THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS 427 



free fishery, and freedom of trading to the Barbadoes. It was 

 indeed the case that Sweden had made such proposals. In the 

 negotiations for a treaty with the Commonwealth, the queen 

 expressed her desire to obtain liberty for her subjects to fish 

 for herrings in the British seas, 1 and in the preceding August 

 the Council of State, at the request of her ambassador, had 

 actually issued a license to four Swedish vessels to tish in the 

 narrow seas and upon the British coasts.- In a treaty con- 

 cluded in 1656 between the King of Sweden and the Lord 

 Protector, the privilege, it may be said, was carried much 

 further. The treaty provided that Swedish subjects should 

 be free to tish for herrings and other fish in the seas and 

 on the coasts under the dominion of the Republic, provided 

 the number of ships so employed did not exceed a thousand ; 

 and no charges (such as the assize-herring) were to be de- 

 manded of the Swedish fishermen, who were to be treated 

 courteously and amicably, allowed to dry their nets on the 

 shore, and to purchase necessaries at a fair price. 3 



It may be noted as remarkable that, throughout the long dis- 

 cussions with Cromwell about the fishery, the Dutch deputies 

 never made use of the argument, so frequently employed by 

 their predecessors at the Court of James, that the English 

 claims were opposed to the law of nations. They probably 

 shrank from using an argument of that kind to the great 

 dictator who had ruthlessly trampled on the laws of England ; 

 perhaps they were deterred by the abrupt intimation made 

 earlier, that the Council had not come to listen to scholastic 

 subtleties, but to consider the real legal rights of England. 

 The obstinacy of Cromwell in refusing at this stage to modify 

 the fishery article is also noteworthy. No doubt he was 



1 Whitelock to Thurloe, 10th March 1654. Thurloe's Collection, ii. 1.18. 



2 Council of State Order Book, 6th Aug. 1653. State Papers, Dom., Interregnum. 



3 Dumont, Corp* IH^omatique, VI. ii. 125. " X. Subditi? Serenissitni Regis 

 Sueciic liberum erit, j>er Maria atque Littora, quic in Ditione hujus Reipublic;c 

 Bunt, piscari, atque Halecen, aliosque Pisces capere ; dumniodo mille Navium 

 numerum piscantes non excedant. Neque inter piscantea ullum iis impedi- 

 mentutn, aut moles tia aoseratur Neque :i Navibus pnesidiariis hujus Reipublica?, 

 neque ab iis quibus Diplomat* pennissum est, res suas privatim suo marte repetere, 

 nee a piscantibus iu Boreali plaga Britannitc, plication is nomine onera aliqua exi- 

 gantur, immo omnes humaniter aUjue amice tractentur, usque retia in Littore 

 aiccare, quemque opus est coinmeatum ab eoruiu Locorutn IncolU, justo pretio 

 comj*rare sibi licebit." 



