456 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



for his remissness was deprived of his command. 1 The case 

 of Holmes had some interesting consequences. It revealed 

 once more the want of precise knowledge at the Admiralty 

 as to the rules which should be followed in making foreign 

 ships strike their flag. The Duke of York, who was the 

 Lord High Admiral, was himself ignorant on the point, and 

 he asked the principal officials about it Sir George Carteret, 

 the treasurer ; Coventry, his own secretary ; Sir William Batten 

 and Sir William Penn, commissioners of the navy and experi- 

 enced naval officers ; and lastly Mr Pepys, who was the clerk 

 to the navy. It appears, however, that though they all 

 " did do as much as they could," the information they possessed 

 was of the scantiest kind. Pepys tells us that he knew 

 nothing about it himself, and was forced " to study a lie " 

 by fathering an improbable story on Selden, on the spur 

 of the moment; but on the same evening the genial diarist 

 bought a copy of Selden's Mare Clausum and sat up at 

 nights diligently studying it, with the view of writing a 

 treatise " about the business of striking sail " to present to 

 the Duke. After nearly six weeks' inquiry and cogitation 

 the Admiralty officials' "agreed upon some things to answer 

 to the Duke about the practice of striking of the flags," 

 which encouraged Pepys to persevere with his treatise, but 

 it was never completed. 2 



A case of greater international importance occurred in the 

 Mediterranean in the following year. Vice-Admiral Sir John 

 Lawson was co-operating with De Ruyter against the Algerine 

 pirates, and when the fleets met, the Dutch admiral saluted 

 the English flag with guns and by lowering his own flag. 

 Lawson returned the guns, but he did not strike his flag, as 

 was the custom in distant seas, and De Ruyter, indignant at 

 the slight, resolved not to strike his flag in future either, on 



1 State Papers, Dom., xliv. 64. Pepys' Diary, ii. 135, 151. According to Rugge 

 (Brit. Mus. Add. MSS., 10, 116), quoted by Lord Braybrooke, Holmes insisted 

 upon the Swede's lowering his flag, and had even fired a shot to enforce the 

 observance ; but the ambassador sent a message to the English frigate to assure 

 the captain, on the word of honour of an ambassador, that the king by a verbal 

 order had given him leave and a dispensation, and upon this false representation 

 he was allowed to proceed. The Swedes, it may be added, were always disinclined 

 to strike to English ships. 



2 Pepys' Diary, ii. 145, 146, 148, &c. 



