There do not seem to have been any definite limitations to our watery kingdom laid down: it is sometimes convenient not to be too precise. But the earliest claim was _usque ad finem terrae_, which might mean to the "Land's End", to "Finisterre" in Brittany, to "Finisterre" in Spain, or "to the ends of the earth"--all very different things. Certainly the Spanish Finisterre was regarded as the southern boundary in the seventeenth century, for in the Rev. H. Teonge's _Diary_, when chaplain in the _Royal Oak_, we find the following entry written after leaving Gibraltar for England: "13 May, 1679--An indifferent good gale, and fayre weather, and at twelve wee are in the King of England's dominions (_Deo gratia_), that is wee are past Cape Finister and entering on the Bay of Biscay". Monarch after monarch asserted his right to be saluted by foreigners "taking in their flag and striking their topsail" when within "His Majesty's Seas", and the Protector Cromwell made the same claim on behalf of the nation. Our men-of-war had also to be saluted in the same way by our merchant-ships. Any neglect used to be summarily punished. Captain Pennington of H.M.S. _Vauntguard_ notes in his _Journal_ that on 6th September, 1633, he had "in the Bilbowes" (that is, fastened by the legs to an iron bar running along the deck) "Richard Eastwood, Master of a Sandwich hoye, for not striking his topsayle"! He does not say how long he kept him there, or whether he handed him over to the civil power to be prosecuted by the Admiralty. Not only the sea but "all that therein is" was considered the property of the English monarchs. Foreigners were not allowed to fish without permission, for which they generally had to pay. This was relaxed under Henry VI, but reasserted later, and the enforcement of payment from Dutch fishermen for fishing in the North Sea was one of the prime causes of the wars between Holland and England in the time of the Commonwealth and of Charles II. For the Dutch thought they were strong enough to wrest the trident of Neptune from our grasp. They nearly succeeded, but not quite, and we find William III asserting our claim to sovereignty afloat just as particularly and definitely as any of his predecessors. [Illustration: TEACHING THE SPANIARD "THE HONOUR OF THE FLAG" Philip of Spain, arriving in the Straits of Dover on his journey to England to espouse Mary, flaunts the flag of Spain without paying the customary salute. Lord Howard of Effingham, the English admiral, soon brings him to his senses by firing a round shot across his bows.]