192 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



ambassadors. They strove to convince James that it was by 

 no means the desire of the States to refuse to treat of the fish- 

 ery, or absolutely to deny his right to regulate it on his own 

 coasts. All they asked was that the matter might be delayed 

 a little owing to the religious troubles which were raging in 

 the Netherlands, and because as all the provinces were con- 

 cerned and the records and treaties would have to be searched, 

 it would take some time before they would be in a position to 

 deal with it in an equitable way. The States-General used 

 language equally conciliatory to Sir Dudley Carleton, and 

 promised to send other ambassadors later, fully empowered to 

 treat of the herring fishery and the trade in cloth. James was 

 appeased and agreed to the delay, but he told the ambassadors 

 that unless the States gave an undertaking in writing to send 

 commissioners sufficiently authorised to settle the matter before 

 a year had expired, he would take it as " a plain and perpetual 

 declining of the treaty." 1 



Thus James was again baffled in his endeavour to force the 

 United Provinces to acknowledge his rights in the fishery. 

 But scarcely had the arrangement been completed when he 

 brought forward another proposal. Pending the conclusion of 

 the final treaty, he wished the States to issue a provisional 

 edict forbidding their fishermen from approaching within four- 

 teen miles of the British coasts, to which they had been coming 

 closer and closer in recent years, a proceeding which was the 

 principal cause of the complaints from Scotland. 2 The distance 

 mentioned was that embodied in the Draft Treaty of Union in 

 1604, and was supposed to be equivalent to a " land-kenning." 3 



1 The Dutch Commissioners to the States - General, g D '' y- Dec. 1618; 



TiaFiSf' A Jan - rS 1619> Brit - Mus - Add - MSS -> 17 > 677 ' J > foL 364 > 367 > 



370, 374, 380. Muller, op. ciL, 140, 147, 148, 153. Aitzema, Saken van Stact, 

 iL 402. Carleton, Letters, 326. MSS. Advoc., 31. 2. 16. State Papers, Dom. 

 Collection, Chas. II., vol. 339, p. 351, 361, 369, &c. 



2 The Dutch Commissioners to the States-General, 9 ~ F g"' 1619. Ibid., 387. 

 Naunton to Carleton, 21st January 1619. Carleton, Letters. Justice, A General 

 Treatise of the Dominion and Laics of the Sea, 179. The States were desired "to 

 cause proclamation to be made, prohibiting any of their subjects to fish within 

 fourteen miles of his Majesty's coasts this year, or in any time hereafter, until 

 order be taken by commissioners to be authorised on both sides, for a final 

 settling of the main business." 



3 P. 223. 



