The Sovereignty of the Sea: An Historical Account of the Claims of England to the Dominion of the British Seas, and of the Evolution of the Territorial WatersFulton, Thomas Wemyss
History
The Sovereignty of the Sea: An Historical Account of the Claims of England to the Dominion of the British Seas, and of the Evolution of the Territorial Waters
Fulton, Thomas Wemyss
Fisheries -- Great Britain; Great Britain. Royal Navy -- History; Sea-power; Territorial waters -- Great Britain -- History
At such a conjuncture the promulgation of the edict of the
States-General would have been unfortunate, and Arundel requested
George Goring, who had gone to The Hague, to see the Prince of Orange
in order to get it suppressed. But the Prince of Orange, while anxious
enough to avoid further trouble with England, desired, before he
consented, to receive an assurance that the king would cease from
molesting the Dutch fishermen in the ensuing season. The Queen of
Bohemia urged the same course. She “humbly besought” her royal brother
to suspend further execution of his right, which, she said, he might
take up again when he would, without any prejudice, “as the king,
our father, did.” Charles was loth to give an assurance so wounding
to his vanity, and so opposed to what he conceived to be a chief
prerogative of his crown. In the autumn Sir Thomas Roe had declared
that the difficulty in the way for the benefit of the Prince Elector
arose from the fishery dispute, and that upon nothing was the will
of the king more firmly bent: if the Dutch did not yield, he feared
“another procedure” next season. Even in February, Archbishop Laud told
Elizabeth that the king was “so set to maintain the dominion of the
sea” that he durst not speak to him any more about it. At the same time
he gave a broad hint that nothing further would be attempted against
the Dutch fishermen in the approaching season. He much wondered,
he said, that the Prince of Orange and the States should trouble
themselves to gain an overt concession from his Majesty to leave their
fishing that year, since it was “more than manifest” there would
be so much other work for his navy that the business of the fishing
must needs fall asleep of itself. He would advise a silence on all
hands in regard to it, and not to interrupt “business with moving a
question about that which would necessarily do itself (_sic_) without
questioning.” Sir Thomas Roe also sent the queen assurances in the same
sense. The king, he said, would never retract his declaration of the
dominion of the sea, but “only for this year, and at the request of
the Prince (her son) and in contemplation of concurrence expected with
him, he will not trouble their fishing.” These assurances seemed so far
satisfactory to the States that the edicts were suppressed. They would
be well content, they informed Elizabeth, if the king “forgot it and
spoke no more of it,” which she told them she was confident he would
not, having things of greater importance on hand.[564]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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