THE FIRST DUTCH WAR 409 



to sweep the narrow seas of all English men." The story is not 

 mentioned by Dutch authorities, and is now generally dis- 

 credited, but in an earlier century the broom had been used 

 in this way by a Dutch admiral to signalise a victory in the 

 Baltic; 1 and it is said that after the two days' battle in the 

 following summer, when the Dutch had been driven from the 

 sea, the English fleet rode triumphant off the Texel with a 

 broom displayed at their mast-heads, perhaps in ironical parody 

 of Tromp. 



While the fleets were contending for actual dominion over 

 the sea, the Parliament took care to keep alive the historic 

 claims to maritime sovereignty and to place them well before 

 the people. As early as 25th June 1652 the day before Blake 

 sailed away to the north in quest of the herring-busses they 

 passed a resolution : " That it be referred to the Council of 

 State to prepare a declaration to assert the right of this 

 Commonwealth to the Sovereignty of the Seas, and to the 

 fishery ; to be made use of when the Parliament shall see 

 cause." 2 No time was lost, for on the same day the Council 

 remitted the instruction of the Parliament to the Committee 

 for Law and Examinations, with the request that they should 

 bring the declaration to the Council with all speed, and 

 Bradshaw was desired to see that this was done. 3 Apparently, 

 for the use of the Committee in drawing up this declaration, 

 Mr William Ryley, the Keeper of the Records in the Tower, 

 made transcripts of several of the records in his charge refer- 

 ring to the sovereignty of the sea, as the ordinance of King 

 John, Edgar's charter, the mandate of Edward I. to the Bailiffs 

 of Yarmouth, the rolls of the same king concerning Grimbald, 

 and of Edward III. on the laws of the sea, and some others. 4 



1 The Declaration and Speech of the Lord Admiral Vantrump, and his setting 

 up a great Standard of Broom for the States of Holland, for the Cleering of the 

 Narrow Seas of all Englishmen : New Broom sweepes clean, p. 4. Brit. Mus., E, 

 689, 13. A Perfect Account of the Daily Intelligencer, Brit. Mus., E, 689, 14. 

 Gardiner, Hist, of Commonwealth, ii. 151. Geddes, op. cit., 270, 319. 



2 Journals of the House of Commons, vii. 145. 



3 State Papers, Dom., Interregnum, xxix. 42-47. 



4 This collection is in a treatise in the British Museum (Harleian MSS., 4314), 

 entitled " The Sovereignty of the English seas vindicated and proved by some few 

 Records (amongst many others of that kynd) remayning in the Tower of London," 

 Collected by William Ryley, senior. Among the State Papers (Dom. , xxxv. 35) ia 

 a copy of the ordinance of Johu, in Latin, French, and English, endorsed by Brad- 



