520 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



ilar instructions were issued in succeeding reigns, the injunction 

 to compel by force those who refused to strike being limited to 

 flag officers and commanders. 1 



Disputes as to striking appear to have been much less 

 common in the latter part of the seventeenth and in the 

 eighteenth century than they were previously, but they some- 

 times occurred ; and the ceremony seems to have been enforced 

 on Dutch ships, though they were allied with the English fleet 

 at the time. At all events, the Lords of the Admiralty in 1694 

 wrote to the Duke of Shrewsbury saying that the instructions 

 required the respect of the flag from all nations whatsoever, 

 without any distinction, and that Sir Cloudesley Shovel had 

 been advised to that effect. 2 At this period, as indeed always, 

 the Danes were very punctilious as to Kronberg Castle on the 

 Sound being saluted with proper respect by foreign ships, and 

 in 1694 Shrewsbury advised the Admiralty that the king had 

 signified his pleasure that all ships of war sent to the Sound 

 should salute Kronberg with three guns only, upon assurance 

 that their salute would be returned by the castle with a like 

 number of guns. 3 



Early in the reign of Anne, in 1704, a sanguinary encounter 

 took place with reference to the striking of the flag that 

 equalled if it did not surpass in brutality any case that 

 happened under Charles. An English squadron under the 

 command of Admiral Whestone fell in with a Swedish man- 

 of-war convoying some merchant vessels. The Swedish com- 

 mander refused to strike to the English admiral, on the ground 

 that he had received strict injunctions not to do so to any flag 

 whatever, even in the Channel, and thereupon the English 

 proceeded to compel him by force. After about 150 Swedes 

 had been killed or wounded, as well as many English, the un- 

 lucky man-of-war, with all the merchantmen, was brought into 

 Yarmouth Roads. 4 Another case of a different kind happened 

 in 1728, early in the reign of George II. A French man-of-war, 

 the Gironde, under the command of Mons. de Joyeux, on going 



1 Regulations and Instructions relating to His Majesty's Service at Sea. Estab- 

 lished by His Majesty in Council. 2nd edition, 1734, Art. xi. Ibid., 10th edition, 

 1766. Ibid., 13th edition, 1790. 



2 State Papers, Dom., H. 0. Admiralty, 5, 1108, October 19. 



3 State Papers, Dom., Petition Entry Book, 3, 90. 4 Justice, op. cit., 193. 



