364 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



Superioritate Maris, as proving that the king's right of 

 dominion over the sea had been expressly acknowledged by 

 neighbouring nations. 



But none of the works on the rights of England in the 

 adjoining seas, which had appeared when the new policy of 

 Charles began to be fashioned, was sufficiently profound or 

 authoritative to furnish reasonable justification for that policy 

 in the eyes of the world. The king in 1632, as we have seen, 

 desired to demonstrate his rights by means of "some public 

 writing," founded upon the historical records of the realm, a 

 demonstration which was to precede the revival of the English 

 pretension to the dominion of the seas in what Secretary Coke 

 called its ancient style and lustre. As a result of the search 

 made amongst the records in the Tower and elsewhere for 

 evidence and precedents to establish the claim, several treatises 

 and collections were compiled. Most of these were of little 

 account, 1 but one of them attained an authority and celebrity 

 only second to the great work of Selden. Before Charles 

 wrote to the Clerk- Register in Edinburgh for Scottish docu- 

 ments to substantiate his claims (p. 212), it seems that Sir John 

 Boroughs, the Keeper of his Majesty's Records in the Tower, 

 had been commissioned by the king to prepare the "public 

 writing " to which he referred. We have already seen that in 

 1631 Boroughs brought forward the important roll of Edward 

 I. ; he tells us in his preface that his work was composed at 

 the request of " a great person " ; it was written in Latin, the 

 language which fitted it for foreign Courts ; and it deals very 

 largely with the Dutch and English fisheries, even recommend- 

 ing the construction of 250 busses for the fishery association. 

 Boroughs' treatise, entitled "The Soveraignty of the British 

 , Seas, proved by Records, History and the Municipall Lawes of 



1 Such as " A Collection of divers particulars touching the King's Dominion and 

 Soveraignty in the Fishings, as well in Scotland as in the British Ocean," by 

 Captain John Mason. (Stale Papers, Dom., 1590. Admiralty, Eliz., Jac. I., 

 Car. I., No. 37, fol. 131.) A superior compilation, dealing with the opinions of 

 the Civilians, as well as with the Dutch and native fisheries, and founded largely 

 on Dee, Hitchcock, Gentleman, and Keymer, is entitled " The King's Interest in 

 the Sea and the Commodities thereof" (ibid., ccv. 92). Another treatise, also 

 dealing with the opinions of the Civilians, the jurisdiction of the Admiral, and 

 the rights of the crown of England to the dominion of the narrow seas, is in 

 State Papers, Dom., ccviii., No. x., fol. 402. 



