Selden alludes to this document as proving that the right of dominion over the sea, and that ancient and confirmed by long prescription, was in express terms here acknowledged by almost all the neighbouring nations to belong to England.[77] This is, however, not quite justified, because there is no record at all to show any decision, or even whether the matter was ever brought to proof, and no mention is made of the proceedings by any English or French historian. There seems to be no doubt of the authenticity of the record. It is in the handwriting of the time, is preserved among the public records, and agrees with other circumstances elsewhere recorded. On the other hand, even the most complete copy[78] is only a draft, as Selden states, without date or seals; the admiral’s initials only are given, and the citation of the first article of the treaty at Paris is not on a separate schedule as the text states, but is part of the text. Selden gives it as his opinion that it was a matter “of such moment” that it was thought better to make an end of it by agreement than to bring it to a trial. Light is thrown on the above record by another of the proceedings before the Auditors deputed by the kings of England and France for the redress of the grievances between the subjects of the two countries, 27-33 Edward I.[79] It consists of a series of libels or complaints, which, as Mr Salisbury of the Record Office has been good enough to inform me, are in the handwriting of the time of Edward I., and are doubtless those, or part of those, on which the _De Superioritate_ roll is based.[80] The complaints are sixteen in number, and they refer to the seizure of a number of ships and the removal of goods from them, between May 1298 and September 1303, at various places,--the foreland of Thanet, the mouth of the Thames, off Blakeney, off Kirkele, Scarborough, Dover, and Orfordness,--the goods, and sometimes the vessel, being taken to Calais. Most of the vessels were freighted from London to Brabant, or from the latter place to London, one from Winchelsea to Dieppe, another from Antwerp to London, a third from Berwick to London, a fourth from Scotland to Brabant, a fifth from Lynn to Scotland, a sixth from Antwerp to England, and another from Yarmouth to London; in two cases the crews were killed, and the ships as well as the goods disposed of. In most cases the complaints are laid against Johan Pederogh or John de Pederogue (see p. 45), Michel de Navare, and others, who appear to have been under Grimbald, but in some instances they are against the latter. The first is by Richard Bush against “Reyner Grymaus,” complaining of goods having been taken from a ship going from Winchelsea to Dieppe, in August 1301, by Michel de Navare and others of Calais, who took the goods thither and disposed of them. The “chevalier” denied this, and asserted he was “not in that country” at the time specified nor for nearly a year afterwards, and in the