then was in the more Antient Nations and covered with Oxe-Hides yet with good ground we may conceive that they were wont to Build and set forth ships of War of a far more commodious and solid substance for the Guarding of the Seas and the Isles We read in Caesar's Commentaries that they were strong at Sea and it is not to be doubted but that besides their Twiggs and Leathern Vessels they had a considerable Navy which was able at pleasure to Encounter the ships of their Neighbours that were best Armed But the Southernly Parts of Great Brittain being Invaded by the Emperour Claudius and the Isle of Wight surrendred to them the Brittish Sea following the Fate of the Island was annexed with it to the Roman Empire From the Dominion of the Brittish Sea as being continually United to the Island or an Inseparable Concomitant thereof many remarquable passages have proceeded amongst those who have left unto Posterity the Atchievements of the Romans when they were Masters of this Island But when the Roman Empire was declining and they had scarce Forces enough to Guard the City it self The Brittains about the Year of our Lord Four Hundred and Fourscore did cast off the Roman Government and setled a Common-Wealth after their own liking In the mean time the Saxons Inhabiting the Shoar over against them had a great and greedy mind unto it who being a People extreamly given to Piracy the Romans were accustomed to appoint an Officer to drive them away called The Count of the Saxon Shore throughout Brittain These Saxons being sent for by the Brittains to Assist them against the Scots and Picts did get at length the whole Power into their own hand These Saxons being Arch Pirats did not only know but were familiarly acquainted with the Dangers of the Sea The same may be said of the Danes and Normans for these names being promiscuously used do often signifie the same Nation as is sufficiently attested by Regino Dudo the Monk of Malmesbury and others And these People had so great and so admirable a Knowledge of the Sea and Sea Affairs that by an exquisite observation of the Tides and Ebbings of the Sea they were accustomed to reckon their Months and Years yea and to frame Computations of years thereby In Antient Records diverse particulars are to be seen which most plainly show that both the Saxons and Danes had a Dominion over the Sea whilest they Reigned in Brittain In the Reign of the English Saxons we read in Asserius Bishop of Sherburn that Hengist being invited into England by the Perswasions of Vortigern there came presently afterwards to recruit him Octa and Ebissa who putting Pitates aboard his ships he charged them to Guard the passages of the Sea You are to understand that the word Pirate was not then taken as now commonly it is for Robbers or Rovers but for such who being the most skilfull in Sea-Affairs were judged to be the fittest Men to Encounter with their Enemies The word sayes my Authour doth seem to be deriv'd from the Greek for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Pira in the Greek Tongue signifieth Craft or Art and from this Art in Maritine Discipline they are now called Pirates which infest the Seas But amongst these Kings none was more Potent then King Edgar who possessing an Absolute Dominion of the Seas sayled round about it every Year and secured it with a constant Guard It is Recorded that these ships being very stout ones were in number One Thousand Two Hundred Other Writers affirm that they were Foure Thousand the Abbot of Jorvaux John Bramton by name doth number them to be Four Thousand and Eight Hundred sayle And what Dominion King Edgar had as Absolute Lord of the Sea appears in these words I Edgar King of England and of all the Kings of the Islands and of the Ocean lying round about Brittain and of all the Nations that are Included within the Circuit thereof Supream Lord and Governour do render my thanks to Almighty GOD My KING who hath Enlarged my Empire and Exalted it above the Royal Estate of my Progenitors who although they Arrived to the Monarchy of all England ever since Athelstan yet the Divine Goodness hath favoured me to Subdue all the Kingdomes of the Island in the Ocean with their most Stout and Mighty Kings even as far as Norway and the greatest part of Ireland together with their most Famous City of Dublin After him King Canutus left a Testimony whereby he most expresly Asserteth the Sea to be a part of his Dominion For placing himself by the Sea side in the time of a High Tide upon Southampton shoare he is reported to have made tryal of the Obedience of the Sea in this manner Thou O Sea art under my Dominion as the Land also which I sit upon is mine And there was never any that disobeyed my Command without Punishment Therefore I command thee not to ascend upon my Land nor do thou presume to wet the Feet or Garments of Thy Sovereign But although the Event did not answer his Expectation yet most plain it is that here he openly professed himself to be Sovereign of the Seas as well as of the Land From the Testimonies of the Saxons and Danes we shall Descend to the Government of the Normans where by many Notable and Cleer Proofs we shall finde That 1. The Custody Government or Admiralty of the English Sea did belong unto the King together with the Dominion of the Adjacent Islands 2. That the Leave of Passage through this Sea was granted unto Forreigners upon Request 3. That the Liberty of Fishing was upon Courtesie Allowed to Forreigners and Neighbours and Protection given to the Fisher-men 4. That Laws and Limits were Prescribed to Forreigners who being in Hostility the one with the other but both in Amity with the English made Prize of each other on the Sea 5. The Records whereby this Dominion is expressely Asserted as a most Undoubted Right and that not onely by the Kings but by the Parliaments of England As for the First There is nothing more Cleer than that the Kings of England have been Accustomed to Constitute Governours or Commanders who had a Charge to Guard the English Seas and these were called Custodes Navium or Custodes Maritimi These were the Officers that were called Butsecarli as may be gathered out of that Breviary of England called Doomes Day In this Number was Thomas de Moleton who is Stiled Captain and Guardian of the Sea and Hugh de Cerquen Afterwards the Title of Guardians was changed into that of Admiral as is alleaged by Thomas Walsingham in the days of Edward the First We finde that in the days of Edward the third The Principal End of Calling that Parliament was concerning the Preservation of Peace both by Land and Sea giving us to understand that the Land and Sea together made one entire Body of the Kingdome of England In the
Dominion and Possession of the place And this may yet more clearly appear by the Laws and Limits usually set by our Kings to such Foreigners as were at Enmity with each other but in Amity with the English and to this effect is the Proclamation of King James who having made Peace with all Nations did give equal Protection to the Spaniards and the United Neatherlands at that time exercising Acts of great Hostility one against another Our Pleasure saith he and Commandment is to all our Officers and Subjects by Sea and Land that they shall Prohibite as much as in them lieth all hovering of Men of War of either Spaniard or Hollander neer to the Entry of any of our Coasts or Havens and that they shall Rescue and Succour all Merchants and others that shall fall within the Danger of any such as shall Await our Coasts And it is further to be observed that as our Kings have very often Commanded that all manner of persons should cease from Hostility throughout all the spaces extended into their Territories by Sea so they indulged the like Privilege for ever throughout the more Neighbouring Coasts of the French shore that all manner of Persons though Enemies to one another should securely sayle to and fro as it were under the wings of an Arbitrator or Moderatour of the Sea and also freely should use the Sea according to such spaces and limits as they were pleased at first to appoint which without doubt is a clear Evidence of Dominion In this next place I shall cite some of the Publick Records which are kept in the Tower of London in which the Dominion of the Sea is expresly Asserted as belonging to the Kings of England We Read that Edward the Third in his Commissions given to Geoffery de Say Governour or Commander of the Western and Southern Seas and to John de Norwich of the Northern expresseth himself in these following words We calling to mind that our Progenitors the Kings of England having before these times been Lords of the English Sea on every side yea and Defendors thereof against the Invasions of Enemies do strictly Require and Charge you by the Duty and Allegiance wherein you stand bound that you set forth to Sea with the Ships of the Ports and the other Ships that are ready and that you Arrest the other ships under our Command and that with all Diligence you make search after the Gallies and Ships of War that are abroad against Us and that stoatly and manfully you set upon them if they shall presume to bend their Course towards any part of our Dominions or the Coasts of Scotland c. Then followeth a Power to Press Seamen and other matters of that kind We read also in the Reign of the said King in the preferring of a certain Bill in Parliament which is the voice of the Estates of the Realm that he was usually accounted King or Sovereign of the Seas by all Nations The words in French are to this sence in English The Nation of the English were ever in the Ages past Renowned for Sea-Affairs in all Countries near the Seas and they bad also so numerous a Navy that the People of all Countries Esteemed and called the K. of Engl. the K. or Sovereign of the Sea Another Testimony to the same Effect we read in the Parliamentary Records of Henry the Fifth where the Tenour of the Bill runs after this manner The Commons do pray that seeing our Sovereign Lord the King and his Illustrious Progenitors have ever been Lords of the Sea and now seeing through Gods Grace it is so come to pass that our Lord the King is Lord of the Shores on both sides of the Sea such a Tribute may be imposed upon all Strangers passing through the said Sea for the Benefit and Advantage of our said Lord the King as may seem agreeable to reason for the safegard of the said Sea The Answer subscribed to the said Bill was Soit avise par le Roy which is Let the King Himself be advised of it For the King at that time Resided in France being Lord of that Country as well by Conquest as Inheritance And Humphrey Duke of Glocester was then President of the Parliament and Leivtenant of England by whom as the Kings Deputy that Answer was given to the said Bill but when the King was present in person Le Roy S' advisera the King will Advise was the Answer from the Antient down to our present times in such Bills as were to be passed into Acts Many other Testimonies in this Nature may be produced which for brevities sake are purposely omitted Neither hath the High Court of Parliament onely given this Attestation to our Kings as Supream and Sovereign of the Seas But to confirme it we shall produce the Testimonies of Robert Belknap an Eminent Judge in the Time of Richard the Second who affirmeth that the Sea is Subject to the King as a part of his Kingdom or of the Patrimony of the Crown And it appeareth by Publick Records containing diverse main points touching which the Judges of the Land were to be consulted for the good of the Common-Wealth that the Kings Sea-Dominion which they called The Antient Superiority of the Sea was a matter out of Question amongst all Lawyers of that Age and Asserted by the Determinations and Customes of the Law of the Land and by the express words of the Writs and Forms of the Actions themselves Neither is this Truth confirmed only by our Laws but by our Medals There hath been a piece of Gold very often Coyned by our Kings called a Rose-Noble which was stamped on the one side of it with a Ship floting in the Sea and a King Armed with a Sword and Shield sitting in the Ship it self as in a Throne to set forth a Representation of the English K. by Sea The first Authour hereof was Edward the Third when he Guarded his own Seas with a Numerous Navy consisting of Eleven Hundred ships at which time as at others he marched victoriously through France But what need we labour to produce so many Testimonies at home from our Records in the Tower and other places from our High Courts of Parliament from our Laws from our Coyns from our Histories to prove this Truth since it is acknowledged even by Forreigners themselves whom it most concerneth by their usual striking of sayles according to the antient Custom by every ship of any Forreign Nation whatsoever if they sayle near the Kings Navy or any ship belonging to it at Sea which is done not onely in Honour to the English King but also in acknowledgement of His Sovereignty and Dominion at Seas The Antiquity of this Custome and that it hath been in use for above these Four Hundred years may appear by this following testimony At Hastings a Town scituate upon the Shore of Sussex it was Decreed by K. John in the Second Year of His Reign with
his Daughters good Delivery did for ever Surrender his Right in the Islands of the Orcades Shetland the rest unto the Scottish King This was in the days of James the Third of Scotland in the Year 1468. A Claim was afterwards laid to Iseland by Q. Elizabeth And her Successor K. James the Sixth of Scotland and first of England hath a Dominion in the Sea which lieth farr more Northerly then Iseland which is that of Greenland For that Sea having never been entred by Occupation nor used in the Art and Exercise of Fishery was first of all rendered very gainful through a peculiar Fishing for Whales by those English Merchants of the Muscovie Company who first Sailed that way The use of a Sea never entred by Occupation and such a kinde of profit being first discovered doth according to the manner of the Claim give a Dominion to the Discoverer who claims it in the Right of another as here in the Name of the Sovereign of England Upon which ground it was that King James in his Letters of Credence given to his Ambassadour in Holland Sir Henry Wotton did very justly say that the Fishing in the North Seas was His onely and His by Right In the Seventh year of the Reign of King Iames this Right was more strenuously asserted by Proclamation and all persons excluded from the use of the Seas upon our Coasts without particular License the Grounds whereof you have here set down in the Proclamation it self A Proclamation Touching Fishing JAMES by the Grace of God King of Great Brittain France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c. To all and singular persons so whom it may appertein Greeting Although we do sufficiently know by Our Experience in the Office of Regal Dignity in which by the Favor of Almighty God We have been placed and exercised these many years as also by the observation which We have made of other Christian Princes exemplarie actions how farr the absolutenesse of Sovereign Power extendeth it self and that in regard thereof We need not yield account to any person under God for any action of Ours which is lawfully grounded upon that Iust Prerogative Yet such hath ever béen and shall be Our care and desire to give satisfaction to Our Neighbour-Princes and Friends in any action which may have the least relation to their Subjects and Estates as We have thought good by way of friendly premonition to declare unto them and to whomsoever it may appertain as followeth Whereas we have been contented since Our coming to the Crown to tolerate an indifferent and promiscuous kinde of liberty to all Our Friends whatsoever to Fish within Our Streams and upon any of Our Coasts of Great Brittain Ireland and other adjacent Islands so farr forth as the permission or use thereof might not reâ—ound to the impeachment of Our Prerogative Royal nor to the Hurt and Damage of our loving Subjects whose preferâ—ation and flourishing Estate We hold Our self principally bound to advance before all worldly respects So finding that Our continuance therein hath not onely given occasion of over-great encroachments upon Our Regalities or rather questiening of Our Right but hath béen a means of daily wrongs to Our own People that exercise the Trade of Fishing as either by the multitude of strangers which do pre-occupie those places or by the injuries which they receive most commonly at their hands Our Subiects are constrained to abandon their Fishing or at least are become so discouraged in the same as they hold it better for them to betake themselves to some other course of living whereby not onely divers of Our Coast-Towns are much decayed but the number of Mariners daily diminished which is a matter of great consequence to Our Estate considering how much the strength thereof consisteth in the Power of Shipping and use of Navigation We have thought it now both just and necessary in respect that Wée are now by God's favor lineally and lawfully possessed as well of the Islands of Great Brittain as of Ireland and the rest of the Isles adjacent to bethink Our selves of good lawful means to prevent those inconveniences and many others depending upon the same In consideration whereof as We are destrous that the world may take notice that we have no intention to denie Our Neighbours and Allies those fruits and benefits of Peace and Friendship which may be justly expected at Our hands in Honour and Reason or are afforded by other Princes mutually in the point of Commerce and Exchange of those things which may not prove prejudicial to them so because some such convenient order may be taken in this matter as may sufficiently provide for these important considerations which do depend thereupon We have resolved first to give notice to all the world that Our Express Pleasure is That from the beginning of the Moneth of August next coming no Person of what Nation or Quality soever being not Our natural born Subject be permitted to Fish upon any of Our Coasts Seas of Great Brittain Ireland and the rest of the Isles adjacent where most usually heretofore any Fishing hath béen until they have orderly demanded and obtained Licenses from Us or such Our Commissioners as we have Authorised in that behalf viz. at London for Our Realms of England and Ireland and at Edenborough for Our Realm or Scotland which Licenses Our intention is shall be yearly demanded for so many Vessels and Ships and the 〈◊〉 thereof as shall intend to Fish for that whole year or any part thereof upon any of Our Coasts and Seas as aforesaid upon pain of such chastisement as shall be 〈◊〉 to be inflicted upon such wilful Offendors Given at our Palace of Westminster the 6. day of May in the 7 th year of Our Reign of Great Brittain Anno Dom. 1609. Notwithstanding this Proclamation the Netherlanders proceeded still in their way of encroachment upon our Seas and Coasts through the whole Reign of King James and were at length so bold as to contest with him and endeavour to quarrel His Majesty out of his Rights pretending because of the long connivence of Himself and Queen Elizabeth that they had a Right of their own by Immemorial Possession which some Commissioners of theirs that were sent over hither had the confidence to plead in Terminis to the King and his Council And though the King out of his tenderness to them insisted still upon his own Right by his Council to those Commissioners and by his Ambassadour to their Superiors yet they made no other use of his indulgence than to tire out his whole Reign and abuse his patience by their artificial Delays Pretences Shifts Dilatorie Addresses and Evasive Answers And all that the King gained by the tedious disputes overtures and dispatches to and again was in conclusion onely a Verbal acknowledgment of those Rights which at the same time that they acknowledged they usually designed to invade with much more insolence than before But you
is the Title of Successive Inheritance confirmed as well by the Law of Nature as of Nations and is so much the more considerable in regard of the infinite Advantages of the profits of it as the Brittish Ocean in its Latitude and Circumference exceedeth the small Boundaries of the Gulph of Venice But in this great Disputation where were present the most Remarkable Wits of Italy and Germany and where the Imperialists themselves and amongst them one of the most Eminent Stephen Baron of Gourz Attested openly that the Common-Wealth of Venice was Patron of the Adriatitk Sea and might impose what Customs they thought fitting and that all other the Commissaries thought so in their Consciences There is enough as may be thought in Reason to convince all Opponents that may pretend to differ in Judgement from us Yet so it is that the Indulgence of the Kings of England to their Neighbouring Nations especially to the Hollanders by giving them too much liberty hath incouraged them to assume a Liberty to themselves and what at the first was but a License they improve into a Custom and make that Custom their Authority Insomuch that some of the most busiest of them have openly declared against the Kings Propriety on the Brittish Seas Amongst these is one Hugo Grotius a Gentleman of great Ingenuity but in this particular so inclined to obey the Importunities and serve the Interests of his Country-men that he disobliged himself of the Truth and moreover to speak the truth of his Conscience it self for it you look into his Silvae upon the first Inauguration of King Iames of ever Blessed Memory he is pleased to express himself in these words Tria Sceptra profundi in magnum Cojere Ducem which is that the Rights of the English Scottish and Irish Seas are united under one Scepter neither is he satisfied with this bare profession but he goes on Sume animas a Rege tuo Quis det Iura Mari which is in English Take courage from the King who giveth Law unto the Seas In the same Book in the contemplation of so great a Power he concludeth Finis hic est qui fine caret that is This is an end beyond an end a bound that knoweth no bound a bound which even the winds and the waves must submit unto But with what ingratitude have the Dutch Answered the many Royal Favours which the Kings of England have almost perpetually conferred on them If there be no Monster greater then Ingratitude what Monsters are these Men who of late are so far from acknowledging their thankfulness that like Vipers they would feed upon and consume those Bowells which did afford them Life and Spirit We may observe that in their Lowest Condition which is most sutable to the Name of their Abode called the Low Countries they Petitioned to the Majesty of the Qâ—een of England whose Royal Heart and Hand being alwayes open to those that were Distressed especially those that were her Neighbours upon the account of Religion she sent them Threescore Thousand Pound upon the account of Sir Thomas Gresham in the year One Thousand Five Hundred Seventy and Two and presently afterwards there followed Colonel Morgan Colonel Gilbert Colonel Chester to Assist them in their Wars who were the Commanders of so many Regiments of Men And after them the War increasing there were sent over Colonel North Colonel Cotton Colonel Candish and Colonel Norris and some other persons of an Eminent Name who for the Honour of the English Nation made there Excellent Demonstrations of their Valour and Redeemed the Dutch from the Power of those who otherwise would have brought them to a better understanding of their Duties Great supplyes of monies were sent over to maintain so great a charge At the last the Prince of Orange being slain presently after the Death of the Duke Alanson Brother to Henry the third of France who if the successe had Answered the Expectation was wisely enough made Duke of Brabant the Queen of England sent over unto them Robert Duke of Leicester with great provision both of Men and Money accompanied with diverse of the Nobility and Gentlemen of good account And although the said Earle not long afterwards returned into England and the affairs of the Hollanders were doubtful untill the fatal Battel at Nieuport yet Queen Elizabeth of ever Blessed Memory out of her unspeakable goodness to the distressed and to those that suffered for Religion did as long as she lived constantly Assist the Hollanders both with Men and Monies she gave them Hope in Despair she gave them strength being weak and and with the Charity of her Princely Hand did support them being fallen And although the Hollanders do ungratefully alledge that it was a Benefit great enough for the English to Assist them in reason of state because by so doing they kept out a War from their own Country It is most certain that at that time the English had need to fear no Warr at all but onely for their Cause and for taking their parts for it was for their Cause that the English in the year One Thousand Five Hundred and seventy one had seized upon the sum of Six Hundred Thousand Ducats on the West Coast of England being the money designed from Spain to the Duke of Alva for the Advancement of the Spanish Interests in the Neatherlands And although the Hollanders do further alledge in their own Excuse that they were so grateful as that they offered unto the Queen of England the Soveraignty of the Neatherlands which she would not accept and therefore it was not their fault that she obtained it not It is in reason truly answered That the Queen of England well knowing that she was in danger to draw a perpetual Warr upon her Self and her Successours by the accepting of such a Gift to which she had no Right did wisely refuse their Liberality And yet for all that she continued still to aid them without that chargeable obligation The Hollanders do further alledge that the Queen of England had the Cautionary Town of Brill Flushing and the other places delivered into her Hands It is true she had so and thereby enjoyed only the Benefit of being at more Expence both of Men and Money and let the Reader take notice that most certain it is that the Hollander had no sooner made a Truce with the King of Spain and the Arch-Duke Albertus but he began presently to set the English at nought and to take the Bridle out of their Hands whereupon immediately insued their Forbiding of the bringing of English cloaths died and dressed into Holland and the adjoyning Provinces without ever making the King of England or his Ambassadour Leiger at the Hague Privy thereunto And to make amends for this their Saucy and Insolent Affront in a more High and Peremptory way they demeaned themselves to King Iames himself for whereas the Duke of Lennox as Admiral of Scotland had by order from
instead of redressing their Injuries they have increased them About three years since they concluded a Treaty with the English and having ingaged that better order should for the future be observed they have since heaped new Injuries to the utter over-throw of all the Trade of His Majesties Subjects in the East and West-Indies Witness our Ships the Hope-well the Leopard and some others in the East-Indies And the Charles the James the Mary the Sampson the Hopefull Aduenture the Speed-well on the Coast of Africa And after all these Acts of the Highest Injustice and their utmost endeavours for driving on a War they would make the world believe that his Majesty is the first undertaker of it who from his own Mouth to their Ambassadour in England and by his Injunctions to Sir George Downing his Minister at the Hague hath given so many and such Remarkable Demonstrations to the contrary What can they say to the Memorial of the complaints which Sir George Downing exhibited to the States General importing that in the space of a very few years almost twenty English Ships with their whole Lading to a very great value have been seized upon in a horrible manner and the Men in them most Barbarously and most Inhumanely Treated being put into stinking and nasty Dungeons and Holes at Castel del Mina where they did lye bedded and bathed in their own Excrements having nothing but bread and water given them and not enough of that neither to sustain Nature their Bodies being under the Fury of Exquisite and Horrid Torments and when any of them died the living and the dead were left together and such as out-lived that cruelty were exposed in the woods to famine or to the mercy of wild beasts in those desolate Countries or to be carried into Captivity by the Natives by which means several Hundreds of His Majesties Good Subjects have perished and been destroyed And unto this hour notwithstanding all sollicitations and endeavous of his Majesties Envoy not one penny of Satisfaction can be had either for the loss of the Ships or the Persons concerned in any of them but to the contrary they have ever since hindred and shot at the English Ships that have Anchored by them and have took by force all the Boats of those Natives who have endeavoured to come aboard them and have seized also upon the English Boats that would go on shore and deprive them of all manner of Provision nor suffer so much as fresh water to be brought unto them And to give a further proof of their Confidence and Ambition they have published a Declaration wherein they assume and challenge to themselves a Right to that whole Coast to the Exclusion of all other Nations Although by Order from His Majesty Sir George Downing both in Publick Conferences with the Deputies of the Lords General as also with those of Holland in particular hath at large Remonstrated His Majesties Right and Interest in some part therein having by his Subjects bought the Ground of the King of that Country for a valuable Consideration and built a Factory thereon And yet for all this some of the Dutch-West-India Company by Fraud and ireachery have got into the place and no hopes of the Restitution of it but they are resolved to keep by violence what they have gained by deceit Moreover what can they say for themselves concerning their stirring up the King of Fantin by rewards and sums of Money and supplying him with all manner of Arms and Ammunition for the surprizing of his Majesties Castle at Cormantin in the West-Indies so that an absolute Necessity is imposed upon his Majesty and his Subjects either of losing all that have been actually taken from them and abandoning for ever that Trade it self or of betaking themselves to some other wayes for their Relief And what Hope is there of their Restoring back any place which they have once taken The Island of Polleroon hath been upon surrendring back to the English ever since the year 1622. at which by a Solemn and Particular Treaty it was promised to be done and again by another Treaty in the year 1654. and by an Order of the States General and the East Company of that Nation in the year 1661. and again by another Treaty in the year following And yet to this day there is not the least mention of any thing Restored And should any Man then think it strange that His Majesty after so long an experience of the perversness and deceitfulness of that Nation should suffer his Subjects to repossess themselves of those places which by the hand of Violence and Oppression they have forced from them Now as for the business of the New-Neatherlands as they are pleased to call it It hath been abundantly else-where prov'd that the said Land is part of the Possession of His Majesties Subjects of New England which their Charter plainly and precisely expresseth And those few Dutch that have lived there heretofore have lived there meerly upon the connivence and sufferance of the English which hath been permitted to them so to do so long as they demeaned themselves peaceably and quietly but the Dutch not contenting themselves therewith have incroached more and more upon the English imposing their Laws and Customs and endeavouring to raise Contributions and Excises on them and in those places where the Dutch had never been whereupon they have been necessitated several times to send Souldiers for the repulsing of them Since the Conclusion for the late Treaty the Dutch have made new Incursions upon the English and given them many new Provocations and have ordained a Tryal of Causes amongst themselves and a proceeding by course of Arms without any appealing into Europe at all And can any Prince then think it strange especially the King of France if His Majesty of England suffer his Subjects to rescue themselves from such continual Vexations seeing the King of France himself hath been pleased this year to Order his Subjects to re-possess themselves by force of Arms of a certain place called Cayen which the French alledge hath been wrongfully kept from them by the West-India Company of the Neatherlanders As for the business of Captain Holmes at Capo Verde in Guiney a complaint was no sooner made to His Majesty this last year in the Moneth of June But His Majesty immediately returned Answer that he had given no Order nor Direction there into Captain Holmes and that upon his Return he would examine the business and see that Right should be done according to the nature of the Offence In order whereunto when Captain Holmes was returned His Majesty sent him to the Tower and being afterwards allowed the liberty of some few dayes to follow his particular business he was again Commanded back where being strictly and throughly Examined touching the management of the whole matter complained of he so fully and so clearly upon every point did acquit himself that His Maâ—esty was graciously pleased to grant him his