thirdly the decay of many good Marriners both able in body by their diligence labour and continual exercise of Fishing and expert by reason thereof in the knowledge of the Sea-Coasts as well within this Realm as in other parts beyond the Seas It was therefore enacted that no manner of Persons English Denizens or strangers at that time or any time after dwelling in England should buy any Fish of any strangers in the said Ports of Flanders Zealand Picardie France or upon the Sea between shoare and shoare c. This Act by many continuances was continued from Parliament to Parliament until the first of Queen Marie and from thence to the end of the next Parliament and then expired For Conclusion seeing by that which hath formerly been declared it evidently appeareth that the Kings of England by immemorable prescription continual usage and possession the acknowledgment of all our Neighbour-States and the Municipal Laws of the Kingdom have ever held the Sovereign Lordship of the Seas of England and that unto his Majesty by reason of his Sovereignty the supream command and Jurisdiction over the passage and Fishing in the same rightfully apperteineth considering also the natural Scite of those our Seas that interpose themselves between the great Northern Commerce of that of the whole world and that of the East West and Southern Climates and withal the infinite commodities that by Fishing in the same is daily made It cannot be doubted but his Majesty by means of his own excellent Wisdom and Virtue and by the Industry of his faithful Subjects and People may easily without injustice to any Prince or Person whatsoever be made the greatest Monarch for Command and Wealth and his People the most opulent and Flourishing Nation of any other in the world And this the rather for that his Majesty is now absolute Commander of the Brittish Isle and hath also enlarged his Dominions over a great part of the Western Indies by means of which extent of Empire crossing in a manner the whole Ocean the Trade and persons of all Nations removing from one part of the world to the other must of necessity first or last come within compass of his power and jurisdiction And therefore the Sovereignty of our Seas being the most precious Jewel of his Majestie 's Crown and next under God the principal means of our Wealth and Safety all true English hearts and hands are bound by all possible means and diligence to preserve and maintain the same even with the uttermost hazzard of their Lives their Goods and Fortunes Thus you see what wonderous advantages may redound to the Felicity and Glory of this Nation if God give hearts and resolutions to vindicate those rights which are now most impiously and injuriously invaded There is also another Dominion of the Sea belonging to the King of Great Brittain and that of a very large Extent upon the Shore of America as on the Virginian Sea and the Islands of the Barbadoes and Saint Christophers and many other places but how farr our English Colonies Transported into America have Possessed themselves of the Sea there is not exactly as yet discovered A further Assertion that the Sea is under the Laws of Propriety Declared in a full Convention betwixt Ferdinando Emperour of Germany and the Republick of Venice in the Year 1563. AT this Convention the Complaints on both sides were opened And it being required in the Name of his Emperial Majesty that it may be Lawful for his Subjects and others to Traffick freely in the Adriatick Sea It was answered by the Advocate of the Common-Wealth of Venice that Navigation indeed ought to be free yet those things at which his Imperial Majesty found himself agrieved were no ways repugnant to this Freedom for as much as in Countries which are most free Those who have the Dominion thereof receive Custome and do give Bounds and prescribe Order by which way all Merchandize shall pass and therefore none should finde themselves agrieved if the Venetians for their own Respects did use to do so in the Adriatick Seas which is under their Dominion there being nothing more known then that the Common-Wealth of Venice were Lords of the Adriatick Sea and do exercise that Dominion which from time out of minde it had always done as well in receiving of Customes as in assigning of places for the Exaction of it And that according to former Capitulations the Subjects of the Venetians were to have no less liberty in the Lands of the Austrians then the Austrian Subjects in the Sea of Venice And if his Imperial Majesty within his own State upon the Land will not permit that the Subjects of the Common-Wealth of Venice shall go which way they list but doth constrain them to go by such places onely where customs is to be paid he cannot with Justice demand that his Subjects may passe by or through the Sea of the Republick which way they please but must content himself that they passe that way onely which shall best stand with the Advantage of those who have the Dominion over it And if his Majesty cause Custome to be paid upon his Land why may not the Venetians likewise do it upon their Sea He demanded of them if by the Capitulation they would have it that the Emperour should be restrained or hindred from the taking of Custome And if not why would they have the Venetians tyed thereunto by a Capitulation which speaks of both Potentates equally with the same words He proceeded in a Confirmation of the Truth that the Republick had the Dominion of the Sea and although the proposition was true that the Sea is common and free yet it is no otherwise to be understood there in the same sence when usually we say that the high-way are common free by which is meant that they cannot be Usurped by any private Person for his sole proper service but remain to the use of every one Not therefore that they are so free as that they should not be under the Protection and Government of some Prince and that every one might do therein Licenciously whatsoever pleaseth Him either by Right or by Wrong for as much as such Licenciousness or Anarchy both of God Nature as well by Sea as by Land That the true liberty of the Sea excludes it not from the protection and superiority of such as maintain it in Liberty nor from the Subjection to the Laws of such as have Command over it but rather necessarily it includes it That the Sea no less then the Land is Subject to be divided amongst men appropriated to Cities and Potentates which long since was ordained by God from the beginning of man kind as a thing most Natural And this was well understood by Aristotle when he said that unto Maritine Cities the Sea is the Territory because from thence they take their Sustenance and Defence A thing which cannot possibly be unless that part of it be appropriated
the Assent of His Peers That if the Governour or Commander of the Kings Navy in His Naval Expeditions shall meet with any Ships whatsoever by Sea either Laden or Empty that shall refuse to strike their sayles at the Command of the Kings Governour or Admiral or his Lievtenant but make resistance against any who be long unto his Fleet that then they are to be reputed Enemies and if they be taken their Ships and Goods to be Consiscated as the Goods of Enemies And that although the Masters or Owners of the Ships shall Alledge afterwards that the same Ships and Goods do belong to the Friends and Allies of our Lord the King yet the persons who shall be found in these Ships are to be punished with Imprisonment at discretion for their Rebeltion It was accounted Treason saith Master Selden If any ship what soever had not acknowledged the Dominion of the King of England in His own Sea by striking sayle and they were not to be protected upon the Account of Amity who should in any wise presume to do the contrary Penalties were also appointed by the Kings of England in the same manner as if mention were made concerning a Crime committed in some Territory of his Land But above all that as yet hath been said there can hardly be alledged a more convincing Argument to prove the Truth of all that hath hitherto been spoken then the Acknowledgement of the Sea-Dominion of the King of England by very many of our Neighbouring Nations At what time the Agreement was made by Edward the First of England and Philip the Fair of France Reyner Grimbald Governour of the French Navy Intercepted and Spoyled on the English Seas the Goods of many Merchants that were going to Flanders as well English as Others and not contented with the Depredation of their Goods He Imprisoned also their Persons and delivered them up to the Officers of the King of France and in a very insolent manner justified his Actions in Writing as done by Authority of the King his Masters Commission This being alledged to be done to the great Damage and Prejudice of the King of England the Prelats Peers and the rest of the Nation a Bill against Reyner Grimbald was exhibited and managed by Procurators on the behalf of the Prelates Peers and of the Cities and Towns throughout England and lastly of the whole English Nation by an Authority as I believe of the Estates Assembled in Parliament with these were joyned the Procurators of most Nations bordering upon the Sea throughout Europe Viz. The Genoeses The Catalonians The Spaniards The Almayns The Zealanders The Hollanders The Freislanders The Danes The Noruegians The Hamburghers c. All these instituted a Complaint against Reyner Grimbald who was Governour of the French Navy in the time of the. War of Philip King of France and Guy Earle of Flanders And all these Complainants in their Bill do joyntly affirm that the King of Englandand his Predecessors have time out of minde and without Controversie Enjoyed the Soveraignty and Dominion of theEnglish Seas and the Isles belonging to the same by Right of their Realm of England that is to say by Prescribing Laws Statutes and Prohibitions of Armes and of Ships otherwise furnished then with such necessaries and Commodities as belong to Merchants and by demanding Security and affording protection in all places where need should require and ordering all other things necessary for the conservation of Peace Right and Equity between all sorts of People passing through that Sea as well Strangers as others in Subjection to the Crown ofEngland Also that they have had and have the Soveraign Guard thereof with all manner of Cognisance and Jurisdiction in doing Right and Justice according to the said Laws Ordinances and Prohibitions and in all other matters which may concern the Exercise of Soveraign Dominion in the said places This is the Declaration of the Nations above named manifestly acknowledging the Sovereignty and Dominion of our Kings over the Seas and thereupon demanding protection for themselves But more particularly we do finde an acknowledgment of the Sea-Dominions of the Kings of England made by the Flemmings themselves in the Parliament of England in the Reign of Edward the Second the Records of the Parliament speak it thus In the Fourteenth Year of the Reign ofEdward the Second there appeared certain Ambassadours of the Earl of Flanders to Treat about the Reformation of some Injuries they received and as soon as the said Ambassadours had been admitted by our Lord the King to Treat of the said Injuries amongst other particulars they required that the said Lord the King would at his own Suit by Vertue of his Royal Authority cause Enquiry to be made and do Justice about a Depredation by the Subjects of England upon the English Seas taking Wines and other sort of Merchandizes belonging to certain Merchants of Flanders towards the parts of Crauden within the Territory and Jurisdiction of the King of England Alledging that the said Wines and other Merchandizes taken from the Flemmings were brought within the Realm and Jurisdiction of the King and that it belonged to the King to see Justice done in Regard thatHE IS LORD OF THE SEA and the aforesaid Depredation was made upon the said Sea within his Territory and Jurisdiction c. This we have Cited out of the Parliament Records which may Declare an Acknowledgement of the Sea-Dominion of our Kings made by those Foreign and Neighbour-Nations who were most concerned in the Business Having given you thus besides the Attestation of our own Writers the acknowledgment of Foreign Nations that the King of England hath the Dominion of the Seas we shall now come to give you an Account of those Northern Seas which came unto the Subjection of the Kings of England at what time King James of Blessed Memory by reducing the two Nations into one Great Brittanie United the Crown of Scotland to the Crown of England Odericus in his Ecclesiastical History informs us that the Orcades was subject heretofore to the King of Norway and that the people of the Orcades do speak the Gothish Language to this day these Isles are Numerous and onely Twenty Eight of them are at this day Inhabited Above One Hundred Miles beyond the Orcades towards Norway are the Shetland Isles in Number Eighteen which are at this day Inhabited and in subjection to the King of Scotland concerning which there hath been a great Quarrel in former Ages between the Scots and Danes but the Dane kept the Possession All these Islands did Christiern King of Denmark peaceably Surrender together with his Daughter in Marriage to James King of Scots until that either he himself or his Posterity paid to the Scottish King or his Successors the sum of Fifty Thousand Rhenish Florens which were never discharged to this day But afterwards when the Queen had been delivered of Her Eldest Son the Danish King being willing to Congratulate
HIS Majesties Propriety AND DOMINION ON THE Brittish Seas ASSERTED Together with a true Account of the Neatherlanders Insupportable Insolencies and Injuries they have committed and the Inestimable Benefits they have gained in their Fishing on the English Seas As also their Prodigious and Horrid Cruelties in the East and West-Indies and other Places To which is added an Exact Mapp containing the Isles of Great Brittain and Ireland with the several Coastings and the Adjacent Parts of our Neighbours By an Experienced Hand London Printed by T. Mabb for Andrew Kembe near S t. Margarets-Hill in Southwark and Edward Thomas at the Adam and Eve in Little Brittain and Robert Clavet at the Staggs-Head in Ivy-Lane 1665. To the Most Illustrious and Heroical George Duke of Aubemarle Earle of Torrington Baron Monck of Potheridge Beauchamp and Teys Captain General of His Majesties Land-Forces Garrisons Forts and Castlos within any of His Majesties Dominions Master of the Horse Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter And one of His Majesties Most Honourable Privy Council May it please Your Highness THese Papers concerning His Majesties Right and Propriety to His Dominion on the Brittish seas do here most Humbly Addresse Themselves to Your Highness Most Illustrious Hand and Submit Themselves as much to the Affability of Your Candour as they implore the Greatnesse of Your protection to which they are Encouraged both by Reason and Religion for Your Highness being the Great Instrument which all along attended the Divine Providence in Restoring His Majesty to His Own both by Sea and Land and in Establishing Religion as well as Loyalty The same Reason doth perswade me that these Assertions may be Acceptable to You and that your Highness will vouch-safe Your Patronage to that Subject which you so Happily and Heroically have Effected and for which all Ages shall Renown your Memory May it please Your Highness The Profits which the Dutch have made by their Fishing on the English Seas are as vast as their Ingratitude is abominable which with an Elaborate Malice they have Expressed by their manifold out-rages committed in the East and West-Indies where that no Villany may be unpractised to Improve their Interests they have added Hypocrisie to their Avarice and to their Ambition Murder The Innocent Blood which they have spilt doth cry aloud for Vengeance Nor can the guilt of it fall asleep but will be lodged in the Memories of Righteous Men and kept awake by the Industry of faithfull Historians and by this Ruder Pen of him who is May it please Your Highness Your Most Humble and most devoted Servant Robert Codrington THE PREFACE TO THE Reader THe Combinations and Endeavours of the States General of the United Provinces against His Majesty and this Nation have been so insupportably Insolent that the Parliament not long since upon the Cry of the whole Nation did sollicite him to take some extraordinary way to give Redress unto his Subjects for the many and daily Injuries they sustained from them by their Depredations at Sea for the Horrid and Barbarous Cruelties inflicted on them in the East and West-Indies which being as odious in their Nature as they are remarkable in their Number have been the onely Cause that these pains are taken to give a general satisfaction to the World by exhibiting this Brief but most true Account of His Majesties Undoubted Right and sole Propriety in the English Scottish and the Irish Seas A truth as Antient as it is Eminent and not only held forth and attested by the Laws of our Land and the Records of the Tower and the High Courts of Parliament but heretofore confessed also by divers of their own Nation as in this Book you shall find it faithfully represented to you But it hath been the late practise of the Hollanders without examining the Lawfulness of the Act to put their Oares into every Boat where Gain and Profit doth appear It was this that tempted them to invade the Islands of Moluccos Lantore and Polleroon which in the Name of the Crown of England the English for some years had possessed neither did they entertain the least jealousie of opposition from the Hollanders who they knew heretofore had been oblidged to them for many antient good Offices in a time when their greatest safety did depend upon them and who lately were conjoyned with them in a strict Alliance and Confederacy for Partnership in the East-Indie-Trade in the year 1619. Neither did they fear the Natives whom they found to express a greater Inclination of good will unto them then to the Hollanders for the English aimed at nothing more then a lawful and competent profit by Commerce and Traffick with the Natives and the Dutch And though in some places the English had erected some Forts and setled some Strength yet it was not by any Force or Violence nor against the good will of the People of the Country but with their own good liking and consent for the better security of their Trade and upon the voluntary submission of the Natives to the Obedience and Soveraignty of the Crown of England in which submission the Antient Laws and Liberties of the said Natives and all their own Immunities were comprehended and reserved In this Establishment the English did conceive themselves to be secure enough when behold the Dutch who would be no better Neighbours to us in the Indies then in Europe began to quarrel with us and to hinder us in our Trade to free Places the which the better to obtain they oftentimes seized upon our Ships and Goods and finding this violence not to Answer their Expectation they at the last contrived to make themselves the absolute Masters of the vast profits of those Places In the pursuit whereof they have razed and demolished the English Forts and laying violent hands on the English themselves who made not the least Resistance they have tyed them to stakes with Ropes about their Necks they have seized upon their Goods they have Imprisoned their Persons they have Whipped them at the Post in the open Market Place and having washed their torn and wounded Bodies with Vinegar and Salt they have again doubled their scourges to multiply their Torments they have dragged them from thence to places almost inaccessible by reason of their steepness and roughness and having thrown them down the Rocks if any Sence of life remained they have added new oppression to their weary and bruised limbs by the heavy weights of Iron To these deliberate Torments the cruelties of other Nations are but Courtesies and Death it self a Mercy And as if they were the absolute Lords in the Indies they have assumed a Power to themselves in the deciding of the controversies between the English and the Indians for matters passed quite out of their jurisdiction and when Law and Right have pleaded against them they have Executed their Decrees by violence These be they who have laid a claim to His Maiesties Interests on his own
to bring them speedily well and sufficiently Armed to Sandwich c. All Officers also in the said Admiralty are Commanded to yeild Obedience and Assistance upon the same Condition Thus That the Sea it self was contained under the Name of the Admiralty is most clearly manifest by what already we have shown you And as a Freedome of Passage so also we do finde that a Liberty of Fishing hath been obtained by Petition from the Kings of England we have already made mention that King Richard the Second imposed a Tribute upon all persons whatsoever that used Fishing on his Seas We read also that Henry the Sixth gave leave to the French and other Forreigners sometimes for a Year sometimes but for six Moneths to go and Fish throughout his Seas provided that the Fishing-Boats and Busses were not above thirty Tuns And if any Forreigners whither French Dutch or others should Disturb or Molest any of the Kings Subjects as they were Fishing they were to loose the benefit of their Licence But in the Eastern Sea which washeth the Coasts of York-shire and the Neighbouring Counties It hath been an Antient Custome for the Hollanders and Zelanders to obtain leave by Petitioning to the Governour of Scarborough Castle It is worth the while saith the Reverend Mr. Cambden to observe what an extraordinary gain the Hollanders and the Zelanders do make by fishing on the English Seas having first obtained leave from the Castle of Scarborough For the English have ever granted them leave to Fish reserving always the Honour and the Priviledge to themselves but through a negligence resigning the Profit unto Strangers for it is almost incredible saith he to believe what a vast sum of Money the Hollanders do make by this Fishing upon our Coast Mr. Hitchock also in the time of Queen Elizabeth presented a Book to the Parliament written in the English Tongue concerning the Commodity of Fishing in which he specifies that the Hollanders and Zealanders every year towards the latter end of summer do send forth four or five hundred Vessels called Busses to Fish for Herrings in our Eastern Seas but before they fish they ask leave of Scarborough they are his very Words Care was also taken by K. James that no Foreigner should Fish on the English or Irish Seas without leave first obtained and every year at the least this leave was renewed from the Commissioners for that purpose appointed at London But the Reason why we do not so often meet with these Forms of Licences is because by the Leagues made with the Neighboring Princes a Licence or Freedom of that kinde was so often allowed by both parties that as long as the League was in Force the Sea served as it were a Common Feild as well for the Forreigner y was in Amity as for the King of England himself who was the Lord and owner of it But a remarkable Example of Fishing in this Nature we finde in the days of King Henry the Fourth An Agreement was made betwixt the Kings of England and France that the Subjects of both Kingdomes might freely Fish throughout that part of the Sea which is bounded on this side by the Ports of Scarborough and Southampton and on the other side by the Coast of Flanders and the Mouth of the River of Sein The time was also limited betwixt Autumn and the beginning of January And that the French might securely enjoy the Benefit of this Agreement the King of England sent Letters unto all his Sea Captains and Commanders By this we may plainly see that these Limits wholy excluded the French from that part of the Sea which lies towards the West and South-West as also that which lieth North-East of them as being so limited by our Henry at his own pleasure as Lord and Soveraign of the whole There is amongst the Records of Edward the First an Inscription Pro Hominibus Hollandiae c. For the Men of Holland Zealand and Friesland to have leave to Fish neer Jernemuth now called Yarmouth The Kings Letter for their Protection runneth in these Words The King to his Beloved and Trusty John de Buteturte Warden of his Port of Jernemuth Greeting For as much as we have been certified that many men out of the Parts of Holland Zealand and Freisland who are in Amity with us intend now to come and Fish in our Seas neer unto Jernemuth we command you that publick Proclamation be made once or twice every week that no Person whatsoever imployed abroad in our Service presume to cause any Injury Trouble Dammage Hinderance or Grievance to be done unto them but rather when they stand in need that you give them Advice and Assistance in such manner that they may Fish and pursue their own Advantage without any Let or Impediment In Testimony whereof we have caused these our Letters to be made Pattents and to continue in Force until after the Feast of St. Martins next ensuing Here you see that the King granteth a Protection to Fish and he Limits it within the space of two Moneths He alone also Protected the Fishermen upon the German Coast nor might the Fishermen use any other kind of Vessels then what were Prescribed by our Kings Upon which Accounts all kind of Fishing was sometimes prohibited and sometimes admitted this Restriction being added hat they should Fish onely in such Vessels as were under the Burden of Thirty Tun And this appears by the Letters of King Edward the Third concerning the Laws of Fishing which were directed unto the Governours of several Ports and Towns on the Eastern Shoar the Words are these For as much as We have given Licence to the Fishermen of the Neighbouring Ports and to others who shall be willing to come unto them for the Benefit of Fishing that they may Fish and make their own Advantage with Ships and Boats under the burden of thirty Tuns any Prohibition or Commands of ours whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding we command you to permitt the Fishermen of the said Towns and others who shall be willing to come to the said places for the Benefit of Fishing to Fish and make their own Advantage with Ships and Boats under-thirty Tun without any Let or Impediment any Prohibitions or Commands of ours made to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding This is evident also in the Records of King Edward the Fourth for he invested three Persons with Naval Power whose Office it was to Protect and Guard the Fishermen upon the Coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk and the charges of the Guard were to be Defrayed by the Fishermen of the said Seas at the pleasure of the King of England although they have Letters of Publick Security and Protection from Foreign Princes Neither were any Persons admitted to a Partnership in this kind of Guard except those who were appointed by the King of England least by this means perhaps it might Derogate from the English Right which is a manifest Sign and Evidence of their
Dominion and Possession of the place And this may yet more clearly appear by the Laws and Limits usually set by our Kings to such Foreigners as were at Enmity with each other but in Amity with the English and to this effect is the Proclamation of King James who having made Peace with all Nations did give equal Protection to the Spaniards and the United Neatherlands at that time exercising Acts of great Hostility one against another Our Pleasure saith he and Commandment is to all our Officers and Subjects by Sea and Land that they shall Prohibite as much as in them lieth all hovering of Men of War of either Spaniard or Hollander neer to the Entry of any of our Coasts or Havens and that they shall Rescue and Succour all Merchants and others that shall fall within the Danger of any such as shall Await our Coasts And it is further to be observed that as our Kings have very often Commanded that all manner of persons should cease from Hostility throughout all the spaces extended into their Territories by Sea so they indulged the like Privilege for ever throughout the more Neighbouring Coasts of the French shore that all manner of Persons though Enemies to one another should securely sayle to and fro as it were under the wings of an Arbitrator or Moderatour of the Sea and also freely should use the Sea according to such spaces and limits as they were pleased at first to appoint which without doubt is a clear Evidence of Dominion In this next place I shall cite some of the Publick Records which are kept in the Tower of London in which the Dominion of the Sea is expresly Asserted as belonging to the Kings of England We Read that Edward the Third in his Commissions given to Geoffery de Say Governour or Commander of the Western and Southern Seas and to John de Norwich of the Northern expresseth himself in these following words We calling to mind that our Progenitors the Kings of England having before these times been Lords of the English Sea on every side yea and Defendors thereof against the Invasions of Enemies do strictly Require and Charge you by the Duty and Allegiance wherein you stand bound that you set forth to Sea with the Ships of the Ports and the other Ships that are ready and that you Arrest the other ships under our Command and that with all Diligence you make search after the Gallies and Ships of War that are abroad against Us and that stoatly and manfully you set upon them if they shall presume to bend their Course towards any part of our Dominions or the Coasts of Scotland c. Then followeth a Power to Press Seamen and other matters of that kind We read also in the Reign of the said King in the preferring of a certain Bill in Parliament which is the voice of the Estates of the Realm that he was usually accounted King or Sovereign of the Seas by all Nations The words in French are to this sence in English The Nation of the English were ever in the Ages past Renowned for Sea-Affairs in all Countries near the Seas and they bad also so numerous a Navy that the People of all Countries Esteemed and called the K. of Engl. the K. or Sovereign of the Sea Another Testimony to the same Effect we read in the Parliamentary Records of Henry the Fifth where the Tenour of the Bill runs after this manner The Commons do pray that seeing our Sovereign Lord the King and his Illustrious Progenitors have ever been Lords of the Sea and now seeing through Gods Grace it is so come to pass that our Lord the King is Lord of the Shores on both sides of the Sea such a Tribute may be imposed upon all Strangers passing through the said Sea for the Benefit and Advantage of our said Lord the King as may seem agreeable to reason for the safegard of the said Sea The Answer subscribed to the said Bill was Soit avise par le Roy which is Let the King Himself be advised of it For the King at that time Resided in France being Lord of that Country as well by Conquest as Inheritance And Humphrey Duke of Glocester was then President of the Parliament and Leivtenant of England by whom as the Kings Deputy that Answer was given to the said Bill but when the King was present in person Le Roy S' advisera the King will Advise was the Answer from the Antient down to our present times in such Bills as were to be passed into Acts Many other Testimonies in this Nature may be produced which for brevities sake are purposely omitted Neither hath the High Court of Parliament onely given this Attestation to our Kings as Supream and Sovereign of the Seas But to confirme it we shall produce the Testimonies of Robert Belknap an Eminent Judge in the Time of Richard the Second who affirmeth that the Sea is Subject to the King as a part of his Kingdom or of the Patrimony of the Crown And it appeareth by Publick Records containing diverse main points touching which the Judges of the Land were to be consulted for the good of the Common-Wealth that the Kings Sea-Dominion which they called The Antient Superiority of the Sea was a matter out of Question amongst all Lawyers of that Age and Asserted by the Determinations and Customes of the Law of the Land and by the express words of the Writs and Forms of the Actions themselves Neither is this Truth confirmed only by our Laws but by our Medals There hath been a piece of Gold very often Coyned by our Kings called a Rose-Noble which was stamped on the one side of it with a Ship floting in the Sea and a King Armed with a Sword and Shield sitting in the Ship it self as in a Throne to set forth a Representation of the English K. by Sea The first Authour hereof was Edward the Third when he Guarded his own Seas with a Numerous Navy consisting of Eleven Hundred ships at which time as at others he marched victoriously through France But what need we labour to produce so many Testimonies at home from our Records in the Tower and other places from our High Courts of Parliament from our Laws from our Coyns from our Histories to prove this Truth since it is acknowledged even by Forreigners themselves whom it most concerneth by their usual striking of sayles according to the antient Custom by every ship of any Forreign Nation whatsoever if they sayle near the Kings Navy or any ship belonging to it at Sea which is done not onely in Honour to the English King but also in acknowledgement of His Sovereignty and Dominion at Seas The Antiquity of this Custome and that it hath been in use for above these Four Hundred years may appear by this following testimony At Hastings a Town scituate upon the Shore of Sussex it was Decreed by K. John in the Second Year of His Reign with
have the main of what passed in those days in this particular with their insolent demeanour lively described in these following Collections taken out of several Dispatches that passed betwixt Secretarie Naunton and Sir Dudly Carlton Lord Ambassadour from the King to the States of the United Provinces In a Letter of Secretarie Naunton's to the said Ambassadour dated at Whitehall the 21. of December 1618. I finde these passages I Must now let your Lordship know that the States Commissioners and Deputies both having attended His Majesty at New-Market and there presented their Letters of Credence returned to London on Saturday was a seven-night and upon Tuesday had Audience in the Council-Chamber where being required to communicate the points of their Commission they delivered their meditated Answer at length The Lords upon perusal of it appointed my Lord Bining and me to attend His Majesty for directions what Reply to return to this Answer of theirs which I represented to their Lordships yesterday to this effect That his Majesty found it strange that they having been so often required by your Lordship His Majesties Ambassadour as from himself in their publique Assembly to send over Commissioners fully Authorized to Treat and Conclude not onely of all differences grown between the Subjects of both States touching the Trade to the East-Indies and the Whale-Fishing and to Regulate and settle a Joynt and an even Traffick in those Quarters but withal to take order for a more indifferent course of determining other Questions growing between our Merchants and them about their Draperies and the Tare And more especially to determine his Majesties Right for the sole Fishing upon all the Coasts of his Three Kingdoms into which they had of late times incroached farther then of Right they could And lastly for the reglement and reducing of their Coyns to such a proportion and correspondence with those of his Majesties and other States that their Subjects might make no Advantage to transport our Monies by inhansing their valuation there All which they confessed your Lordship had instanced them for in his Majesties Name that after all this attent on his Majesties part and so long deliberation on theirs they were come at last with a Proposition to speak only to the two first points and instructed thereunto with bare Letters of Credance only which His Majesty takes for an Imperious fashion of proceeding in them as if they were come hither to Treat of what themselves pleased and to give Law to His Majesty in his own Kingdom and to propose and admit of nothing but what should tend meerly to their own ends To the second Whereas they would decline all debate of the Fishings upon His Majesties Coasts first by Allegations of their late great Losses and an Esmeute of their people who are all interessed in that Question and would be like to break out into some combustion to the hazard of their State which hath lately scaped Naufrage and is not yet altogether calmed What is this put to raise an advantage to themselves out of their disadvantage But afterwards they professe their lothnesse to call it in doubt or Question claiming an immemorial possession seconded by the Law of Nations To which His Majesty will have them told that the Kings of Spain have sought leave to Fish there by Treaty from this Crown and that the King of France a nearer Neighbour to our Coast then they to this day requests leave for a few Vessels to Fish for Provision of his own houshold And that it appears so much the more strange to His Majesty that they being a State of so late date should be the first that would presume to question His Majesties Antient Right so many hundred yeers inviolably possessed by His Progenitors and acknowledged by all other Antient States and Princes That themselves in theit publick Letters of the last of Iune sent by your Lordship seemed then to confirm their immemorial possession as they term it with divers Treaties as are of the year 1550. and another between His Majesties Predecessors and Charles the Fifth as Prince of those Provinces and not by the Law of Nations To which their last Plea His Majesty would have them told that he being an Islander-Prince is not ignorant of the Laws and Rights of his own Kingdoms nor doth expect to be taught the Laws of Nations by them nor their Grotius whose ill thriving might rather teach others to disavow his Positions and his honesty called in question by themselves might render his Learning as much suspected to them as his Person This His Majesty takes for an high point of his Soveraignty and will not have it slighted over in any fashion whatsoever Thus I have particulated unto you the manner of our proceeding with them Let them advise to seek leave from His Majesty and to acknowledge Him His Right as other Princes have done and do or it may well come to passe that they that will needs bear all the World before them by their Mare Liberum may soon come to have neither Terram Solum nor Rempublicam liberam And in a Letter of the said Lord Ambassadour Carlton to Secretary Naunton of the 30. of December 1618. from the Hague we finde this Return touching the business of Fishery WHether the final resolution here will be according to His Majesties desire in that point concerning the Fishing upon the Coasts of His Three Kingdomes I cannot say And by somewhat which fell from the Prince of Orange by way of Discourse when he took leave of me on Monday last at his Departure I suspect it will not in regard the Magistrates of these Towns of Holland being newly placed and yet scarce fast in their Seats who do Authorize the Deputies which come hither to the Assembly of the States in all things they are to Treat and Resolve will not Adventure for fear of the people to determine of a Business on which the livelihood of Fifty Thousand of the Inhabitants of this one single Province doth depend I told the Prince that howsoever His Majesty both in Honour of His Crown and Person and Interest of his Kingdoms neither could nor would any longer desist from having His Right acknowledged by this State as well as by All other Princes and Common-wealths especially finding the same openly oppugned both by their Statesmen and men of War as the Writings of Grotius and the taking of John Brown the last year may testifie yet this acknowledgment of a Right and a Due was no exclusion of Grace and Favour and that the people of this Country paying that small Tribute upon every one of their Busses which is not so much as disputed by any other Nation whatsoever such was His Majesties well-wishing to this State that I presumed of his permission to suffer them to continue their course of Fishing which they might use thereby with more Freedom and less apprehension of molestation and let then before and likewise spare the Cost of some