The Restoration, in 1660, made no change either in the national sentiment or the national policy of England concerning the sovereignty of the sea. Charles II. encouraged the pretension with as much zeal as had been shown by his father, or by the Commonwealth and the Lord Protector; and he was more astute than any of his predecessors in taking advantage of the national feeling with regard to it in order to carry out his own selfish policy. Under the pretence of maintaining the dominion of the sea, a base and treacherous war was waged against the United Provinces in circumstances which will for ever sully the reputation of the king. The measures at first taken were, however, of a peaceful kind. Commercial jealousy of the Dutch was still a strong factor in England. As firmly as ever the opinion was held that the primary source of their great trade, shipping, and wealth lay in their fisheries, which also formed a great “nursery” of seamen for the navy.

As in the reign of Charles I., it was therefore towards the development of British fisheries that efforts were first directed. The means taken with this view were twofold: the taxation of imported fish which had been caught by foreigners, and the creation of great fishery associations like those which had been established earlier in the century. The Navigation Act, which was passed a few months after the Restoration, while more oppressive to Dutch commerce and shipping than the Act of 1651, was less stringent in this particular. The measure of the Rump Parliament prohibited the importation or exportation of 442 fish, or its carriage coastways, unless such fish had been caught by subjects. This prohibition was ineffective,811 and it was now replaced by the imposition of double customs on all kinds of dried or salted fish imported, if caught or brought by vessels other than English.812 Three years later, the importation of fresh herrings, cod, haddocks, and coal-fish was absolutely prohibited unless they had been taken and imported in vessels certified to be English.813 With the view of still further promoting the fisheries, the same prohibition was afterwards extended to cured fish and certain other fresh fish,814 which practically restored the provision of the first Act of 1651. To a large extent these variations were due to the trade rivalries that existed in England, the party which was uppermost at the time forcing the measures that were most in its interest.

Besides protective duties and monopolies, more direct means of encouraging the fisheries were tried. The always attractive idea was revived of establishing a great national fishery society, which, on the one hand, would enrich those who supported it with their purse, and on the other hand would increase the prosperity and the power of the country. Simon Smith, who had been the agent of the Royal Fishery Society in the reign of Charles I., lost no time in presenting to the king his two books on the subject, along with a petition in which he dwelt upon the advantages that would accrue to the nation from the labours of such an association.815 Smith recommended that all the corporations and county towns in the kingdom should conjointly 443 raise a stock to buy hemp and other materials to equip busses, which were to be built at the seaports nearest to them and sent to the fishing at Shetland; and he calculated, after the usual fashion, that each buss would maintain twenty families in work, “breed country youths to be mariners,” and cause many ships to be employed in exporting the herrings and bringing back commodities.

Charles was apparently impressed by Smith’s arguments. Within two months of the Restoration he caused a letter to be written to the Lord Mayor of London, referring to the good done by the Society formed in 1632, “as by the book called the Royal Herring Busse Fishing (sic) presented to him, plainly appeared”; requesting particulars to be obtained of all the poor inhabitants within each ward who were in want of employment; requesting that the Lord Mayor and Aldermen should raise a stock by a free subscription to fit out a buss or fishing vessel for each ward; and that storehouses should be built in suitable places about the river Thames, provided with nets, casks, salt, and all things in readiness. The busses were to attend the fishing at Shetland, according to the “prescribed orders in the aforesaid book,” and the king declared he would recommend the same course to all the cities and towns throughout the kingdom, so as to make it a national employment.816

The assistance of Parliament was also called in. On 8th November 1660 the House of Commons remitted “the consideration of the fisheries” to the Committee for Trade and Navigation, who were asked to inform the House “what they thought necessary for the regulation and advancement of that trade.”817 The Committee’s report does not appear to have been preserved, but on 8th December a “Bill for Encouraging the Fisheries of this Kingdom” was introduced. It was remitted to a large committee, including the members for the seaport towns, and 444 being read a third time on 27th December, was sent up to the Lords.818 It was, to a large extent, directed against fishing by foreigners on the British coasts and the use of destructive methods of fishing. One of its clauses prohibited trawling, whether by subjects or foreigners, within eight miles of certain parts of the coast. The fate of this important measure was unfortunate. The Parliament was dissolved two days after it reached the Lords, and nothing further was heard of it.819

In the following year a measure dealing with the fisheries was passed by the Scottish Parliament.820 The preamble contained the common declarations as to the value of the fisheries to shipping and commerce, to the navy, in the employment of the poor, and as furnishing the materials for a great native export. The Act provided for the formation of societies and companies of free-born Scotsmen, each member to supply at least 500 merks Scots as stock, and they were to receive various 445 privileges and immunities, including power to erect houses for the fishing trade wherever it was most convenient, a “limited allowance” to be paid for the ground. An absolute monopoly of the export of fish, fresh or cured, was granted to the companies; foreigners were prohibited from curing herrings or white fish on land, or erecting booths for the purpose,—a provision aimed against the German merchants at Shetland,—but encouragement was given to foreign fishermen to settle and become naturalised in Scotland, and even to become burgesses, and they were to be exempt from taxation for seven years. The importation of everything required for the fishery, including “Holland nets,” was to be free of custom dues; the exports were to be similarly exempted, and the “teind” and “assize” herrings were to be remitted for nine years.

The provisions of this Act differed essentially from the scheme proposed by Charles I. in 1630, which aroused so much opposition, inasmuch as the companies were to be composed solely of Scotsmen. The question of the territorial or “reserved” waters belonging to Scotland was thus avoided. It appears, indeed, that the Act was due to the representations of the Royal Burghs, for in the preceding autumn they expressed a desire for the “erection of the fishing trade in Scotland,” and resolved to bring the subject before the next Parliament.821 Little was done in Scotland under this Act. A company was formed, which, however, seemed more desirous of misusing its privileges than of fostering the fisheries, if we may judge from a petition of the burghs to the Lords of the Exchequer, praying that the company might be restricted to import nothing but what was necessary for the fishing trade. The town of Musselburgh also was empowered to equip busses, and various towns in Fife applied for and received permission to fish in the northern seas. The Scottish society became an incubus, and in 1690, when its function seems to have shrunk to the mechanical exaction of a tax of ￡6 Scots per last 446 of herrings exported from Scotland, the Act under which it had been formed was repealed.822

In England the efforts to establish a fishery association met with but little more success, although the king showed an active interest in its promotion. On 22nd August he issued a commission under the great seal, appointing his brother, the Duke of York, and twenty-nine noblemen, including all the great officers of the Court, with six others, as the “Council of the Royal Fishery of Great Britain and Ireland,” to which he assigned various privileges and monopolies. To encourage the building of busses, the king “requested” that wharfs, docks, and storehouses should be built on the Thames and in all the ports of the kingdom for their accommodation and use; all the “returns” or commodities brought back from foreign lands for the fish exported were exempted from customs for seven years; all victuallers, inns, alehouses, taverns, coffee-houses, and the like, were to be bound to take from one to four, or more, barrels of herrings from the society yearly at thirty shillings a-barrel, “until foreign vent be attained to perfection”; each barrel of pickled herrings or cod-fish brought into the realm by the Flemings, or others, was to be taxed half-a-crown, the tax to be paid into the coffers of the society, and the protection of the State was to be given to their fishing vessels and the vessels employed in exporting fish. It was further provided that the money necessary for the scheme should be obtained by a lottery, to be set up for three years, and by a collection in every parish in the kingdom.

A few days later, Charles issued letters-patent saying that he had requested a bountiful subscription from London to fit out fishing vessels, which should belong to the wards, and recommending the same to the whole country, as the Hollanders had so engrossed the fisheries that the fishing towns were greatly decayed; the local officers were to see to the collections being made, the monies to be paid to the high-sheriff and by him remitted to the Earl of Pembroke, who was appointed treasurer. Those who subscribed to the stock were to pay their money in three instalments to Mr Thomas King, a London merchant 447 and member of Parliament, who became the moving spirit in the project; and the adventurers were to have the option of withdrawing after three years, on giving six months’ notice.823 Literary puffs were not neglected. A highly-coloured account of the value of the Dutch fisheries (founded mainly on the Raleigh tract) and of the rosy prospects of the society was published “by command.” The cost of a buss, equipped and provisioned for four months, was set down at ￡835; the herrings caught in that time were calculated to fetch a round ￡1000, giving an immediate profit of ￡165 after meeting all expenses.824

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. 4?d.—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 448 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 449 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 450 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 451 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 452 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 453 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, 454 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.”842 455

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

In the earlier years of the reign of Charles II., comparatively little was heard of disputes about the flag, which afterwards became so frequent and important. One instance occurred in 1662, when a Dutch vessel that was in Yarmouth Roads without a commission was taken to the Downs for refusing to lower her sails to a king’s ship.844 A case of much greater interest happened in the previous year, when Captain R. Holmes, in command of the Royal Charles, allowed the ship of the Swedish ambassador to pass him on the Thames without compelling it to strike. As the English Admiralty were always punctilious in enforcing the salute on state occasions, as when a foreign ambassador was concerned, Holmes 456 for his remissness was deprived of his command.845 The case of Holmes had some interesting consequences. It revealed once more the want of precise knowledge at the Admiralty as to the rules which should be followed in making foreign ships strike their flag. The Duke of York, who was the Lord High Admiral, was himself ignorant on the point, and he asked the principal officials about it—Sir George Carteret, the treasurer; Coventry, his own secretary; Sir William Batten and Sir William Penn, commissioners of the navy and experienced naval officers; and lastly Mr Pepys, who was the clerk to the navy. It appears, however, that though they all “did do as much as they could,” the information they possessed was of the scantiest kind. Pepys tells us that he knew nothing about it himself, and was forced “to study a lie” by fathering an improbable story on Selden, on the spur of the moment; but on the same evening the genial diarist bought a copy of Selden’s Mare Clausum and sat up at nights diligently studying it, with the view of writing a treatise “about the business of striking sail” to present to the Duke. After nearly six weeks’ inquiry and cogitation the Admiralty officials “agreed upon some things to answer to the Duke about the practice of striking of the flags,” which encouraged Pepys to persevere with his treatise, but it was never completed.846

A case of greater international importance occurred in the Mediterranean in the following year. Vice-Admiral Sir John Lawson was co-operating with De Ruyter against the Algerine pirates, and when the fleets met, the Dutch admiral saluted the English flag with guns and by lowering his own flag. Lawson returned the guns, but he did not strike his flag, as was the custom in distant seas, and De Ruyter, indignant at the slight, resolved not to strike his flag in future either, on 457 the ground that he was not in British waters, and that he had verbal orders which authorised him in refusing. When De Witt heard of his intentions, he immediately sent instructions in the name of the States of Holland strictly to observe the treaty, and declaring that the lowering of the flag must not be confined to British waters, since that might be interpreted into subjection to English dominion of the seas. If the English admiral again declined to lower his flag in return, De Ruyter was merely to report the fact to the States.847 The action of De Witt was not designed simply to avoid a quarrel. As will be seen later, it expressed his settled conviction and the fixed policy of the Republic on this thorny subject.

All such questions as to the flag and the fisheries were soon submerged in the second Dutch war. The causes which brought it about were at root the same as those which had led up to the first. Commercial jealousy was always a smouldering flame, ready to burst into a great conflagration. The English believed that the Dutch had juggled them out of their trade and trading rights in several quarters of the globe, and with some reason. But probably the real motive was succinctly stated by Monk, now Duke of Albemarle, when he said that the essential cause of the quarrels between the two nations was that the English wanted a larger share of the trade of the Dutch. Charles himself, like his great Minister, the Chancellor Clarendon, seems to have been disinclined to the war, which, however, was advocated strongly by the Duke of York, who supported the contention of the merchants that it would benefit English commerce. Accusations were levelled against the Dutch of having by fraud and stratagem driven English trade almost entirely from the East and West Indies, and greatly reduced it in the Mediterranean and in Africa. These complaints were echoed in Parliament, and in April 1664 a resolution was passed by the two Houses declaring that the............