It was during the reign of Charles, into whose hands the sceptre passed in the spring of 1625, that the English pretensions to the sovereignty of the sea attained their most extravagant proportions,—a circumstance which was owing in great measure to the condition of domestic affairs and the king’s assumption of personal government. James had been content to limit his assertion of sovereignty to the question of the rights of fishing and the preservation of the “King’s Chambers” from the hostile acts of belligerents. But Charles, while vigorously pursuing this policy so long as he was able, combined with it the most extreme claims to dominion on the neighbouring seas that had ever been put forward by an English king. The sovereign rights of jurisdiction over the “Sea of England” which were supposed to have been exercised by the early Plantagenets, were now roused from the slumber of centuries and revived in their most aggressive form. The King of England was to be lord of the surrounding seas, and to rule over them as a part of his territory. A beneficent and universal peace was to reign over the waters of the German Ocean and the Channel, unbroken by the sound of an angry shot. No other fleets or men-of-war—be they Spanish, or Dutch, or French—were to be allowed “to keep any guard” there, to offer any violence, to take prize or booty, or to search the merchant vessels of other nations. The blockade of the opposite coasts of the Continent by an enemy’s fleet, as that of Flanders by the Dutch or French, was to be interdicted, because those coasts were washed by the British seas and blockading was a warlike operation. On the other hand the king was to 210 protect the commerce and navigation of his friends and allies. Foreign merchantmen might go on their way in security, undisturbed by fears of pirates or enemies, for “all men trading or sailing within those his Majesty’s seas do justly take themselves to be in pace Domini Regis,”—under the peace of our Lord the King. And as an external symbol and acknowledgment of this absolute dominion, foreign vessels were “to perform their duty and homage” on meeting his Majesty’s ships by striking their flag and lowering their top-sails. If they refused to do so, they were to be attacked and taken or sunk; the vessel was liable to forfeiture as “good prize,” and the offenders carried into port to be tried for their high contempt. Moreover—and it looks but a small thing by comparison,—no foreigners were to be permitted to fish in British waters without first receiving the king’s license so to do, and paying to him a tax in acknowledgment of the permission. In this way Charles hoped to restore the sovereignty of the King of England in the British seas—that “fairest flower of the imperial crown,” as he described it—to “its ancient style and lustre.”
That a scheme so preposterous was seriously entertained and for a time attempted to be realised showed the inherent incapacity of the king for rational government. He was no more able to gauge his strength in relation to foreign Powers than he was to foresee that the contest he had entered into with his own subjects would end in rebellion and the scaffold. It was ridiculous to suppose that other nations would tamely surrender their sovereign rights in the seas off their own coasts and ports, abandon the protection of their commerce and shipping and their rights as belligerents, simply because the King of England wished to be lord of the sea. Had Charles been able to give effect to his selfish and ambitious scheme, he would soon have been confronted with an overwhelming coalition of maritime Powers, to whom the free use of the sea was as necessary as it was to England. As it happened, war was averted by the dexterity of Richelieu and the prudence and patience of the Dutch; and also, it must be added, by the vacillation of Charles himself, who was always trying to arrange some new combination with Continental Governments to carry out the only policy to which he was true—the recovery of the Palatinate for his nephew. 211
It may be supposed that the splendour of the r?le attributed to the early kings of England as lords of the sea, would by itself appeal to the narrow imagination of one so deeply imbued as Charles was with a belief in the divine prerogative of kings; and the dominion of the seas was claimed as peculiarly a prerogative of the crown. But there were other more practical and less exalted inducements. The assumption of the r?le of the Plantagenet kings was intimately related to the state of home affairs and the means taken for the equipment of a fleet. Parliament having refused supply and been dissolved, recourse was ultimately had to the famous ship-money writs, by which it was possible to obtain the necessary ships independently of Parliament, as had been done by the early kings. To declare that these measures were indispensable for the maintenance of the sovereignty of the sea in its ancient style and lustre was well adapted to lessen their unpopularity, if anything could. It was a declaration “exactly calculated for the meridian of England,”394 for the English people in all ages have been prone to maritime glory and willing and anxious to make sacrifices for the sake of the navy, upon which their national safety depends.
It was in connection with the policy of the ship-money writs that the old doctrine of the Plantagenets came again into being. In the writs themselves the very words were copied that Edward III. had used in 1336 in his mandate to the admirals; but some years before they were issued one may trace the growth of the idea. In the period from 1631 to 1633 there was much searching of records with the view of establishing the king’s rights in his seas. Negotiations had been proceeding with Scotland, described below, with reference to a great fishery scheme, and the Scots had been very troublesome and persistent about their “reserved waters,” which the scheme threatened, the “land-kenning,” and the encroachments of the Dutch. They only agreed to give up their exclusive claim to the “reserved waters” for the benefit of the fishery association, provided that Charles would free the Scottish seas of the Hollander busses. In the long series of papers respecting the fishery project, mostly prepared by the indefatigable Secretary Coke, the change referred to may be perceived. In those of 1629 and 1630 there is no 212 suggestion of the sovereignty of the seas, but in 1631 instances become numerous. Coke claims the sea fishings as belonging to the crown; he begins to speak of the king’s “undoubted right of sovereignty in all the seas of his dominions,” and plainly says it will be necessary to exclude foreign fishermen from the British seas once the fishing society is a success. In the next year he goes further. He begins a long and formal document—also on fisheries—in the following words: “The greatnesse and glorie of this Kingdom of Great Britaine consisteth not so much in the extent of his Majesty’s territories by land, as in the souerantie and command of the seas. This command is in peace over trade and fishing: and for warre in the power of his Majesty’s Navie to incounter the sea-forces of anie foren prince.” And he goes on to say that while Spain alone used to oppose it, it was now opposed by France and the Low Countries.395 Still more to the point were the words of Charles himself. A few months after the fishery negotiations with Scotland were concluded, he wrote to the Clerk-Register in Edinburgh saying that, as the fishing business was now completed, he was desirous that it should be known abroad by his neighbours through some “public writing,” and asking him to search the records of the kingdom for authentic evidence to show his rights to the fishings, and to send such evidence to him.396
At this time also the English records were being subjected to search and scrutiny with the same object, but for other reasons. The “homage” of the flag was being hotly enforced in the Channel and disputed by France. Pennington, the Admiral of the Narrow Seas, reported cases in which the French demanded the salute from English merchant vessels, and rumours that it was the intention of the French admirals to wrest the regality of those seas from England on the ground that the Pope had given it to France.397 This news caused Viscount Dorchester—the Sir Dudley Carleton who had represented King James at The Hague, now a peer and Secretary of State—to write to Boswell, Clerk of the Privy Council (soon also to be ambassador at The Hague) for some information, however little, concerning the 213 King’s admiralty in the narrow seas. Boswell sent a few brief notes of little relevancy about the jurisdiction of the admiral and the Cinque Ports; but he added the interesting information that he believed Sir John Boroughs, the Keeper of the Records in the Tower, was able to produce an “original” concerning the first institution of “La Rool d’Oleron” by Edward I., in which the sovereignty of the kings of England in those seas appeared. This, said Boswell, was therefore before the kings of France could pretend to any sovereignty there, having “neither right nor possession of any part, or part of Britany, Normandy, or Aquitaine.”398 This, then, was the famous roll of 26 Edward I. now brought to light, or at least into use in the sphere of practical affairs. The discovery of Boroughs led Nicholas, the Secretary of the Admiralty, to draw up a note about the roll, “by which,” he said, “it is apparent that in those tymes ye soueraignty of those (Narrow) Seas was acknowledged by those princes (of Denmark, Sweden, &c., as mentioned in the roll): and justly, though no man can be said to have ye property of the sea, because a man cannot say this water is myne which runs, yet it is manifest that ye Kings of England have and had ye soueraignty and jurisdiction of those seas; that is, power to give laws and redresse injuries done on the same.”399
The germ of the new pretension of Charles to play the part of Plantagenet on the adjoining seas appears to have been this disclosing by Boroughs of the ancient roll. All the later writers on the English side of the controversy about mare clausum and mare liberum, as Selden, Coke, Prynne, as well as Boroughs himself, laid great stress on it.
It was, however, as we have already hinted, in connection with the fisheries that Charles’s first actions were concerned. He earnestly believed in the common opinion of the age that sea fisheries formed a principal means of developing commerce and navigation and maintaining a powerful navy, and early in his reign, before the new idea of maritime sovereignty dawned upon his mind, he did what he could to promote and foster them. The old laws for the preservation of the spawn and brood of fish, which had fallen into disuse, were put into force; proclamations appeared prohibiting wasteful fishing; a vigorous 214 effort was made to suppress the use of injurious appliances; the strict observance of Lent was repeatedly enjoined. But what proved most attractive was the notion which had haunted men’s minds since the time of the Great Queen, and had always eluded realisation. Charles became convinced that the formation of a grand national fishery association would wrest from the Dutch their predominance in the fisheries, drive their busses from our seas, and transfer to the English people the herring-fishing, with all the blessings which flowed from it—commerce, wealth, and maritime power. The last attempt which had been made in this direction, in 1623, had, as we saw, signally failed, the Lord Mayor and the opulent aldermen of London “absolutely refusing” to have anything to do with it. The scheme was now, however, to be launched by the king himself, who undertook to favour it with important privileges and immunities, and intended at a suitable time to aid it by prohibiting foreigners from fishing on the British coasts.
Shortly after Charles began to reign, the old proposals to tax the Dutch were renewed. In 1626 a petition was presented to the House of Commons praying that a duty of 10 per cent might be laid upon all Dutch or foreign ships fishing in the narrow seas; with what result the records are silent. Two years later the proposal got a step further, for in 1628 a Bill was drafted to empower the king to levy two shillings in the pound on all herrings or fish exported in foreign vessels, and the tenth of the fish taken by foreigners in the British seas, the revenue so obtained to be employed for the king’s use. The latter suggestion looks almost satirical in view of the failure of the many attempts of James to get revenue from that source, and in the midst, too, of the squabbles then occurring between Charles and the Parliament, which refused supplies and was abruptly prorogued; especially as the House “humbly beseeched” him, “in recompense of the great sums which your Commons have thus cheerfully granted,” “yearly to provide and maintain a strong fleet of able ships upon the Narrow Seas.”400
The original plan of the new fishery association was drawn 215 up by Secretary Coke and was submitted to a meeting held at Suffolk House on 29th November 1629. The two main points for consideration were: how they should obtain command of the fishery and be able to supply both themselves and foreign people, and how to find a “vent” for the fish taken and encourage merchants to purchase and export them. With regard to the first point, Coke said that to command and govern the whole fishing so as to make it a foundation of wealth to the kingdom, “equal to the Indies,” as it was then to the Hollanders, would require not fewer than 1000 busses, the cost of which would exceed ￡800,000. This, he admitted, would be a work of time, and he proposed, for a beginning, that timber should be felled in England, Scotland, and Ireland so as to be seasoned for the construction of 200 busses in the following year—40 in Scotland, 40 in Ireland, and 120 in England. Meanwhile, for the year beginning in January 1630, he recommended that ten or twelve busses should be bought in Holland, six Dutchmen to serve in each for the year; and that the necessary salt and timber for casks for curing the herrings should be got at Dunkirk from the prizes taken from the Dutch. As the cost of ten new busses built in England, fully equipped, would amount to ￡8390, including the cost of maintenance for four months, the plan suggested would be the best, and it was proposed to raise the money required by the “contributions of such adventurers as may be persuaded upon hope of the gains and by privileges from his Majesty.” It was intended that the busses should fish along with the Dutch on the east coast, beginning like them at Bressay Sound, Shetland, on 23rd June, and the herrings were to be put ashore to be repacked, after the Dutch method, at Aberdeen, Tynemouth, and Yarmouth. Supplementary to the busses, it was proposed to have six “doggers” to fish for cod and ling at Orkney and Shetland in the spring.
With respect to the second head, the prospect of obtaining markets for the produce, Coke said that English fishermen did not catch above 2000 lasts of herrings in a year, of which not more than 1000 lasts were consumed in England;401 and he 216 calculated that the ten busses would catch another thousand lasts, which he thought might be mostly exported to Prussia and along the German coast. The first step in carrying out the scheme was to form a company to raise a capital of about ￡11,000 or ￡12,000, and a committee was appointed for the purpose.402
Coke’s scheme, which, like all the others, was based upon a close imitation of the Dutch system, met with great favour from the king and the court. Further consideration, moreover, led the promoters to believe that the success of the enterprise would be increased if operations were also undertaken at the Lewes instead of being confined to the east coast, and various schemes were propounded with this end in view. The suggestion appears to have emanated from Captain John Mason, and it was made at a time when the island was a bone of contention between the royal burghs of Scotland and the Earl of Seaforth, who had obtained from the king a charter to “erect” Stornoway into a royal burgh.403 The burghs strenuously resisted the confirmation of this charter and refused to give effect to it, all the more since Seaforth had settled at Stornoway a number of Dutch people who were engaged in the fisheries there. From an interesting report by a Captain John Dymes, who visited Lewis in 1630 at the request of certain members of the Privy Council, and apparently in the interest of the proposed fishery society, we learn that the Dutch had been fishing there with great success. Their four busses, each with twenty-five nets and a crew of sixteen men, caught 300 lasts of herrings in three months, which were sold at Dantzic for 400 guilders or about ￡38 a last, which Dymes calculated would total ￡11,400, showing, after charges had been met, a gain for the 217 three months’ work of ￡7500.404 The Scottish burghs protested against the introduction of the Hollanders, which they said would ruin the whole trade and navigation of the kingdom and completely destroy the native fisheries. They petitioned the Privy Council to restrain strangers from resorting to the North and West Isles, pointing out that from the numbers of the Hollanders, their numerous ships and great commerce, they would draw the whole trade of the country into their hands, as they had done everywhere they had gone; and in a petition to the king they accused them of “great oppressions” in the Isles and on the coasts of the kingdom, and declared that by a “pretendit libertie obtenit of his father” they were “the over-throwes of the haill fischeing of this cuntry.”405
Mr John Hay, the Town-Clerk of Edinburgh, was despatched to London to the king, to ask that the country might be freed of the objectionable Hollanders and the Seaforth charter withdrawn; and to declare that the Scottish burghs would themselves undertake the whole of the fishings at the Lewes and erect a burgh there. Secretary Coke, full of the fishery scheme, took advantage of Hay’s presence to obtain from him a detailed account of Lewis and its fisheries, and of the Dutch fishings on the coast of Scotland, which, it was said, sometimes employed a fleet of 3000 busses; and from the information acquired an “estimate of the charge of a fishing to be established in the island of Lewes in Scotland” was prepared. This document showed that ten Scottish fisher-boats, of from twenty-five to thirty tons each, might be bought for ￡1200, and other ten boats, of twelve to fourteen tons, for a proportionately smaller sum. Each of the large boats was to be equipped with 120 nets of twenty yards in length, and the smaller boats with forty nets of the same dimensions; and it was calculated that 218 with a stock of ￡6743, 6s. 8d. a clear profit of ￡18,270 might be earned in one year.
This alluring prospect was no doubt encouraging to Coke and his friends; but he learned from Hay some further information which must have been disquieting. He was told that the Scottish people would not permit any foreigners to fish within twenty-eight miles of their coast, or within the lochs, the fishings there being reserved for the natives; that by the laws of Scotland any stranger found fishing within these limits was liable to confiscation of goods and loss of life, citing as an example the story of the barbarous treatment by James V. of the Dutch fishermen who had transgressed the “reserved waters” by fishing in the Firth of Forth.406 This point about the reserved waters was indeed the main difficulty which soon confronted the fishery scheme. To be successful, the fishing must be carried on along the Scottish coast and at the Isles, for it was there the great shoals of herrings resorted, but the objections of the Scottish Parliament, Council, and burghs had first to be overcome.407
The first important step was a declaration by the king of his intentions. On 12th July he wrote to the Privy Council of Scotland, laying before them his scheme for a great fishery association. With the advice of his Privy Council in England, he said, he had maturely considered that “als weill in thankfulnesse to Almighty God as for the benefite of all our loving subjects we ought no longer to neglect that great blessing offered unto us in the great abundance of fishe upon all the coasts of these Yllands. To the end we may at lenth injoy with more honnour these rights whiche properlie belong to our imperiall crowne and ar vsurped by strangers, We have considered of a way whiche in tyme by God’s favour may produce this good effect and also increasse our navigatioun and trade. And becaus this worke concerneth equallie all our three Kingdomes and must thairfoir be vndertakin and ordered by commoun counsell and assistance,” he had taken the opportunity of a meeting of the Scottish Parliament to send his 219 “instructions” on the subject by his Secretary for Scotland, Sir William Alexander.408
In his instructions the king, after a preamble reciting the abundance of fish on our coasts, the benefit which was reaped by strangers, “to the great disparagement and prejudice” of his loving subjects, declared his “firm resolution” to set up a “commoun fishing to be a nurserie of seamen and to increase the shipping and trade in all parts of his dominions,” and added—what must have been unwelcome news to the Scottish burghs and people—that as it was to be a “common benefit” to all the three kingdoms, so it could not be “dividedly enjoyed” by any one nation in particular. The Council were enjoined to take the matter into serious consideration, and to give their advice and assistance in bringing it to a successful issue; and as it was necessary to raise a “great stock” from adventurers, who would not be drawn into the scheme except by hope of great and immediate gains, an estimate of the outlays and profits was submitted to the Council, showing that 200 busses would earn a clear profit of ￡165,414 in a single year, after paying all costs.409 220
Sir William Alexander was also requested to ascertain how many busses and how much money might be contributed in Scotland, and he was to urge the Council to confer on the subject with the nobility and gentry, and especially with the burghs. Moreover, as it was not thought to be feasible to manage the whole project by one common joint-stock, the king advised that subsidiary companies should be formed in the principal town or burgh of each province, to be related to one central body or corporation. No foreigners were to be admitted as members of the company, although they might be employed as servants. All the adventurers, whether English, Irish, or Scottish, were to be allowed to fish freely “in all places and at all times”; and the king signified that as the Lewes was “the most proper seate for a continuall fishing along the westerne coasts,” it was his resolve to take it from the Earl of Seaforth into his own hands, as “adherent” to the crown, and to erect one or more free burghs in the Isles. If difficulties arose in the acceptance of the scheme, the Lords of Council were to be asked to appoint commissioners to treat with those he would nominate to act on behalf of England and Ireland.
The king’s proposals were brought before the Scottish Parliament on 29th July 1630, and remitted to a large committee to report upon them.410 They were ill-received in Scotland. The free burghs in particular opposed the scheme with great energy. They had brought about the withdrawal of the charter obtained by the Earl of Seaforth, and were negotiating among themselves for the formation of a company to carry on the fishing at the Lewes and establish a free burgh there. But the charter of the Highland Earl was a small thing to the scheme of the king. They saw in it an invasion of their special rights and privileges in trading and fish-curing, which had been conferred on them and confirmed by many Acts of Parliament, not merely at the Lewes but throughout the country. The “reserved waters,” moreover, 221 sacredly preserved for the industry and sustenance of their own people, were to be thrown open to Englishmen and Irish, whereby the nation would suffer greatly.411
On 9th August a statement was drawn up by the Convention and circulated to all the burghs, in which their opinion was asked as to whether any association with England in the fishings was expedient; whether the English should be suffered to “plant” or settle in any part of the Isles; whether, if the burghs undertook the fishing themselves, they should allow the nobility and gentry to “stock” with them, and if so on what conditions; and if not, whether the burghs should undertake it themselves by a company or by burgesses, and what sums might be subscribed for an exclusive company. On the following day it was complained in the Convention that, though the king had cancelled the patent to the Earl of Seaforth, the “Flemings” still remained in the Lewes; and the burghs thereupon decided that as the Privy Council had appointed commissioners from each of the Estates of Parliament to treat on the king’s proposals, their own commissioner, Mr John Hay, should be empowered to deal with the king in order to have the “Flemings” removed and the fishing “devolvit in thair hands”; to “stay” the proposed association with the English, or the plantation of strangers at any part of the kingdom where fishing was carried on; and to cause the “Flemings” to forbear from fishing on the Scottish coasts, “or not to cum neirer to the schoire of anie pairt of this kingdome than ane land kenning of the said schoire.”
Meantime a smaller committee which had been appointed 222 by Parliament, no doubt under the inspiration of the opposition of the burghs, reported against the association with England in the fishings. Such a course, they said, would be “verie inconvenient to the estait; and tuiching the land fishing, whilk consists in fishing within loches and yles and twenty aucht myles frome the land, and whilk is proper to the natives, and whairof they have been in continuall possessioun and neuer interrupted thairin be the Hollanders,”—a statement inconsistent with the frequent complaints made by the burghs in the reign of James. The burghs, they said, were able and content to undertake the “said land fishing” by themselves, without “communicating” therein with any other nation; and as for the buss-fishing, to which the king’s proposals specially referred, they stated that the season for it that year was passed, and that as it was a matter of great importance, it required time for consideration. The burghs reported to Parliament in the same sense.412
Thus Charles, in endeavouring to carry out his laudable desire to create a great national fishery to oust the Hollander from his seas, had suddenly raised against him a Scottish claim of mare clausum, which he found very provoking. Not only did the Scottish Parliament declare that a great extent of the sea around Scotland pertained exclusively to the natives so far as concerned fishing, but they coupled this with the request that the king should exclude foreigners from fishing within that area. It must be said that, apart altogether 223 from the unwritten law as to the “reserved” waters pertaining to Scotland, the Scottish people had some ground of complaint against the king for his sudden proposal to open up the whole of their seas and lochs to the English; for it was well known that in the Draft Treaty of union which James had caused to be prepared in 1604, and which would also have conferred important privileges on Scotland in matters of trade, words had been inserted reserving to each nation the fishings within all lochs, firths, and bays within land and up to a distance of fourteen miles from the coast. This treaty was drawn up by commissioners appointed by the respective Parliaments, the most active of whom were Secretary Lord Cecil (afterwards Earl of Salisbury) and the illustrious Sir Francis (afterwards Lord) Bacon on the English side, and Lord President Fyvie and Sir Thomas Hamilton (later Earls of Dunfermline and Haddington) on the part of the Scots. It was signed by thirty-nine of the forty-four English and by twenty-eight of the thirty Scottish commissioners; it was approved by the king and adopted by the Scottish Parliament, and it was thus an instrument of high authority with respect to the delimitation of the waters of exclusive fishing. The clause in the treaty dealing with freedom of commerce contained the reservation referred to, which was as follows: “Exceptand also and reserveand to Scottishmen thair trade of fisheing within thair loches, ffirthis, and bayis within land, and in the seas within fourtene mylis of the costis of the realme of Scotland, wheir nather Englishmen nor ony stranger or forinaris haue use to fishe, and soe reciprocally in the point of fisheing on the behalfe of England.”
Unfortunately, the treaty was never ratified by the English Parliament, and therefore did not come into force. But the objection of the English members was not in the least degree founded upon the reservation of fishing rights, but upon the nationalisation clauses, which caused them to dread the influx of an army of “hungry Scots” into England, Scotsmen being at the time very unpopular in London.413 224
The stipulation in the treaty of 1604 was now brought to mind in the negotiations on Charles’s fishing scheme. These negotiations, which were carried on for more than two years, were conducted on the part of Scotland with an ingenuity and refinement of procrastination scarcely surpassed by the Dutch in the previous reign.
After the report above mentioned, a large committee was appointed to discuss the business with the English authorities, and to report to the meeting of Parliament in November. Accordingly, on 3rd November the committee submitted the report of their proceedings with the English commissioners, which was signed by the Earl of Monteith, the President of the Council. They understood, they said, that the general fishing proposed by the king referred only to those fishings of which the benefit was exclusively reaped by strangers (that is to say, to deep-sea buss-fishing), and did not in any way touch the fishings which were enjoyed by the natives of any of the three kingdoms, so that the laws and freedom of every kingdom might be preserved, as indeed was “contained in the said instructions.” It was therefore necessary, they said, in the first place, that such fishings “in everie kingdom whiche ar onely injoyed be the natives be made known,” and that it should be clearly determined what those fishings were which were called “common benefits” that could not be “dividedly enjoyed.” With their eyes probably on the fate of the nationalisation clauses in the Draft Treaty of 1604, they declared it to be desirable that Scottish adventurers in the proposed association should be naturalised in England; and with reference to the commodities brought back for exported fish, they said it was necessary to inquire how the return for the fishes exported out of each kingdom should be made to the kingdom in which they were actually taken. As to founding a burgh in the Lewes, that, they said, would be an infraction of the rights of the existing burghs.
The reply of the English commissioners was somewhat vague 225 and general. It was, however, made clear that the king’s intention was that every member, or “brother,” of the company should be free to fish “in places near and remote, where common fishing is, or may be, used by any of his people,” this “mutual participation being the bond of union and sole means to recover his Majesty’s right and power at sea, and to enrich all his subjects, and those chiefly where the greatest fishings are.” On the other points they said, in effect, that the king would do what was best.
A letter from the king to the Parliament was also read, expressing his desire that the business should be advanced, as it would be “a worke of great consequence for the generall good of our whole kingdome, and more particularlie for the benefite of that our ancient kingdome” by the improvement of its trade and shipping. So anxious was Charles for the success of his enterprise, that he added a postscript in his own hand, in which he said: “This is a worke of so great good to both my kingdomes that I have thought good by these few lynes of my owne hand seriouslie to recommend it unto yow. The furthering or hindering of whiche will ather oblige me or disoblige me more then anie one business that hes happened in my tyme.” He also sent a letter to the burghs to mollify them, saying that it was in no ways intended that they should be wronged in their ancient privileges or benefits; and he requested Parliament to appoint commissioners charged with absolute powers to settle the matter with the English commissioners, so that there should not be undue delay.414
The Parliament thereupon appointed commissioners, on 11th November 1630, to treat with those of England.415 Nominally they were given full powers to treat, but their instructions, dated 23rd December, were so detailed and remarkable that it must have been obvious to every one that rapid progress was not intended. Nothing was to be done prejudicial or derogatory to the liberties and privileges of the kingdom, the crown, 226 or the laws of Scotland; special care was to be taken that the natives of Scotland were to be preferred in the choice of the best places for establishing “magazines” for the fishery, and that the places appointed for the English should be such as would not prejudice the “land fishing” of the Scotch; the Scottish members of the association were to have the same privileges and immunities, with power to erect magazines, in England and Ireland; English members who settled in Scotland were to be debarred from fishing in the reserved waters, or from buying fish from the natives, except for their own sustenance, as well as from any trade or commerce, unless for the same purpose; they were to be prohibited from importing or exporting commodities except fishes taken by their own vessels, and they were to pay customs and other duties for the fish they cured in Scotland and exported—and many other conditions were laid down which showed how little the Parliament had been moved by the personal appeal of the king.416
With respect to the fundamental question, the limits of the territorial seas pertaining to Scotland, the demands of the Parliament went much further than any previous claim. The old principle of division by the mid-line, which was held by some lawyers in the reign of Elizabeth, was now put forward. The commissioners were instructed to take care that a clause was inserted in the treaty to make it clear, “that the seas foreanent the coasts of this kingdome and about the Yles thairof and all that is interjected betuix thame and that mid-lyne in the seas whilk is equallie distant and divyding frome the opposite land, ar the Scotish Seas properlie belonging to the crowne of Scotland, and that the English hes no right nor libertie to fishe thairin, nor in no part thairof, bot be vertew of the association and not otherwayes.” But while these were the Scottish seas ideally regarded, English members of the 227 association were to be permitted to fish in them, except in the waters which were reserved to the Scottish people in the Draft Treaty of union of 1604—namely, bays, firths, and lochs within land, and a belt of fourteen miles along the coast. These waters were to be strictly preserved for the native fishermen.417
The instructions which the burghs gave to their representative, Mr John Hay, although less ample, were equally to the point. He was to agree to the proposal for the estab............