472 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



navy began to devote close attention to the rules regulating 

 the salute and the striking of the flag, and a number of mem- 

 oranda were prepared which described recent precedents, and 

 dealt with other points. With reference to recent practice, 

 it was stated that the Earl of Sandwich had struck in return 

 to De Ruyter in 1661 or 1662; that Sir John Lawson declared 

 he would strike to none, and kept his flag aloft in Toulon 

 harbour; while Sir William Berkeley, serving under Lawson, 

 refused even to fire a gun on meeting De Beaufort, the Admiral 

 of France, until he was assured that the report attributed to 

 him that he would force the English to strike was unfounded. 

 A statement was compiled of the number of guns fired in salute 

 to English vessels arriving in various foreign ports, and rules 

 were formulated with respect to the salutation of forts and on 

 other points. The general custom was that "the sea should 

 salute the land" that is, the vessel first saluted the forts, 

 except on extraordinary occasions, as when a prince or an 

 important foreign embassy arrived. No foreign man-of-war 

 was to be allowed to pass above the ports at Gravesend and 

 Sheerness, or at any other harbour, without special permission 

 from the Lord High Admiral or the governor of the fort ; all 

 vessels were to keep in their flag as long as they were in sight 

 of the fort, and if they refused they were to be forced to 

 comply ; salutes of foreign flagships were to be answered gun 

 for gun, and of other foreign ships with two guns less. As for 

 the striking of the flag, the Earl of Sandwich and other naval 

 authorities who were consulted intimated that the matter was 

 too important for them to decide upon, and should be left to 

 the king a plain acknowledgment of its political character. 

 The Duke of York, however, the Lord High Admiral, stated 

 that the rule was that English ships were everywhere to be 

 saluted first, and were not to strike in return, but only 

 to answer with guns; but if a single English ship met a 

 foreign fleet out of the British seas, it was to salute first with 

 guns, but neither was to strike the flag. 1 



This activity at the English Admiralty may not have been 

 wholly unconnected with the circumstances which ushered in 

 the next war, but it was more probably due to the general 

 revival of punctiliousness regarding the salute and similar 



1 State Papers, Dom., 1669, cclxi. 82-87. 



