After the Restoration the pretension to the sovereignty of the sea was continued with almost as much zeal as before. Charles II. did not indeed lay claim to an absolute dominion over the British seas, such as his father had done in the earlier part of his reign. But on all occasions when the opportunity offered, he held to his alleged right to levy tribute for the liberty of fishing on the British coasts, but without the least success. And as for the right to the “honour of the flag,” if it was not exacted with the same arrogance as it had been earlier in the century, it came now to be more than ever before a subject of importance in international relations, especially with the United Provinces. De Witt, the able Minister who directed Dutch affairs, was very desirous to arrive at a definite understanding about it, for he saw that to leave in ambiguity a matter which England regarded as touching her national honour would be to imperil the peaceful relations between the two countries. His object was to have a well-considered regulation prepared and agreed to, so that the points in ambiguity might be made clear, and also to provide that if the Dutch saluted first the English should then return the salute; and he stipulated that the striking of the flag or any agreement about it must not be looked upon as an acknowledgment of England’s so-called sovereignty of the sea; the Dutch, he said, “would rather die” than admit it. One of the points which was in obscurity was whether a whole fleet or squadron of the States was to strike to any single ship of the king’s, even if it was a frigate or a ketch, which did not customarily carry the royal flag in the main-top, or only to an admiral’s ship or one carrying the royal flag. De Witt let it be known in the clearest manner that in his opinion it was intolerable that an English frigate or ketch could claim to force a whole Dutch fleet to strike to it. A few years later, when Charles wished to give effect to his secret compact with Louis XIV. by waging war against the United Provinces, it was necessary to hoodwink the English people as to this flagrant breach of treaty obligations. He therefore contrived, as the means of picking a quarrel with the Dutch, a dispute about the honour of the flag, and he sent, not a frigate, but his yacht, the _Merlin_, to force the whole Dutch fleet to strike to it, and thus to raise a clamour in England, as he hoped, about the sovereignty of the sea being flouted and endangered. In the third Dutch war which followed, the United Provinces maintained the contest at sea with credit and success against both the English and the French. For domestic reasons Charles was forced to make a separate peace, and in the long negotiations with that object the question of the sovereignty of the sea was brought prominently forward. An attempt was made again to induce the Dutch to agree to pay an annual sum of £12,000 for the privilege of fishing on the British coasts, but