Policy of Louis XIV.--The Triple Alliance--Secret compact of Charles and Louis against the Dutch--Parliament deceived--Pretexts for a fleet--Ill-feeling against Dutch fomented--Inquiries by Sir Leoline Jenkins as to striking and extent of British seas--The king’s yacht, _Merlin_, sent to pick a quarrel about the flag--The scheme miscarries--Downing’s mission to The Hague--Capture of Dutch shipping--Attack on Smyrna fleet--Declaration of war--The dominion of the seas flouted--The English to salute the French--The war and the fisheries--The Dutch sue for peace--The terms offered--Tribute for fishing asked--Meeting of Parliament--Shaftesbury on the sovereignty of the sea--The war most unpopular--Attempts to arouse public feeling as to dominion of the sea--Prynne--Smith--Roger Coke--Henry Stubbe--Charles forced to negotiate for peace--The Congress at Cologne--Prolonged discussions about the flag, the fisheries, and the sovereignty of the seas--Charles requires the salute between Cape Finisterre and the North Cape--Dutch assume a firmer attitude--Refuse to ask for liberty to fish--Offer to strike in all seas--Congress breaks up--Strong attitude of Parliament in favour of the Dutch--Separate peace made in London--Sir William Temple--The claim to the fishery dropped--Article regarding the salute--A diplomatic triumph for the Dutch--Disputes at sea about striking--The incidents of the _Cleveland_, the _Charles_, the _Cambridge_--English commander condemned to death for striking to the Spaniards--Masters of foreign merchantmen prosecuted in Admiralty Court for refusing to strike--Works on the sovereignty of the sea--Evelyn--Molloy--Further schemes to promote the fisheries 474 CHAPTER XIV. JAMES II. AND AFTER. Gradual decline of the pretension to the sovereignty of the sea--England and the United Provinces allied against France--Louis’ ordinance regarding the salute--William III. claims the sovereignty of the narrow seas--The question of striking becomes of little international importance--The Admiralty instructions concerning--Disputes about it less common--Encounter with a Swedish man-of-war--The case of the _Gironde_--The naval historians on the sovereignty of the sea--Articles regarding striking in later treaties--The ceremony abandoned after the battle of Trafalgar--General claims to maritime dominion give place to international arrangements--Sir Philip Meadows--His treatise against the dominion of the seas--Definite boundaries begin to be fixed for fisheries--Fishery disputes between Denmark and the United Provinces--Great Britain sides with the Dutch in opposing claims to _Mare Clausum_--The North American fishery treaties of the eighteenth century--The claim to the sovereignty of the seas dies out--Decay of the Dutch fisheries and rise of the British 517 SECTION II.--THE TERRITORIAL WATERS.