In discharging his duties in the English Prize Courts, it often fell to the lot of Gentilis to deal with the jurisdiction of England in the seas, for while he held office war existed between Spain and the United Provinces, and Spanish ships were frequently taken by the Dutch in the neighbourhood of the British coasts. Of course, captures made in the King’s Chambers after the proclamation of 1604 (see p. 119) were not good prize, and were restored.[645] But when a Spanish vessel was seized clearly outside the limits of the King’s Chambers, Gentilis argued that it was not good prize, because, first, the treaty of peace[646] between Spain and England provided that the subjects of either were to be protected in all places throughout the dominions of the other; and, second, the dominion of the King of England extended far into the neighbouring seas. He seemed to stretch the joint sovereignty of Spain and England as far as America, pointing out that the southern coasts of Ireland were opposite to Spain, and the western coasts were bounded by the Indies belonging to Spain, while the northern coasts of Britain, having no countries lying against them, were washed by an immense and open sea. He held that the proclamation of 1604, fixing the limits of the chambers in connection with acts of hostilities between the Spaniards and the Hollanders, ought not to prevail against the provisions of the treaty, for the proclamation was subsequent to the treaty, and it would be unjust to allow it to lessen the extent of the territory (sea) over which protection was to be afforded by the terms of the contract. It was not a valid argument, Gentilis continued, to say that the boundaries expressed in the proclamation--that is, the King’s Chambers--had been observed long before by common usage in relation to similar cases.[647] There is no doubt, however, that although Gentilis as an advocate took this line of pleading, the boundaries of the King’s Chambers from headland to headland, as defined by James in his “plat,” were received as settled law in regard to neutrality both in the English courts and on the Continent.[648] Gentilis further urged that the limit fixed by the Italian jurists for the extent of jurisdiction--viz., 100 miles from the coast, unless the proximity of another state interfered with its application--also was in force off the British coasts, a view which the court declined to accept.