While the fleets were contending for actual dominion over the sea, the Parliament took care to keep alive the historic claims to maritime sovereignty and to place them well before the people. As early as 25th June 1652--the day before Blake sailed away to the north in quest of the herring-busses--they passed a resolution: “That it be referred to the Council of State to prepare a declaration to assert the right of this Commonwealth to the Sovereignty of the Seas, and to the fishery; to be made use of when the Parliament shall see cause.”[733] No time was lost, for on the same day the Council remitted the instruction of the Parliament to the Committee for Law and Examinations, with the request that they should bring the declaration to the Council with all speed, and Bradshaw was desired to see that this was done.[734] Apparently, for the use of the Committee in drawing up this declaration, Mr William Ryley, the Keeper of the Records in the Tower, made transcripts of several of the records in his charge referring to the sovereignty of the sea, as the ordinance of King John, Edgar’s charter, the mandate of Edward I. to the Bailiffs of Yarmouth, the rolls of the same king concerning Grimbald, and of Edward III. on the laws of the sea, and some others.[735] It was soon apparent to the Council that the task of again attempting formally to vindicate the claims of England to the sovereignty of the seas, while Selden’s _Mare Clausum_ was at their disposal, would be like painting the lily. They therefore instructed the Committee for Foreign Affairs “to take order for printing the book called _Mare Clausum_ and Mr Dugard to print it.”[736] But simply to reprint Selden’s work, with its fulsome dedication to Charles II., and in the Latin tongue, would not have served the purpose in view, and it was then resolved to translate it. This task was assigned to Marchamont Needham, who had deserted the royalist cause and placed his pen at the service of the Commonwealth, writing the _Mercurius Politicus_, in which he had latterly the assistance of Milton.[737] The translation was rapidly made, and the work was published later in the year.[738] And just as the original had been dedicated to the king, so now the translation was dedicated to “the Supreme Authority of the Nation, the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England”; and so pleased were the Council of State with it that they, on 8th November, ordered two hundred copies for their own use, and paid Needham £200 for his labours, as the book, they said, “learnedly asserted the rights and interests of the Commonwealth in the adjacent seas, and would be of good use for these and future times.”[739]