

232 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



measurement of the fourteen miles mentioned in the Draft 

 Treaty was to be understood as expressed in the report of the 

 burghs. 1 



This kind of zeal for the " great work " on the part of 

 the Scottish Council and burghs was naturally displeasing to 

 the king and the English commissioners. Coke fumed at the 

 obstacles raised by the Scottish commissioners against the 

 realisation of his pet scheme. They disclaim not the name of 

 association, he said, but they decline the only way of establish- 

 ing it ; we propound a government, and they say their laws are 

 against it ; we desire freedom to fish in all places where, by his 

 Majesty's license, it may be lawfully granted to us, and they 

 reply by the " reserved waters," which " would leave no more 

 scope to the company than strangers now enjoy." Nay, they 

 even propound a further limitation, and request that bounds 

 may now be set to the seas of England and Scotland ; " which 

 debates," he adds, "tending to division, we labour to avoid." 

 At this time the minds of English statesmen had not yet become 

 saturated with lofty ideas of the king's sovereign prerogative 

 in his seas, and Coke did not then, as he did a little later, make 

 use of high arguments of that kind. But he believed that the 

 opposition of Scotland would be prejudicial to the scheme, and 

 that further negotiations would be vain ; and he proposed that 

 an English company should be formed without waiting for the 

 concurrence of Scotland. 2 But Charles was more patient. In 

 June he again sent Sir William Alexander, the Secretary for 

 Scotland, to Edinburgh, and despatched a letter to the burghs 

 assuring them that he would be careful to preserve their 

 privileges and liberties, and another to the Privy Council in 

 which he expressed his astonishment that they had reserved so 

 many places, and likewise " fyftene myles [sic] within the sea 

 distant frome everie shoarr, where it would seeme expedient 



1 Acta Parl. Scot., v. 236. The Act referred to was passed in 1607 by the 

 Scottish Parliament, but it was to be inoperative until a corresponding Act was 

 passed by the Parliament of England, which was not done. 



2 State Papers, Dom., cxci. 7. Memorandum, dated llth May 1631, by Secretary 

 Coke, on " Matters in difference betwixt the English and Scottish Commissioners 

 concerning the fishing." From this paper it appears that the Scottish com- 

 missioners made the most of points relating to naturalisation ; they objected to the 

 natives being employed as fishermen by the association, and they would say nothing 

 about the proportion of busses that might be set forth in Scotland. 



