English seamen. These objections were apparently answered satisfactorily,[937] and in 1677 Charles issued a commission to the Duke of York, the Earl of Danby, and others for a new society, to be called “The Company of the Royal Fishery of England,” granting a number of privileges and £20 per annum from the customs of the port of London for each buss or dogger. Stock was subscribed to the amount of about £12,500, which was spent in purchasing busses; but as they were Dutch-built and manned by Dutchmen, the French, then at war with the United Provinces, seized six of the seven belonging to the company and brought the work to a stop. Although the company was reconstructed later, and an attempt to raise £60,000 to carry it on made with some success, the death of the king and the troubles which followed caused the enterprise to be suspended. Thus the endeavours of Charles II. to create a great national fishery in England were no more successful than those of Charles I.