THE THIRD DUTCH WAR 509 



customary in any time or place heretofore, by any ships of the States- 

 General or their predecessors to any ships of his Britannic Majesty or 

 his predecessors." 1 



Most writers who have dealt with the subject have followed 

 Temple in thinking that this article was a great triumph for 

 English diplomacy. "The point of the flag," said Temple, 

 "was carried to all the height his Majesty could wish; and 

 thereby a claim of the crown, the acknowledgment of its 

 dominion in the narrow seas, allowed by treaty from the 

 most powerful of our neighbours at sea, which had never 

 yet been yielded to by the weakest of them, that I can 

 remember, in the whole course of our pretence; and had 

 served hitherto but for an occasion of quarrel, whenever we 

 or they had a mind to it, upon other reasons or conjectures." 2 



1 Prsedicti Ordines Generales Unitarum Provincial-Una debite, ex parte sua ag- 

 noscentes jus supramemorati Serenissimi Domini Magnse Britanniae Regis, ut 

 vexillo suo in maribus infra nominandis honos habeatur, declarabunt et declarant, 

 concordabunt et concordant, quod qusecunque naves et navigia ad preefatas 

 Unitas Provincias spectantia, sive naves bellicse, sive alite, ea;que vel singulae vel 

 in classibus junctse, in aliis maribus a Promontorio Finis Terrce dicto usque 

 ad medium punctum terrse van Staten dictse in Norwegia, quibuslibet navibus 

 aut navigiis ad Serenissimum Dominum Magnse Britannia) Regem spectantibus, 

 obviam dederint, sive illse naves singulae sint, vel in numero majori, si majestatis 

 Britannicse sive aplustrum, sive vexillum Jack appelatum gerant, pnedictse Uni- 

 tarum Provinciarum naves aut navigia vexillum suum e mali vertice detrahent 

 et supremum velum demittent, eodem modo parique honoris testimonio, quo ullo 

 unquatn tempore aut in alio loco antehac usitatum fuit, versus ullas Majestatis suse 

 Britannicte aut antecessorum suorum naves ab ullis Ordinum Generalium suorumque 

 antecessorum navibus." Art. iv. Dumont, op. cii., VII. i. 253. The land van 

 Staten (which is a Dutch expression) is the peninsula of Stadtland in N. Berghus, 

 in 62 5' N. latitude. It is probable that the English Ministers took the advice 

 of the Trinity House (p. 478) to consult the authors who had written on the 

 northern boundary of the British seas, and that the substitution of van Staten 

 for the North Cape, first made at the congress of Cologne (see p. 506), was based 

 upon Selden's plate showing the British seas (Mare Clausum, lib. ii., cap. i., 

 p. 122), and which is reproduced in the frontispiece of this book. Selden's plate 

 was much less liberal to the British seas than was his text. The Dutch appellation 

 may have been extracted from a Dutch map. 



2 Memoirs, i. 170. Temple added: "Nothing, I confess, had ever given me a 

 greater pleasure, in the greatest public affairs I had run through, than this success ; 

 as having been a point I ever had at heart, and in my endeavours to gain, upon 

 my first negotiations in Holland, but found Monsieur De Witt ever inflexible, 

 though he agreed with me it would be a rock upon which our firmest alliances 

 would be in danger to strike, and to split, whenever other circumstances fell in to 

 make either of the parties content to alter the measures we had entered into upon 

 the triple alliance." 



I 



