THE THIRD DUTCH WAR 499 



The terms of peace now offered, it will be observed, were 

 much less exacting than those demanded in the previous year, 

 and the request for an express acknowledgment of the king's 

 sovereignty of the sea was dropped. The Dutch plenipoten- 

 tiaries at the outset of the proceedings said little difficulty 

 would be raised about the question of the flag, but they de- 

 murred to the demand to pay tribute for liberty of fishing. 1 

 This thorny subject was threshed out on either side with all 

 the old arguments which were used in the times of James and 

 Cromwell. The Dutch pled possession, prescription, treaties ; 

 the English replied that the treaties had expired in subsequent 

 wars, and were abrogated by the separation of the Provinces 

 from the House of Burgundy, with whom the treaties were 

 made. A new point was raised to show that no right could 



precedents (and many of them are omitted), and arranged under the following 

 heads : (1) Strikeing in Generall ; (2) Whole Fleets to Single Ships and a Greater 

 Number to a Lesser ; (3) Till they be passed by to keepe downe their Flag in sight 

 of ye English ; (4) Within the Brittish Seas, What the Brittish Seas are, &c., where 

 done, &c. What Places esteemed according to this Practice to be within ye 

 Brittish Seas ; (5) This done as a Duty and Right and not only as a Civillity. 

 Some of the papers have notes on them, apparently penned by the ambassadors 

 at Cologne. 



1 In one of the papers in the volume provided for the use of the ambassadors, 

 containing a copy of the fishery article put forward by Cromwell in 1653 and after- 

 wards withdrawn, is the following, with a sidenote referring to the " king's in- 

 structions to the special ambassadors " : " Lastly, that ye subiects of ye States 

 generall shall for ye future abstayne from fisheing vpon ye Countreys and shores 

 of any of his Matyes Dominions wthout leaue and Passeports first obtayned. One 

 thing more I must obserue to you relating to those six propositions particularly 

 that of ye fishery. In his Matyes former Instructions to you vpon that Point you 

 were bid to consent to ye leaning out that Article in case ye Dutch should be 

 obstinate vpon it. But his Maty by progress of tyme finding that his Subiects 

 seem fonder thereof, bids me now to direct you to insist vpon that, as vpon 

 y e rest and to frame it as neare as you can according to ye Words set down in 

 yo Reply." Then after Cromwell's article is the following: "Ye Art. of the 

 Fishery as contained in ye Project, 1673." It is the same as that given in the 

 previous year (note, p. 491), the part referring to the contribution of 2000 for 

 Scotland being interpolated, except that it concludes with this sentence, "In 

 wch fisheing ye said States shall oblidge themselues that their Subiects shall not 

 come wthin one league of ye shoares of England and Scotland," which is the first 

 mention of a three-mile limit that has been discovered. Sir Arnold Braems sug- 

 gested to Arlington, in August 1673, that the king should insist in the treaty for 

 an annual payment of 10,000 or 12,000 for their free fishing on his coasts, and 

 that 3000 of this should be devoted to the bringing over of Dutch families and 

 fishing-busses to England, a project which was then being tried by more or less 

 surreptitious methods. State Papers, Dom., vol. 336, No. 295. 



