INTRODUCTION 1 5 



obligations. He therefore contrived, as the means of picking 

 a (juarrel with the Dutch, a dispute about the honour of 

 the flag, and he sent, not a frigate, but his yacht, the Merlin, 

 to force the whole Dutch fleet to strike to it, and thus to 

 raise a clamour in England, as he hoped, about the sovereignty 

 of the sea being flouted and endangered. In the third Dutch 

 war which followed, the United Provinces maintained the 

 contest at sea with credit and success against both the English 

 and the French. For domestic reasons Charles was forced 

 to make a separate peace, and in the long negotiations with 

 that object the question of the sovereignty of the sea was 

 brought prominently forward. An attempt was made again 

 to induce the Dutch to agree to pay an annual sum of 12,000 

 for the privilege of fishing on the British coasts, but the 

 only concession obtained from them related to the striking 

 of the flag. The article in the treaty of peace which dealt 

 with this differed from the corresponding article in previous 

 treaties. The term "the British Seas" was omitted, and it 

 was agreed that even squadrons of the Dutch should strike 

 to any single ship of the king's in "any of the seas" from 

 Cape Finisterre to Van Staten in Norway ; but it was to 

 be done as an " honour " to the king's flag, and not as an 

 acknowledgment of his alleged sovereignty of the sea. The 

 Dutch, indeed, offered to strike in the same way all the world 

 over. 



After this time the English claim to the sovereignty of 

 the sea began to lose its importance. In subsequent treaties 

 with the Dutch Republic, even as late as 1784, a clause was 

 inserted providing for the salute, but it had become merely 

 a matter of form and precedent. The ceremony, in truth, had 

 grown to be a political encumbrance, and after the battle 

 of Trafalgar, when British supremacy at sea was unquestioned, 

 the clause relating to the enforcement of the salute was quietly 

 dropped out of the Admiralty instructions. 



It is remarkable that throughout the whole of the long 

 period in which England claimed sovereignty in some form 

 or other over the so-called " Sea of England," or the ' British 

 Seas," no authoritative definition was ever given of the extent 

 of sea included in the term. In the case of the Adriatic there 

 was no difficulty in understanding the limits within which 



