A Book for the Hammock

by William Clark Russell

The book pre-eminently concerns the honour of our flag, of our dominion over the seas, more particularly in regard to the right of our kings and queens to grant licences to foreigners to fish in the sea, and of the obligation on all ships of what denomination soever to strike their topsails to our flag, or in other words to salute the symbol of Britannia’s sovereignty wherever they shall encounter it. For how many centuries this act of courtesy has been exacted as a right by the monarchs of England you must read Selden’s book to discover. Writing in James I.’s reign, he shows how he traces it back for above four hundred years by this: That at Hastings it was decreed by King John, in the second year of his reign, with the assent of the peers, “if the governor or commander of the King’s navie, in his naval expeditions (which were all in that age upon the Southern Sea) shall meet any ship whatsoever by sea, either laden or empty, that shall refuse to strike their sails at the command of the King’s Governor or admiral or his lieutenant, but make resistance against them which belong to his fleet; That then they are to bee reputed enemies if they may bee taken, yea, and their ships and goods be confiscated as the goods of enemies.” He points out that it was accounted treason in any man who omitted to acknowledge the King of England in his own sea by striking sail; nor would the circumstance of his country being friendly with that of the transgressor protect him. Another illustration of the antiquity of this custom, or exaction rather, Selden finds in a gold rose-noble,[^[21]] that was coined in the reign of Edward III. The stamp on one side of it represented a ship floating on the sea, and a king, armed with sword and shield, sitting on the ship as on a throne, the device being obviously intended to represent the maritime dominion of the ocean. All that Selden has to say about fishing in the sea is full of interest. He points out that Henry VI. gave leave to the French, and other foreigners, to fish, sometimes for six months, sometimes for a year; but this leave “was granted under the name even of a passport or safe conduct; yea, and a size or proportion was prescribed to their fishing boats or busses that they should not be above thirty tons.” The French had to obtain leave from the English admiral to fish for soles for the table of their own king (Henri Quatre), and such boats as were caught fishing without a licence were seized as trespassers. In the Eastern waters the Hollanders and Zealanders were forced to seek permission to fish from the Governor of Scarborough Castle, and Selden quotes Camden’s expression of wonder at the vast sum of money the Hollanders made by this fishing upon our coast and at the apathy of the English, “who have ever granted them leave to fish, reserving alwaies the honour and privilege to themselves, but through a kindle of negligence resigning the profit to strangers.” It is on the mass of evidence as to the antiquity of the British claim to the sovereignty of the seas that Dr. Campbell, the historian, bases his opinion respecting the naval power of the Early Britons, who are generally considered as a race of painted wild men, who speared fish or crossed their rivers and creeks in wicker boats covered with hides.

[21]. The value of this coin was 6s. 8d. as money then was. The Alchymists pretended that it was made by their arts; interpreting the inscription on the reverse, Jesus autem transiens per medium corum ibat, to signify that gold was made by secret art amid the ignorant. Four rose-nobles weighed an ounce.

The question of this dominion became a vital one to this country with the growth and the aggressions of Holland. Was she or England to be sovereign of the sea? And was an English ship, figuratively speaking, to bow to a Dutch one when she met her? Selden offered the world precedents enough on our behalf. That King John should have claimed a universal striking to the Royal flag was surely proof that what might impress the foreigner as an extraordinary pretension was founded on the unquestioned rights of our predecessors. Edward III., in his commissions to his admirals, repeatedly styled himself sovereign of the English seas, affirming, with perfect justice, that he derived the title from his progenitors. In Hakluyt there is preserved a curious metrical admonition, presumably written in or about the sixth year of the reign of Edward IV., entitled “De politia conservatira Maris,” with a heading to the general introduction that runs thus: “Here beginneth the prologue of the processe of the libel of the English policie, exhorting all England to keep the sea, and namely the narrow sea; shewing what profite commeth thereof, and also what worship and salvation to England, and to all Englishmen.” It will be owned that the anonymous author’s appeal was not addressed to deaf ears. An immortal proof of British resolution in this direction occurs in the reign of Queen Mary. Lord William Howard, created Baron of Effingham, was sent with a fleet of twenty-eight sail presumably to guard the coast, but in reality to escort Philip of Spain, whose own fleet, however, consisted of one hundred and sixty vessels. His admiral came sailing along with the Spanish flag flying at his masthead, which so offended Lord William Howard that he fired a shot at him and forced him to strike or haul down his colours before he would make his compliments to the prince.[^[22]] This was followed by another lively example of a like kind. When the Spanish fleet went to fetch Anne of Austria, who was in Flanders, Sir John Hawkins, with a small squadron of her Majesty’s ships, was riding in Cattewater. The Spanish admiral endeavoured to pass without saluting. Sir John sent a shot at the Admiral’s rigging, but no notice was taken of it. A second shot fired went clean through the Spaniard’s hull. On this the Don sent an officer of distinction with compliments and complaints to Sir John Hawkins, who refused to admit the officer or hear what he had to say; but simply required him to tell his admiral that, having neglected to pay the respect due to the Queen of England, in her seas and port, he must not expect to lie there but to be off within twelve hours. Sir John’s flag was flying on the Jesus of Lubeck; to this ship came the Spaniard full of remonstrance, declaring he knew not what to make of the treatment he had received, seeing that there was peace between the two Crowns. “Put the case, sir,” said Sir John, “that an English fleet came into any of the King, your master’s, ports, his Majesty’s ships being there, and those English ships should carry their flags in their tops, would not you shoot them down and beat the ships out of your port?” The Spaniard confessed himself in the wrong, and submitted to the penalty the English Admiral imposed.

[22]. To strike is to lower. The old salutation was the striking or lowering of the top-sail. The introduction of the topgallant-sail must have rendered this courtesy extremely inconvenient.

It was the Hollander, however, who gave the English most trouble in regard to the honour of the flag. In or about 1604 Sir William Monson was cruising with a fleet with instructions to assert the superiority in the British seas which came to James I. from his ancestors. Sir William has told the story himself in his “Naval Tracts.” On his return to Calais in July, 1605, he found an addition of six ships to the Dutch squadron he had left off Dover three days before. One of them was the Admiral’s. “Their object,” he says, “in coming in shew was to beleaguer the Spaniards who were then at Dover.” As Sir William approached, the Dutch Admiral struck his flag thrice, meaning that the Spaniards as well as others should conclude that, by continuing to “wear” his flag, he represented a sovereignty of the sea as complete as that of the English. Sir William requested him to take in his flag; he refused, alleging that he had struck it three times, which he held was acknowledgment enough. There was some discussion, after which he was told that if he did not salute, the British Admiral would weigh anchor and fall down to him, and then the force of the ships should determine the question; “for rather than I would suffer his flag to be worn in view of so many nations as were to behold it, I resolved to bury myself in the sea.” “The Admiral, it seems, on better advice,” adds Sir William, “took in his flag and stood immediately off to sea, firing a gun for the rest of the fleet to follow him. And thus I lost my guest the next day at dinner as he had promised.” Amongst others who witnessed this was Sciriago, the Spanish General, who told Sir William that if the Hollanders had worn their flag, times had strangely altered in England, for he remembered his old master King Philip the Second being shot at by the Lord Admiral of England for wearing his flag in the narrow seas when he came to marry Queen Mary.

In spite of treaties of peace between England and Holland, the trouble about the fishing continued. Disputes arose over the payment of the assize-herring in Scotland, and the Dutch sent ships of war to protect their herring-boats against the penalties which must attend the refusal to pay the licence money. In 1609 King James issued a proclamation concerning fishing, in which it was stated that commissioners had been authorized “at London for our realms of England and Ireland, and at Edinburgh for our realm of Scotland,” to issue licences to such foreign vessels as intend to fish for the whole or any part of the year, and that the licences were to be taken out “upon pain of such chastisements as shall be fit to be inflicted upon such as are wilful offenders.” The fishing quarrel rose to a height again in 1618, but it does not appear that the honour of the flag was involved in these trawling politics until 1652. In that year Commodore Young encountered a Dutch man-of-war whose captain refused to salute the English colours. The commodore sent a boat with a polite request that the Dutchman would strike; but mynheer answered very honestly that the States had threatened to take off his head if he struck; whereupon a fight began, with the result that the Dutchman had to haul down his colours. This was on May 14; on the 19th Van Tromp bore down upon Blake, who was lying off Dover. Blake sent three shots at the Dutch flag as a hint; which Tromp answered with a broadside, and then followed an action that lasted till nine at night, when, Blake being reinforced, the Dutch made off. Peace was made in 1654. In that treaty nothing was said as to our sovereignty in respect to the fisheries, but amongst other articles was the acknowledgment of the dominion of the English at sea and the agreement to strike to the meteor bunting. But the prowess of Admiral Blake may have provided for this without any obligation of specification; for in this year, coming to an anchor off Cadiz, a Dutch Admiral who was there would not hoist his flag whilst Blake was present. Indeed, such was the awe in which Blake was held, that the Algerines, merely with the idea of obtaining his favour, made a point of overhauling the Sallee rovers for English prisoners and sending all they found to him.

The honour of the flag seems a noticeable element in the origin of the war of 1665. Sir John Lawson, in command of a squadron of ships, was in the Mediterranean with De Ruyter. The Dutch admiral saluted the English flag, a compliment which Lawson refused to return, alleging that his orders did not allow him to strike to the subjects of any king or State whatever. It may be supposed that such treatment pretty liberally envenomed the soul of the fine old Dutchman, who, when he was shortly afterwards sent to commit hostilities against us, made sail on that adventure with a hot heart. In 1674 we find the Dutch in the treaty of peace professing to understand a point that in spite of previous treaties they had refused to admit. In the treaty with Cromwell they had agreed that their ships should salute the English, and in subsequent treaties the same undertaking appears. But their usual apology for failure was that striking was a mere matter of civility, and that if they declined to pull off their hat there was no obligation upon them to do so. But by 1674 the political atmosphere had been cleared by British cannons, and the Dutch were now able to distinguish. The treaty ended the doubt; what was before styled courtesy was here confessed a right. Not only was the extent of the British sovereignty clearly defined; the State undertook that whole fleets, as well as separate ships, “should strike their sails to any fleet or single ship carrying the King’s flag, as the custom was in the days of his ancestors.” It was said by Secretary Coke in a letter addressed by order of Charles I. to Sir William Boswell, Ambassador at the Hague, “This cannot be doubted, that whosoever will encroach upon him (the King) by sea, will do it by land also, when they see their time. To such presumption ‘Mare Liberum’ gave the first warning piece, which must be answered with a defence of ‘Mare Clausum,’ not so much by discourses, as by the louder language of a powerful navy, to be better understood when overstrained patience seeth no hope of preserving her right by other means.”

“The spirits of your fathers,

Shall start from every wave,”

sings Campbell, and in Coke’s words one finds a noble example of the sort of message those spirits knew how to deliver. What has been done for the honour of the flag by a language louder than discourses may be easily traced through the Rookes, the Shovels, the Mansels, the Howes, the Rodneys, Keppels, Nelsons.