200 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



importance they attached to the matter and their belief that 

 James would not force on a quarrel about it. In their secret 

 instructions the old injunctions were repeated. They were to 

 beg that as a year had not yet elapsed a little further delay 

 might be granted, laying stress on the danger to the Protestant 

 cause, in view of the relations with Spain, if anything were 

 done to lessen the sea-power of the Netherlands, which depended 

 so much on their fisheries. At this time the East Indian ques- 

 tion had become important and pressing in England, and the 

 early conferences were confined to it. But later the king 

 broached the subject of the herring-fishing ; and after listening 

 to the ambassadors for a while, he peevishly asked them to 

 make an end of their long harangue, called them leeches and 

 blood-suckers, who sucked the blood from his subjects and tried 

 to ruin him, 1 and then treated them to the same sort of dis- 

 quisition as on former occasions. To the king's railing and 

 reproaches the ambassadors made such answer as they could, 

 and the upshot was that they were allowed to go on with 

 the conferences on the East Indian question. This embassy, at 

 the head of which was Frangois Van Aerssen, Lord of Som- 

 melsdijck, remained in England until the spring of 1623, engaged 

 in negotiations, often interrupted, on political affairs, and on 

 the East Indian and Greenland fishery questions. James did 

 not harass them further about the herring fishery. At the 

 farewell audience he spoke of it in a good-natured way. He 

 must, he said, resume his old song, veterem cantilenam, but 

 not at that time. But whenever the condition of the Nether- 

 lands was favourable, he would, he said, be glad to resume the 

 negotiations. 2 



During their long stay in England the ambassadors had an 

 opportunity of learning what was thought about the fishery 

 question. On their return to the Netherlands they earnestly 

 counselled the States-General to come to some agreement with 

 England both on the herring fishery on the British coasts and 

 the whale -fishing at Spitzbergen. These matters, they said, 



1 "Ghy sijt sangsues, bloetsuygers van |dijn rijck, ghy treckt het bloet van 

 mijne Ondersaeten ende souckt mij te ruineren." 



2 Muller, op. cit., 191, 194, 203. Aitzema, i. 191, 193. Journal van de Ambassade' 

 van den Heere van Sommelsdyck naer Engelant, 1621-1623, Brit. Mus. Add. 

 MSS., 22,866. 



