THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS 427 



free fishery, and freedom of trading to the Barbadoes. It was 

 indeed the case that Sweden had made such proposals. In the 

 negotiations for a treaty with the Commonwealth, the queen 

 expressed her desire to obtain liberty for her subjects to fish 

 for herrings in the British seas, 1 and in the preceding August 

 the Council of State, at the request of her ambassador, had 

 actually issued a license to four Swedish vessels to fish in the 

 narrow seas and upon the British coasts. 2 In a treaty con- 

 cluded in 1656 between the King of Sweden and the Lord 

 Protector, the privilege, it may be said, was carried much 

 further. The treaty provided that Swedish subjects should 

 be free to fish for herrings and other fish in the seas and 

 on the coasts under the dominion of the Republic, provided 

 the number of ships so employed did not exceed a thousand ; 

 and no charges (such as the assize-herring) were to be de- 

 manded of the Swedish fishermen, who were to be treated 

 courteously and amicably, allowed to dry their nets on the 

 shore, and to purchase necessaries at a fair price. 3 



It may be noted as remarkable that, throughout the long dis- 

 cussions with Cromwell about the fishery, the Dutch deputies 

 never made use of the argument, so frequently employed by 

 their predecessors at the Court of James, that the English 

 claims were opposed to the law of nations. They probably 

 shrank from using an argument of that kind to the great 

 dictator who had ruthlessly trampled on the laws of England ; 

 perhaps they were deterred by the abrupt intimation made 

 earlier, that the Council had not come to listen to scholastic 

 subtleties, but to consider the real legal rights of England. 

 The obstinacy of Cromwell in refusing at this stage to modify 

 the fishery article is also noteworthy. No doubt he was 



1 Whitelock to Thurloe, 10th March 1654. Thurloe's Collection, ii. 158. 



2 Council of State Order Book, 6th Aug. 1653. State Papers, Dom., Interregnum. 



3 Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, VI. ii. 125. " X. Subditie Serenissimi Regis 

 Suecite liberum erit, per Maria atque Littora, quae in Ditione hujus Reipublicse 

 sunt, piscari, atque Haleces, aliosque Pisces capere ; dummodo mille Navium 

 numerum piscautes non excedant. Neque inter piscantes ullum iis impedi- 

 mentum, aut molestia asseratur Neque a Navibus prscsidiariis hujus Reipublicae, 

 neque ab iis quibus Diplomate permissum est, res suas privatim suo marte repetere, 

 nee a piscantibus in Boreali plaga Britannise, piscatiouis nomine onera aliqua exi- 

 gantur, immo omnes humaniter atque amice tractentur, usque retia in Littore 

 siccare, quemque opus est cornmeaturn ab eorum Locorum Incolis, justo pretio 

 comparare sibi licebit." 



