THE THIRD DUTCH WAR 513 



Difficulties not infrequently occurred with merchant vessels, 

 and even with fishing-boats, over this matter of the flag. We 

 find Pepys writing to Captain Binning of the Swan, at Yar- 

 mouth, telling him that while he should take care that the 

 Dutch "do their parts of civility towards his Majesty's 

 flag," he ought not to impose upon them any "innovation," 

 the reference being to the taking of twelve barrels of herrings 

 from each of the offenders in lieu of carrying them into port. 1 

 Foreign merchant vessels, especially Spanish and French, were 

 sometimes brought into port and their masters tried before 

 the High Court of Admiralty for refusing to strike to English 

 men-of-war. By the strict law of the Admiralty such vessels 

 might have been forfeited, but this extreme course was appar- 

 ently rarely or never taken, the usual punishment inflicted 

 being fine and imprisonment. Cases of this kind were naturally 

 apt to raise unpleasant questions with foreign Powers, and they 

 had to be dealt with cautiously. In 1675, when two Frenchmen 

 were brought before the court for this offence, the judge, Sir 

 Thomas Exton, appealed for advice to Sir Leoline Jenkins, 

 then at the Congress of Nimeguen, and was warned by him 

 to be very careful how he dealt with the case. He advised 

 him to meddle as little as possible with the French edicts 

 of 1555 and 1584 (see p. 117), under which the French 

 Admiralty claimed similar rights, and to " stick to the terms 

 of the indictment of the Spanish Captain at the Old Bailey," 

 adding that although much might be said plausibly on the 

 subject of striking, that indictment had never been attacked; 

 and he argued against the seizure and forfeiture of the ship. 2 



After the third Dutch war several works appeared in which 

 the claims of England to the salute and to the sovereignty 

 of the sea were maintained. It has been already mentioned 

 that at the beginning of 1674, when the Dutch offers of 

 peace were received in London, the king asked Evelyn to 

 write something against the Dutch about the flag and fishery. 

 As the occasion was pressing, Evelyn extracted the introductory 

 part of his work on the second Dutch war (a work which was 



1 8th Oct. 1674. Tanner, Catalogue of Naval MSS, in Pepysian Library, 

 No. 1838. 



2 Life, ii. 716. Various other indictments are referred to in Brit, Mus. Add. 

 MSS., 30,221, fol. 626. 



2 K 



