JAMES II. AND AFTER 521 



into Plymouth Sound on 23rd November, was hailed by an 

 English frigate, which demanded that he should salute the 

 fortress and the frigate. The Frenchman replied that the 

 bad weather had prevented his sending an officer to the 

 governor to agree about a salute, but that he owed none to 

 the frigate, which carried a pennant only, it being usual to 

 salute none but flags; and he passed quickly into the port, 

 where the captain of another frigate sent to ask him if he 

 would not salute the commodore, who carried a bare pendant, 

 and he returned the same answer. On coming out again on 

 the 29th the frigate called upon him to strike his pennant, 

 and on his refusal threatened to fire upon him. M. de Joyeux, 

 feeling that it was by no means proper to hazard his ship 

 under the cannon of the castle and the batteries, then complied, 

 and also saluted the fort with eleven guns, as previously 

 arranged. This "insult" was made the subject of complaint 

 by France, and when all the papers had been submitted to the 

 king he instructed that the officer responsible, Lieutenant 

 Thomas Smith of the Gosport, should be forthwith dismissed 

 the service as having in this particular exceeded his instructions. 1 

 In the writings of the naval historians of last century one 

 may find expressed the views which were then prevalent in 

 naval circles as to the striking of the flag and the sovereignty 

 of the sea generally. They claimed for the crown of England 

 an exclusive propriety and dominion in the British seas, both 

 as to the right of passage and the right of fishing, and the 

 widest limits were assigned to those seas. Thus Burchett, 

 who was Secretary to the Admiralty, defined them as follows 

 in 1720 : On the east they extended to the shores of Norway, 

 Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands, so as to include 

 the North Sea ; on the south they were bounded by the shores 

 of France and Spain to Cape Finisterre, and by a line from 

 that Cape westwards to meet the western boundary, thus 

 comprising the Channel, the Bay of Biscay, and part of the 

 Atlantic Ocean ; on the west they extended to an imaginary 

 line in the Atlantic in longitude 23 degrees west from London, 



1 State Papers, Dom., Naval, 1769, 45. Copies of the various papers sent from 

 the Admiralty to the Under-Secretary of State. Professor Laughton states that 

 Lieutenant Smith was reinstated to a higher rank next day. Fortnightly Review, 

 Aug. 1866, p. 721. 



