the only concession obtained from them related to the striking of the flag. The article in the treaty of peace which dealt with this differed from the corresponding article in previous treaties. The term “the British Seas” was omitted, and it was agreed that even squadrons of the Dutch should strike to any single ship of the king’s in “any of the seas” from Cape Finisterre to Van Staten in Norway; but it was to be done as an “honour” to the king’s flag, and not as an acknowledgment of his alleged sovereignty of the sea. The Dutch, indeed, offered to strike in the same way all the world over. After this time the English claim to the sovereignty of the sea began to lose its importance. In subsequent treaties with the Dutch Republic, even as late as 1784, a clause was inserted providing for the salute, but it had become merely a matter of form and precedent. The ceremony, in truth, had grown to be a political encumbrance, and after the battle of Trafalgar, when British supremacy at sea was unquestioned, the clause relating to the enforcement of the salute was quietly dropped out of the Admiralty instructions. It is remarkable that throughout the whole of the long period in which England claimed sovereignty in some form or other over the so-called “Sea of England,” or the “British Seas,” no authoritative definition was ever given of the extent of sea included in the term. In the case of the Adriatic there was no difficulty in understanding the limits within which Venice assumed maritime dominion, for the Adriatic is a narrow landlocked gulf whose boundaries were obvious. It was much the same with the claims put forward by Denmark. Both shores of the Sound were in her possession, and both coasts of the northern or Norwegian Sea. But with our island, washed everywhere by the waves, no such natural boundaries existed. Except when the crown possessed the opposite coast of France, England was isolated; and the Sea of England, so frequently referred to from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century, like the British Seas later, remained only a political expression, not officially described or represented on charts. Reasons have been given above for supposing that the Sea of England prior to the accession of the Stuarts included the waters of the King’s Chambers as defined by James, and perhaps also at times the Straits of Dover and it may be the Channel, though precise evidence is lacking. In the seventeenth century, when the term the British Seas was commonly used, it is clear that the boundaries assigned to them were as vague and fluctuating as the sovereignty exercised over them. They expanded and contracted according to the naval power at the time and the condition of international affairs. Sometimes the whole sea up to the continental coasts was claimed as British; at other times the claim was restricted to the Channel or the Straits of Dover, and to a more or less narrow but undefined belt along the coast; not unfrequently it seemed to