These articles had been previously considered by the Council of State, which had prepared a commentary on them; and now both documents were taken up together. On the proposals concerning the sovereignty of the sea many differences arose. With regard to the right of the English to visit and search vessels, men-of-war as well as merchantmen, the ambassadors referred to the edicts of the States forbidding warships to take merchandise on board, and to the certificates of their Admiralty to the same effect; but it was argued on the other side that these measures had not stopped the abuse, and that the visitation was not prejudicial; and no agreement on this clause was reached. The commentary of the Council on the fishery article (see p. 388) was that, saving and asserting the right of the Commonwealth, they would be willing to proceed to such an agreement as should be found fit and reasonable; while the Dutch took their stand on the provision in the Intercursus Magnus, and urged that it would be unjust to deviate from an agreement which had endured for a century and a half. It was admitted by the English commissioners that the treaty gave liberty of fishing, but they asserted that long before the time of Henry VII. the right to the fisheries and to the sovereignty of the sea belonged to England. It had, moreover, been impeached by succeeding kings and especially by James, to whom, as King of Scotland, the right to the fishery pertained; while after the union of the crowns he pursued the same policy as King of England, and now that Scotland had been brought under the dominion of the English Republic, it was thought that the best course was to make a new treaty about the fisheries.[704] The ambassadors could obtain no definite information as to the nature of the treaty proposed, but it would not be difficult for them to comprehend its general tenour, for they had to listen to the recital of the “evidences” that England had constantly made use of her rights in the fishery, and of the care she had always exercised as to the sovereignty of the sea. The Dutch endeavoured to avoid mixing up these two questions, pleading that the fishery concerned the lives of a multitude of poor fishermen; but the commissioners retorted that it was a very valuable industry, the right to which belonged to England, and this, they said, had been acknowledged by neighbouring nations paying taxes for liberty to fish in their seas, adding that all peoples had been accustomed to recognise in them the masters of the sea by striking the flag to them, and that the Dutch themselves had earlier instructed their naval officers to salute English ships “_cum debita reverentia_,” and it was also expressly ordered in the commissions issued by Prince William and Maurice. From the language of the English commissioners, it appears probable that they were acquainted with the proceedings of the States-General as to the proposed article on the striking of the