UNDER THE TUDORS 101 



when their numbers had greatly increased. They had now 

 become " very rich, strong, proud, and violent," so that the ships 

 of Norfolk and Suffolk, next to the fishing places, were reduced 

 in numbers by 140 sail, besides crayers and other craft. The 

 number of Flemish herring-busses that came to our coast he 

 placed at over 500, while there were about 100 French ; and 

 300 or 400 " Flemings " fished for cod in the north seas, " within 

 the English limits." Other foreigners, moreover, caught herrings 

 on the Lancashire and Welsh coasts, and about 300 sail of Span- 

 iards, besides Frenchmen, fished off Cape Clear and Blackrock 

 in Ireland. All these fishings, said Dee, were "enjoyed as 

 securely and freely from us by strangers, as if they were within 

 their own King's peculiar sea limits ; nay, rather as if those 

 coasts, seas and bays were of their private and several pur- 

 chases : to our unspeakable loss, discredit and discomfort, and 

 to no small further danger in these peculiar times of most 

 subtle treacheries and fickle fidelity." While admitting that" 

 the British seas were free for navigation, Dee held that the 

 fisheries pertained to the crown of England, and that no 

 foreigner had a right to cast a net in our sea without first 

 obtaining leave from the Queen. To her belonged " the tenth " 

 of all foreign fishings " within the royal limits and jurisdiction " 

 in the British and Irish seas, and it was " a most reasonable and 

 friendly request" that foreigners should pay that tenth in 

 acknowledgment of the liberty to fish, a tribute which he 

 calculated would amount to 100,000 a-year, and which he 

 urged should be devoted to the maintenance of the "Petty 

 Navy Royal." 



Dee was not only the first English writer who claimed the 

 sovereignty of the sea and the fisheries for England ; he was 

 also the first who attempted to define their boundaries in detail. 

 At the time when he wrote, it appears indeed to have been held 

 in theory by some lawyers that the limit of the English seas 

 extended to the mid-line between England and foreign coasts, 

 except in the case of the Channel, where the water right up to 

 the opposite shore was believed to be under the sovereignty of 

 England. The doctrine, no doubt, was evolved from the opinions 

 of the Italian jurists, whose authority was then very high (see 

 p. 539), and from the political relations with France then and 

 in former times. Two years before Dee published his book, 



