picturesque than of actual value. It was always a conscious archaism. It never achieved full international recognition. Effectively, our claim and sovereignty in the narrow seas, as admitted by Europe, may be traced, perhaps, to the Angevin Empire, or the days when our Norman and Angevin kings held both sides of the Channel. In modern times the whole tradition has been forgotten by lawyers and seamen alike. But a little study of its history may show that it is the key to a good deal in both our naval and our political history. We can trace, at all events, how the idea of sovereignty within the narrow seas quickened in the minds of our naval commanders; how it was enforced by treaty as against the Dutch, and in practice from time to time against the French and Spaniards; how it was extended to the south-western coast of Spain, and even, in Cromwell's time, to the Mediterranean; how it gradually and naturally, as our sea-power rose, became confused with the idea that we were in some way entitled to the dominion of the sea as such, to the dominion, in fact, of all seas.

"From the earliest times," it is laid down by a last-century authority, "the monarchs of England claimed the Sovereignty of the British Seas, some having even taken the title of Basileus quatuor marium, or Emperor of the Four Seas. This right has been recognised, in the most solemn manner, in

repeated treaties, by foreign nations, and the acts of concession and acknowledgment which proved its being admitted have been generally continued without interruption till of late times." "The main or high seas," says another,2 are а part of the Realm of England, for therein our Courts of Admiralty have jurisdiction; but they are not subject to the common law. This main sea begins at the low-water mark." (This latter is a different claim from that to sovereignty of the Four Seas, and an example of how the idea tended to grow.)

Documentary evidence of the Right, or Duty, of the Flagthe practice of striking topsails does not appear to date farther back than the reign of King John.

"There is also a more important Ordnance," which purports, says Sir Travers Twiss in his Introduction to the Admiralty Black Book, to have been made by King John, "and which has given rise to much discussion, whereby all vessels are required to vail or lower their sails on meeting the King's ships." The ordinance in question, which claims that "the Kings of England have been in possession of the Sovereign Lordship of the Sea of England & of the Isles within the same," is quoted by Selden in the 'Mare Clausum' as authentic, and by Clowes as still existing. (It is probably, however, not preserved, in its original form.)

Some other traces of early

evidence there are: a Convention of Richard II., for example; and claims made by Edward I. and Edward III. An instance is recorded of the lowering of topsails by Flemish ships in 1551. But, to leave the earlier records, in Mary Tudor's time, at all events, the custom was certainly enforced. Philip of Spain, when he came to England to marry her, sailed upChannel with 160 ships before the wind; unconscious, as might be any Russian admiral, of all sea laws. And the Lord High Admiral Effingham, cruising off Plymouth with our Channel Fleet of 28 ships, met him with a shotted gun. The King Consort then dutifully struck his topsails, and Effingham returned his salute.

But to come to our Selden. A dispute of our rights in the matter had been raised by the Dutch in James I.'s reign, and Selden was employed to mass our evidence. In the 1663 edition of the 'Mare Clausum '1 he sets himself (Book I) to show that the sea is "capable of dominion as well as the land; and in Book II he maintains that the King of Great Britain is "Lord and Proprietor of the Circumfluent and Surrounding Sea, as an inseparable and perpetual Appendix of the British Empire. Two main "testimonies" he alleges. The one is this enforced striking of the topsails, by every ship of any foreign nation whatsoever, "if they sail near the King's Navie or any ship belonging to the same Navie in the Sea." The other is a "Bill of Com

1 The Right and Dominion of the Sea.

old,"

plaint instituted of "wherein very many foreign nations heretofore, in the time of Edward I., did all together, and by common consent with the English, acknowledge the Dominion of the Kings of England by Sea." Our claim to sovereignty in the Channel was, in brief, referred to, and confirmed by, a European Congress. The Governor or Master of the French Navy had in some way usurped jurisdiction in the said sea, which jurisdiction, as we claimed, only belonged to the Lord High Admiral of England. Procurators of all the maritime Powers-of England, France, and with them "Genoese, Catalonians, Spaniards, Almains, Zelanders, Hollanders, Frieslanders, Danes, and Norwegians, besides others under the dominion of the Roman-German Empire," instituted an action before a Joint Commission. And the decision was in favour of our claim.

In chapter xxx of his second book, Selden deals with the Dominion of the King of Great Britain in the Irish and Western Sea, and in the Scottish Sea to the East and North. Further on, again, he treats of our Atlantic fisheries. And, particularly, "in the more westerly part of this open and main sea," there is "another right belonging to the King of Great Britain, and that of a very large extent, upon the shores of America." "Great Britain stands confined by the shores of other lands"; he quotes from Hugo Grotius his

1663. Dedicated to King Charles.

poem, addressed to James I. "And without question it is true," he concludes, "that the very shores or ports of the neighbour-Princes beyond-sea are bounds of the Sea-Territory of the British Empire to the Southward and Eastward." It is the very essence of Nelson and Mahan. The political boundary of the Empire argued for by Selden is the strategic frontier now maintained for us by Sir John Fisher. But Selden's claims went further. "In the open and vast Ocean of the North and West," he says, our bounds "are to be placed at the utmost extent of those most spacious Seas, which are possest by the English, Scots, and Irish." Which also is come true in these latter days,

and in a wider sense. The North Atlantic, at all events, is an Anglo-Saxon lake.

6

The whole of Selden's argument is set forth, in a manner still more lively, in a tract which may be read to this day, England's Path to Wealth and Honour. A New Dialogue between an Englishman and a Dutchman.' (London: 1700.) The dialoguers are disputing mainly about the Dogger Bank, which (by the way) was not then trawled.

"The Golden Mines of your Provinces," asks the Englishman-"pray, where do they lie?" "In Neptune's Store-pond," rejoins the Dutchman, "which the English call their Seas."

...

Englishman. Our famous Edgar

vindicated his Dominion on our adjacent Seas, . and .. Canute laid that ancient Tribute called

Danegelt upon all trading on our Coasts or Seas. Egbert, Alfred, and Ethelfred all styled themselves Supreme Lords and Governors of the Ocean surrounding the British shore. King John challenged the Honour (or rather Duty) of the Flag, universally paid, not barely as a civility, but as a right (debita reverentia), acknowledging our title and Dominion.

"The famous record intituled 'Pro hominibus Hollandie' shews how obsequious your ancestors were, not only in acknowledging Edward I.'s Dominion on the Sea, but craving his. permission to fish. . . . And had not the Sovereignty of the British Seas in fact been in the Crown of England, why did the Earls of Holland petition Edward III. (and the French our Henry VI.) for leave to fish therein?. License of Queen Mary for his subfore did Philip II. of Spain obtain jects to fish upon the North Coast of Ireland, and pay £1000 yearly for twenty-one years into the Exchequer of Ireland for the privilege, as by the records appear ?"

Where

(Whereby it seems that Effingham's cannon-shot was cheerfully laid to heart!) But the Dutchman breaks in :

"Dutchman. A fig for your mouldy records: . the sea is as free to fish in as the air to breathe in; who doubts it may read our great Hugo Grotius's 'Mare Liberum.'

Englishman. Grotius . . . (before he was perverted by the importunities of his countrymen), speaking his thoughts freely, says—

'Tria Sceptra profundi In magnum coiere Ducem.' "The rights of the English, Scottish, and Irish Seas, are united under one Sceptre'; neither is he satisfied with that bare profession: Sume animos a Rege tuo qui dat jura mari, -"Take courage from your King that And giveth laws to the seas.' if you remember, when King James observed your encroachments, he enjoined his Ambassador, Sir Dudley