With respect to the fundamental question, the limits of the territorial seas pertaining to Scotland, the demands of the Parliament went much further than any previous claim. The old principle of division by the mid-line, which was held by some lawyers in the reign of Elizabeth, was now put forward. The commissioners were instructed to take care that a clause was inserted in the treaty to make it clear, “that the seas foreanent the coasts of this kingdome and about the Yles thairof and all that is interjected betuix thame and that mid-lyne in the seas whilk is equallie distant and divyding frome the opposite land, ar the Scotish Seas properlie belonging to the crowne of Scotland, and that the English hes no right nor libertie to fishe thairin, nor in no part thairof, bot be vertew of the association and not otherwayes.” But while these were the Scottish seas ideally regarded, English members of the association were to be permitted to fish in them, except in the waters which were reserved to the Scottish people in the Draft Treaty of Union of 1604--namely, bays, firths, and lochs within land, and a belt of fourteen miles along the coast. These waters were to be strictly preserved for the native fishermen.[417] The instructions which the burghs gave to their representative, Mr John Hay, although less ample, were equally to the point. He was to agree to the proposal for the establishment of an English settlement at the Lewes, provided they did not fish in the reserved waters, and had no magazines or settlements in any of the other West or North Isles, or north of Buchan Ness or Cromarty, and not at Aberdeen if they wished any south of Buchan Ness; and the burghs were also to have the right to establish colonies at the Lewes. In “retribution,” as they said, for these privileges to be granted to the English in Scotland, they required the “liberty” of the pilchard-fishing in England and Ireland, with equal privileges regarding it. The king was also to remove the “Flemings” from the Isles, and to prohibit them and all other strangers from fishing within a “land-kenning” (that is, within a distance at which the land was visible from the sea), and power was to be conferred upon the burghs, with the assistance of the Sheriffs and other officers to prevent their fishing nearer. “Hamburgers, Bremeners,” and all other strangers, were also to be removed furth of Shetland, Orkney, Caithness, and other places.[418]