As Cromwell was immovable, and the deputies equally obdurate, the negotiations came to a stop, and the latter on 5th December formally requested their passports to return to The Hague. In the interval they asked the French ambassador if France had requested permission from England to fish in the sea, as Cromwell averred. He told them nothing had been said to him on the matter since he came to England, but that his papers showed that the Duke of Guise had formerly asked that certain fishermen of Treport should not be molested in their fishing.[775] They also learned that the Swedish ambassador had sought to obtain from England free commerce in general, free fishery, and freedom of trading to the Barbadoes. It was indeed the case that Sweden had made such proposals. In the negotiations for a treaty with the Commonwealth, the queen expressed her desire to obtain liberty for her subjects to fish for herrings in the British seas,[776] and in the preceding August the Council of State, at the request of her ambassador, had actually issued a license to four Swedish vessels to fish in the narrow seas and upon the British coasts.[777] In a treaty concluded in 1656 between the King of Sweden and the Lord Protector, the privilege, it may be said, was carried much further. The treaty provided that Swedish subjects should be free to fish for herrings and other fish in the seas and on the coasts under the dominion of the Republic, provided the number of ships so employed did not exceed a thousand; and no charges (such as the assize-herring) were to be demanded of the Swedish fishermen, who were to be treated courteously and amicably, allowed to dry their nets on the shore, and to purchase necessaries at a fair price.[778]