Note 908 — Chapter XIII · CHARLES II.—continued. THE THIRD DUTCH WAR.

In one of the papers in the volume provided for the use of the ambassadors, containing a copy of the fishery article put forward by Cromwell in 1653 and afterwards withdrawn, is the following, with a sidenote referring to the “king’s instructions to the special ambassadors”: “Lastly, that ye subiects of ye States generall shall for ye future abstayne from fisheing vpon ye Countreys and shores of any of his Matyes Dominions wthout leaue and Passeports first obtayned. One thing more I must obserue to you relating to those six propositions particularly that of ye fishery. In his Matyes former Instructions to you vpon that Point you were bid to consent to ye leauing out that Article in case ye Dutch should be obstinate vpon it. But his Maty by progress of tyme finding that his Subiects seem fonder thereof, bids me now to direct you to insist vpon that, as vpon ye rest and to frame it as neare as you can according to ye Words set down in ye Reply.” Then after Cromwell’s article is the following: “Ye Art. of the Fishery as contained in ye Project, 1673.” It is the same as that given in the previous year (note, p. 491),—the part referring to the contribution of £2000 for Scotland being interpolated,—except that it concludes with this sentence, “In wch fisheing ye said States shall oblidge themselues that their Subiects shall not come wthin one league of ye shoares of England and Scotland,” which is the first mention of a three-mile limit that has been discovered. Sir Arnold Braems suggested to Arlington, in August 1673, that the king should insist in the treaty for an annual payment of £10,000 or £12,000 for their free fishing on his coasts, and that £3000 of this should be devoted to the bringing over of Dutch families and fishing-busses to England, a project which was then being tried by more or less surreptitious methods. State Papers, Dom., vol. 336, No. 295.