THE THIRD DUTCH WAR 



477 



sea threatened. To insult the flag was to insult the nation. 

 The king was well aware from the repeated declarations of 

 the States-General that they would never willingly acknowledge 

 England's sovereignty of the sea : they had said they would 

 " rather die first." He was also doubtless fully acquainted with 

 the fixed opinion of the Grand Pensionary that to claim that the 

 whole Dutch fleet should strike to a single frigate or a ketch was 

 "intolerable." He contrived his measures accordingly, and 

 decided to send one of his yachts to pass through the States' 

 fleet, on their own coast, and to fire upon them if they did 

 not strike their flags in the accustomed manner. The matter 

 was deliberately considered. The clause in the treaty of Breda 

 was not very clear as to whether a yacht, or even a man-of-war, 

 could compel the whole Dutch fleet to strike, and on the 

 Dutch coast. Just about the time Temple returned from 

 The Hague, Sir Leoline Jenkins, Judge of the High Court 

 of Admiralty, wrote a confidential letter to Sir Thomas Allin, 

 the commander of the Blue, asking him to find out secretly, " as 

 if for his own satisfaction," whether there were any "ancient 

 seamen" at Trinity House or elsewhere who were on board 

 the Happy Entrance when it carried the Earl of Arundel 

 to Holland in 1636, and if so, whether they remembered 

 that on entering the road of Goeree, in Holland, Admiral 

 Tromp, who was at anchor there, struck his flag to it; and 

 similar information was asked in regard to other cases of 

 like import in 1637 and later. The question was also put 

 to Sir Thomas, "How far the British Sea, or British Ocean, 

 does in common reputation extend itself ; and whether all that 

 which washes the coasts of the Low Countries, as well as 

 that which runs upon the French coast, has been anciently 

 deemed and reputed to be British Sea ? " Jenkins explained 

 that he had been desired by the king to obtain proof of the 

 striking of the flag as secretly as possible; and the two 

 chief points were, (1) "Had not the French and the Dutch 

 always struck to the king's flag even on their own coasts ? 

 and (2) that a single ship of ours, if commissioned for war, 

 though never so inconsiderable in its strength, did make 

 whole squadrons and fleets of the neighbouring nations to 

 strike, and particularly the Spaniards near the Spanish Nether- 



