THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 177 



wards left the spot for other business, and the net result of 

 the season's proceedings was the carrying off of some 

 twenty thousand florins as license-money by the British 

 admiral, and the establishment in England of a general, 

 though unfounded, notion that the Dutch States had tacitly 

 acquiesced in the tax for the future, and acknowledged the 

 sovereignty of England in the North Sea. The notion was 

 so far from being exact that the Dutch admiral van Dorp 

 was punished for his insufficient protection of the fleet by 

 having his demission pressed upon him, in the following 

 year, in such terms as moved him to instantly retire from 

 office. 



Although far from acquiescing, the States were still 

 anxious to evade a definitive settlement of the sea- 

 sovereignty question. When, in October, 1636, they 

 negotiated an alliance with England against Spain, the 

 king's promise to leave the Dutch fishermen unmolested 

 as long as the proposed alliance should last, was asked for 

 as a set-off against certain concessions on the Dutch side, 

 without anything being said on the principle of " Mare 

 liberum ): or " clausum." Pending the very intricate and 

 delicate negotiations on the Anglo-French alliance, in 

 which the whole of European politics were at issue, 

 Charles had reason to pacify the Dutch Republic, and 

 accordingly left her fishermen in quiet during the herring 

 season of the year 1637 ; and the States on their side 

 managed to keep the question out of view, though they 

 never once departed from their alleged right of free- 

 fishing. A learned treatise in refutation of Selden's " Mare 

 clausum " was about this time composed by the States 

 order, by one Dirk Graswinckel ; but it was thought 

 advisable not to publish it, and Grotius himself, then in 

 Swedish service after his disgrace and escape from his 



