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Oil" 



CHAPTER I. 



EARLY HISTORY. 



WHEN the claim of the English crown to the sovereignty of 

 the British seas became a question of international importance 

 in the early part of the seventeenth century, the records of 

 history and the treasures of ancient learning were searched for 

 evidence to establish its antiquity. Some of the greatest law- 

 yers and scholars of the time took part in the task, and they 

 were not always content with the endeavour to prove that the 

 claim was in conformity with the laws of England as an old 

 heritage of the crown, but they tried to trace it back to a 

 remote past. Selden, who was incomparably the ablest and 

 most illustrious champion of the English pretension, as well 

 as Boroughs and Prynne and other writers of lesser note, 

 laboured with more or less erudition and ingenuity to show 

 that the British dominion in the adjoining seas was anterior 

 to the Roman occupation. From the ancient Britons it was 

 supposed to have passed to the Roman conquerors as part 

 and parcel of the British empire, and to have been exer- 

 cised by them during their possession of the island. 1 It is 

 unnecessary to discuss the evidence and arguments for these 

 contentions. They are for the most part drawn from scattered 

 passages or even phrases in the writings of classical authors, 

 to which a strained and improbable significance was assigned. 

 An example may be given from Selden, who, in referring to the 

 well-known passage in Solinus 2 in which Irish warriors are 

 described as decking the hilts of their swords with the tusks 



1 Selden, Mare Clausum, lib. i. c. viii., lib. ii. cc. ii.-viii. 



2 Polyhistor., c. xxiv. 



