Selected quad for the lemma: state_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
state_n	general_n	majesty_n	unite_a	1,290	5	10.9088	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33599	His Majesties propriety, and dominion on the Brittish seas asserted together with a true account of the Neatherlanders insupportable insolencies, and injuries, they have committed; and the inestimable benefits they have gained in their fishing on the English seas. As also their prodigious and horrid cruelties in the East and West-Indies, and other places. To which is added an exact mapp, containing the isles of Great Britain, and Ireland, with the several coastings, and the adjacent parts of our neighbours: by an experienced hand.	Codrington, Robert, 1601-1665.; Clavell, Robert, d. 1711, attributed name.	1672 (1672)	Wing C4876B; ESTC R219456	66,598	191

The high and Mighty Monarch CHARLES the second by the Grace of GOD King of Great Brittaine France and Ireland Defender of the fayth G●● HIS Majesties Propriety AND DOMINION ON THE Brittish Seas ASSERTED Together with a true account of the Neatherlanders Insupportable Insolencies and Injuries they have committed and the inestimable Benefits they have gained in their Fishing on the English Seas As also their Prodigious and Horrid Cruelties in the East and West-Indies and other places To which is added an Exact Mapp containing the Isles of Great Brittain and Ireland with the several Coastings and the adjacent Parts of our Neighbours By an Experienced Hand LONDON Printed for Edward Thomas at the Adam and Eve in Little Brittain 1672. THE PREFACE TO THE Reader THe Combinations and Endeavours of the States General of the United Provinces against His Majesty and this Nation have been so insupportably Insolent that the Parliament not long since upon the Cry of the Whole Nation did sollicite him to take some extraordinary way to give Redress unto his Subjects for the many and daily Injuries they sustained from them by their Depredations at Sea for the Horrid and Barbarous Cruelties inflicted on them in the East and West-Indies which being as odious in their Nature as they are remarkable in their Number have been the onely Cause that these pains are taken to give a general satisfaction to the World by exhibiting this Brief but most true Account of His Majesties Undoubted Right and sole Propriety in the English Scottish and the Irish Seas A truth as Antient as it is Eminent and not only held forth and attested by the Laws of our Land and the Records of the Tower and the High Courts of Parliament but heretofore confessed also by divers of their own Na●ion as in this Book you shall find it faithfully represented to you But it hath been the late practise of the Hollanders without examining the Lawfulness of the Act to put their Oares into every Boat where Gain and Profit doth appear It was this that tempted them to invade the Islands of Moluccos Lantore and Polleroon which in the Name of the Crown of England the English for some years had possessed neither did they entertain the least jealousie of opposition from the Hollanders who they knew heretofore had been oblidged to them for many antient good Offices in a time when their greatest safety did depend upon them and who lately were conjoyned with them in a strict Alliance and Confederacy for Partnership in the East-Indie-Trade in the year 1619. Neither did they fear the Natives whom they found to express a greater Inclination of good will unto them then to the Hollanders for the English aimed at nothing more then a lawful and competent profit by Commerce and Traffick with the Natives and the Dutch And though in some places the English had erected some Forts and setled some Strength yet it was not by any Force or Violence nor against the good will of the People of the Country but with their own good liking and consent for the better security of their Trade and upon the voluntary submission of the Natives to the Obedience and Soveraignty of the Crown of England in which submission the Antient Laws and Liberties of the said Natives and all their own Immunities were comprehended and reserved In this Establishment the English did conceive themselves to be secure enough when behold the Dutch who would be no better Neighbours to us in the Indies then in Europe began to quarrel with us and to hinder us in our Trade to free Places the which the better to obtain they oftentimes seized upon our Ships and Goods and finding this violence not to Answer their Expectation they at the last contrived to make themselves the absolute Masters of the vast profits of those Places In the pursuit whereof they have razed and demolished the English Forts and laying violent hands on the English themselves who made not the least Resistance they have tyed them to stakes with Ropes about their Necks they have seized upon their Goods they have Imprisoned their Persons they have Whipped them at the Post in the open Market Place and having washed their torn and wounded Bodies with Vinegar and Salt they have again doubled their scourges to multiply their Torments they have dragged them from thence to places almost inaccessible by reason of their steepness and roughness and having thrown them down the Rocks if any Sence of life remained they have added new oppression to their weary and bruised limbs by the heavy weights of Iron To these deliberate Torments the cruelties of other Nations are but Courtesies and Death it self a Mercy And as if they were the absolute Lords in the Indies they have assumed a Power to themselves in the deciding of the controversies between the English and the Indians for matters passed quite out of their jurisdiction and when Law and Right have pleaded against them they have Executed their Decrees by violence These be they who have laid a claim to His Majesties Interests on his own Brittish Seas and rather then allow them proper unto Him they have declared them common unto All At the first they begged leave for their Fishing on the English Seas which being granted them by the accustomed Indulgence of our Princes they have so presumed upon their lenity that at the last they have made a Law in their own Country That the English shal Sell no white Herrings nor other Fish there upon penalty of Confiscation They are Fishing on the English Seas from June unto November and seem there to dwel amongst the Fish for 26 weeks together in which time the havock which they make in destroying the Spawn and Fry of Fish that comes into their Netts and otherwise is as remarkable as what they carry away with them The Reverend and Learned Mathematitian Doctor Dee almost one hundred years since Vide Doctor Dee his Brittish Monarchy pa. 44. speaking of the incredible spoyle of Fry and Spawn which is yearly made on the River of Thames and other Rivers belonging to this Island doth conclude that there are yearly spoyled on those Rivers 2000 Cart-loads of fresh fish which would have so proved to be Market-able if they had not been destroyed in their Nonage I shall give you his Assertion in his own words It is probable saith he that in all England by the manifold disorder used about the destroying of Fry and Spawn there is yearly spoyled or hindred the Brood of 2000 Cart-loads of fresh Fish of middle Marketable-skantlin The value of which 2000 Cart-loads do amount to 90000 Bushels of fresh Fish six Quarters going to a Cart-load which one with another being rated at five shillings a Bushel doth amount in currant English Money to the sum of 20500l Which quantity of Fish also would maintain for one day One thousand thousand and eight hundred thousand Men or nine hundred thousand Men two dayes or three hundred

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 James this Right was more strenuously asserted by Proclamation and all persons excluded from the use o● 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 an● singular persons to whom it may appertein Greeting Although we do sufficiently know by Our Experience in the Office of Regal Dignity in which by th● Favor of Almighty God We have béen 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 redound to the impeachment of Our Prerogative Royal nor to the Hurtan● Damage of our loving Subjects whose preservation and stourishing Estate We ●old Our self principally bound to advance before all worldly respects So finding that Our continuance therein hat● not onely given occasion of over-great encroachments upon Our Regalities or rather questioning 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 Subjects 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 desirous 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 nat●●al 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 Vs 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 of Scotland which Licenses Our intention is shall be yearly demanded for so many Vessels and Ships and the Tonnage thereof as shall intend to Fish for that whole year or any part thereof upon any of Our Coasts and Seas as aforesaid up●n pain of such chastisement as shall be fit to be inflicted upon such wilful Offendors Given at our Palace of Westminster the 6. day of May in the 7th 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 Ma●esty 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 The Hollanders Insolence 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 have the main of what passed in those days in this particular with their insolent demeanour lively described in these following Collections taken out of several Dispatches that passed betwixt Secretarie Naunton and Sir Dudly Carlton Lord Ambassadour from the King to the States of the United Provinces In a Letter of Secretarie Naunton's to the said Ambassadour dated at Whitehall the 21. of December 1618. I finde these passages I Must now let your Lordship know that the States Commissioners and Deputies both having attended His Majesty at New-Market and there presented their Letters of Credence returned to London on Saturday was a seven-night and upon Tuesday had Audience in the Council-Chamber where being required to communicate the points of

of Fishing might not be redeemed with a summ of money To which I answered It was a matter of Royalty more then of Utility though Princes were not to neglect their profit And in another Letter of the said Lord Ambassadour from the Hague to Secretary Naunton of the 14. of January 1618. He gives him to understand That having been expostulated with but in friendly manner by certain of the States about his late Proposition as unseasonable and sharp they said they acknowledge their Commissioners went beyond their limits in their terms of Immemorial possession and immuable Droict de Gens for which they had no order Then saith he I desire them to consider what a wrong it is to challenge that upon right which these Provinces have hitherto enjoyed either by connivence or courtesie and yet never without claim on His Majesties side c. In another Letter of Secretary Naunton's to the Lord Ambassadour Carlton of the 21. of January 1618. we read thus AS I had dictated thus far I received direction from His Majesty to signifie to the States-Commissioners here That albeit their earnest entreaty and His Gracious consideration of the present trouble of their Church and State had moved His Majesty to consent to delay the Treaty of the great Fishing till the time craved by the Commissioners yet understanding by new and fresh complaints of His Marriners and Fishers upon the Coasts of Scotland that within these four or five last years the Low-Country-Fishers have taken so great advantage of His Majesties Tolleration that they have grown nearer and nearer upon His Majesties Coasts year by year then they did in preceeding Times without leaving any Bounds for the Country-Peopl● and Natives to Fish upon their Prince's Coasts and oppressed some of His Subjects of intent to continue their pretended possession and driven some of their great Vessels through their Nets to deter others by fear of the like violence from Fishing near them c. His Majesty cannot forbear to tell them that he is so well perswaded of the Equity of the States and of the Honourable respect they bear unto him and to His Subjects for His sake that they will never allow so unjust and intolerable Oppressions for restraint whereof and to prevent the inconveniences which must ensue upon the continuance of the same His Majesty hath by me desired them to write to their Superiours to cause Proclamation to be made prohibiting any of their Subjects to Fish within Fourteen Miles of His Majesties Coasts this year or in any time hereafter untill order be taken by Commissioners to be authorised on both sides for a final setling of the main business His Majesty hath likewise directed me to command you from Him to make the like Declaration and Instance to the State● there and to certifie His Majesty of their Answer with what convenient speed you may Thus farr Secretary Naunton to the Ambassadour Now what effect the Ambassadour's Negotiation with the States had appears by a Letter of his from the Hague of the 6. of February 1618. to Kings James himself where among other passages he hath this I finde likewise in the manner of proceeding that treating by way of Proposition here nothing can be exspected but their wonted dilatory and evasive Answers their manner being to refer such Propositions from the States General to the States of Holland The States of Holland take advice of a certain Council residing at Delph which they call the Council of the Fishery From them such an Answer commonly comes as may be expected from such an Oracle The way therefore under correction to effect Your Majesties intent is to begin with the Fishers themselves by publishing against the time of their going out Your resolution at what distance You will permit them to Fish whereby they will be forced to have recourse to their Council of Fishery that Council to the States of Holland and those of Holland to the States-General who then in place of being sought unto will for contentment of their Subjects seek unto Your Majesty A Proclamation by King Charles the First For restraint of Fishing upon His Seas and Coasts without Lisence WHereas Our Father of Blessed Memory Kings James did in the Seventh Year of His Reign of Great Brittain set forth a Proclamation touching Fishing whereby for the many important Reasons therein expressed all Persons of what Nation or Quality soever being not His Natural born Subjects were restrained from Fishing upon any the Coasts and Seas of Great Brittain Ireland and the rest of the Isles adjacent where most usually heretofore Fishing had béen until they had orderly demanded and obtained Licenses from Our said Father or His Commissioners in that behalf upon pain of such chastisement as should be fit to be inflicted upon such wilful Offendors since which time albeit neither Our said Father nor Our Self have made any considerable execution of the said Proclamation but have with much Patience expected a voluntary conformity of Our Neighbours and Allies to so iust and reasonable Prohibitions and Directions as are contained in the same And now finding by experience that all the inconveniences which occasioned that Proclamation are rather increased then abated We being very sensible of the premises and well knowing how farr We are obliged in Honour to maintain the rights of Our Crown especially of so great consequence have thought it necessary by the Advice of our Privy Council to renew the aforesaid restraint of Fishing upon Our aforesaid Coasts Seas without License first obtained from Vs and by these presents to make publick Declaration that Our resolution is at times convenient to kéep such a competent strength of Shiping upon Our Seas as may by God's blessing be sufficient both to hinder such further encroachments upon Our Regalties and assist and Protect those Our Good Friends and Allies who shall henceforth by virtue of Our Licenses to be first obtained endeavour to take the benefit of Fishing upon Our Coasts and Seas in the places accustomed Given at our Palace of Westminster the 10 day of May in the Twelfth year of our Reign of England Scotland France and Ireland This Proclamation being set forth in the year 1636. served to speak the intent of those Naval preparations made before in the year 1635. which were so numerous and well-provided that our Netherland Neighbours being touched with the apprehension of some great design in hand for the Interest of England by Sea and of the guilt that lay upon their own Consciences for their bold Encroachments soon betrayed their Jealousies and Fears and in them a sense of their offences before ever the Proclamation was made publick As I might shew at large if it were requisite by certain Papers of a publick Character yet in being But there is one Instar omnium which may serve in stead of all and it is an acute Letter of Secretary Coke's that was written to Sir William Boswel the Kings Resident then at the Hague the Original