Whatever may have been the other causes of our wars with the Hollanders, one was unquestionably the herring. No doubt the insinuations of Richelieu greatly perturbed the phlegmatic Batavian, and helped him into a fighting posture; but the bloater was at the bottom of it. We took that fish for a text whereon to discourse concerning our title to dominion over the sea; and though in these days it is as much the mackerel as the herring, as much the cod as the mackerel, as much the turbot as the cod over which the dispute continues, the old battles in the heart of which Blake curled his whiskers and Tromp flourished his broomstick are still fought, though, to be sure, without Ruyter’s fire-ships or the eloquent thunder of Monk’s cannon-royal.

The conflict now is shorn of its old glory. It is waged, indeed, close into the Thames, though not so high as the Hope; nor, in the direction of the Medway, does it approach Sheerness; and upon the eastern coast the struggle is often within view of Scarborough and the Norfolk cliffs. But there is no more smoke of battle. It is the Dutchman sneaking across the Englishman’s trawling gear with “the devil”; it is the Frenchman shearing under cover of the blackness through the league long drift-nets of the Shoreham or Penzance smack. Years have brought to this nation the philosophic mind. Instead of declaring war we station a gunboat, put on a concerned face when we hear of the Dover and Brixham men assaulting the crews of the Boulogne and Calais craft, and read without emotion of the capture of a bellicose Hans Butter-box by a small steamer with a whip at her masthead. Yet the honour of our flag is so inextricably woven with the literature and traditions of these fishing squabbles that, spite of the insignificance to which the easy indifference of “my lords” would reduce them in our day, the reflection of a great and piercing light in our history is upon them, from the lustre of which they gather a complexion that is not wholly sentimental.

In 1609 Hugo Grotius wrote a book, which he called “Mare Liberum.” It is heavy reading in these times of Wilkie Collins and Miss Braddon, and the heavier, perhaps, for being in Latin. But it was deemed a treatise of very great eloquence, especially by the Dutch, to whose ocean-rights it specially referred. In short, the object of Grotius was to prove the weakness of our title to the sovereignty of the seas, the deep, in his opinion, being a gift from God and common to all nations. This was answered by John Selden, the most amazing scholar that any age or country ever produced, of so candid and great-hearted a nature, as is particularly exhibited in his Table-Talk, that it is difficult to read his astonishing answer to Grotius without wishing that his patriotism had dealt with a subject more answerable to his convictions than this question of sea rights. But his “Mare Clausum” is a volume that one would think must be of abounding and enduring interest to Englishmen. It was translated into English by special command by Marchmont Nedham (as he spells his name), and published in that form in 1652. It probably has few readers now. Yet such was the opinion of its potency as a sustained argument that it was believed, to use the language of Nedham, “had he (i.e. Selden) persisted with the same firm resolution in this honourable business of the sea, as he did in other things that were destructive to the nation’s interest, the Netherlanders had been prevented from spinning out their long opportunitie to an imaginarie claim of prescription; so that they would have had less pretence to act those insolencies now which in former times never durst enter the thoughts of their predecessors.”

The book pre-eminently concerns the honour of our flag, of our dominion over the seas, more particularly in regard to the right of our kings and queens to grant licences to foreigners to fish in the sea, and of the obligation on all ships of what denomination soever to strike their topsails to our flag, or in other words to salute the symbol of Britannia’s sovereignty wherever they shall encounter it. For how many centuries this act of courtesy has been exacted as a right by the monarchs of England you must read Selden’s book to discover. Writing in James I.’s reign, he shows how he traces it back for above four hundred years by this: That at Hastings it was decreed by King John, in the second year of his reign, with the assent of the peers, “if the governor or commander of the King’s navie, in his naval expeditions (which were all in that age upon the Southern Sea) shall meet any ship whatsoever by sea, either laden or empty, that shall refuse to strike their sails at the command of the King’s Governor or admiral or his lieutenant, but make resistance against them which belong to his fleet; That then they are to bee reputed enemies if they may bee taken, yea, and their ships and goods be confiscated as the goods of enemies.” He points out that it was accounted treason in any man who omitted to acknowledge the King of England in his own sea by striking sail; nor would the circumstance of his country being friendly with that of the transgressor protect him. Another illustration of the antiquity of this custom, or exaction rather, Selden finds in a gold rose-noble,^[21] that was coined in the reign of Edward III. The stamp on one side of it represented a ship floating on the sea, and a king, armed with sword and shield, sitting on the ship as on a throne, the device being obviously intended to represent the maritime dominion of the ocean. All that Selden has to say about fishing in the sea is full of interest. He points out that Henry VI. gave leave to the French, and other foreigners, to fish, sometimes for six months, sometimes for a year; but this leave “was granted under the name even of a passport or safe conduct; yea, and a size or proportion was prescribed to their fishing boats or busses that they should not be above thirty tons.” The French had to obtain leave from the English admiral to fish for soles for the table of their own king (Henri Quatre), and such boats as were caught fishing without a licence were seized as trespassers. In the Eastern waters the Hollanders and Zealanders were forced to seek permission to fish from the Governor of Scarborough Castle, and Selden quotes Camden’s expression of wonder at the vast sum of money the Hollanders made by this fishing upon our coast and at the apathy of the English, “who have ever granted them leave to fish, reserving alwaies the honour and privilege to themselves, but through a kindle of negligence resigning the profit to strangers.” It is on the mass of evidence as to the antiquity of the British claim to the sovereignty of the seas that Dr. Campbell, the historian, bases his opinion respecting the naval power of the Early Britons, who are generally considered as a race of painted wild men, who speared fish or crossed their rivers and creeks in wicker boats covered with hides.

The question of this dominion became a vital one to this country with the growth and the aggressions of Holland. Was she or England to be sovereign of the sea? And was an English ship, figuratively speaking, to bow to a Dutch one when she met her? Selden offered the world precedents enough on our behalf. That King John should have claimed a universal striking to the Royal flag was surely proof that what might impress the foreigner as an extraordinary pretension was founded on the unquestioned rights of our predecessors. Edward III., in his commissions to his admirals, repeatedly styled himself sovereign of the English seas, affirming, with perfect justice, that he derived the title from his progenitors. In Hakluyt there is preserved a curious metrical admonition, presumably written in or about the sixth year of the reign of Edward IV., entitled “De politia conservatira Maris,” with a heading to the general introduction that runs thus: “Here beginneth the prologue of the processe of the libel of the English policie, exhorting all England to keep the sea, and namely the narrow sea; shewing what profite commeth thereof, and also what worship and salvation to England, and to all Englishmen.” It will be owned that the anonymous author’s appeal was not addressed to deaf ears. An immortal proof of British resolution in this direction occurs in the reign of Queen Mary. Lord William Howard, created Baron of Effingham, was sent with a fleet of twenty-eight sail presumably to guard the coast, but in reality to escort Philip of Spain, whose own fleet, however, consisted of one hundred and sixty vessels. His admiral came sailing along with the Spanish flag flying at his masthead, which so offended Lord William Howard that he fired a shot at him and forced him to strike or haul down his colours before he would make his compliments to the prince.^[22] This was followed by another lively example of a like kind. When the Spanish fleet went to fetch Anne of Austria, who was in Flanders, Sir John Hawkins, with a small squadron of her Majesty’s ships, was riding in Cattewater. The Spanish admiral endeavoured to pass without saluting. Sir John sent a shot at the Admiral’s rigging, but no notice was taken of it. A second shot fired went clean through the Spaniard’s hull. On this the Don sent an officer of distinction with compliments and complaints to Sir John Hawkins, who refused to admit the officer or hear what he had to say; but simply required him to tell his admiral that, having neglected to pay the respect due to the Queen of England, in her seas and port, he must not expect to lie there but to be off within twelve hours. Sir John’s flag was flying on the Jesus of Lubeck; to this ship came the Spaniard full of remonstrance, declaring he knew not what to make of the treatment he had received, seeing that there was peace between the two Crowns. “Put the case, sir,” said Sir John, “that an English fleet came into any of the King, your master’s, ports, his Majesty’s ships being there, and those English ships should carry their flags in their tops, would not you shoot them down and beat the ships out of your port?” The Spaniard confessed himself in the wrong, and submitted to the penalty the English Admiral imposed.

It was the Hollander, however, who gave the English most trouble in regard to the honour of the flag. In or about 1604 Sir William Monson was cruising with a fleet with instructions to assert the superiority in the British seas which came to James I. from his ancestors. Sir William has told the story himself in his “Naval Tracts.” On his return to Calais in July, 1605, he found an addition of six ships to the Dutch squadron he had left off Dover three days before. One of them was the Admiral’s. “Their object,” he says, “in coming in shew was to beleaguer the Spaniards who were then at Dover.” As Sir William approached, the Dutch Admiral struck his flag thrice, meaning that the Spaniards as well as others should conclude that, by continuing to “wear” his flag, he represented a sovereignty of the sea as complete as that of the English. Sir William requested him to take in his flag; he refused, alleging that he had struck it three times, which he held was acknowledgment enough. There was some discussion, after which he was told that if he did not salute, the British Admiral would weigh anchor and fall down to him, and then the force of the ships should determine the question; “for rather than I would suffer his flag to be worn in view of so many nations as were to behold it, I resolved to bury myself in the sea.” “The Admiral, it seems, on better advice,” adds Sir William, “took in his flag and stood immediately off to sea, firing a gun for the rest of the fleet to follow him. And thus I lost my guest the next day at dinner as he had promised.” Amongst others who witnessed this was Sciriago, the Spanish General, who told Sir William that if the Hollanders had worn their flag, times had strangely altered in England, for he remembered his old master King Philip the Second being shot at by the Lord Admiral of England for wearing his flag in the narrow seas when he came to marry Queen Mary.

In spite of treaties of peace between England and Holland, the trouble about the fishing continued. Disputes arose over the payment of the assize-herring in Scotland, and the Dutch sent ships of war to protect their herring-boats against the penalties which must attend the refusal to pay the licence money. In 1609 King James issued a proclamation concerning fishing, in which it was stated that commissioners had been authorized “at London for our realms of England and Ireland, and at Edinburgh for our realm of Scotland,” to issue licences to such foreign vessels as intend to fish for the whole or any part of the year, and that the licences were to be taken out “upon pain of such chastisements as shall be fit to be inflicted upon such as are wilful offenders.” The fishing quarrel rose to a height again in 1618, but it does not appear that the honour of the flag was involved in these trawling politics until 1652. In that year Commodore Young encountered a Dutch man-of-war whose captain refused to salute the English colours. The commodore sent a boat with a polite request that the Dutchman would strike; but mynheer answered very honestly that the States had threatened to take off his head if he struck; whereupon a fight began, with the result that the Dutchman had to haul down his colours. This was on May 14; on the 19th Van Tromp bore down upon Blake, who was lying off Dover. Blake sent three shots at the Dutch flag as a hint; which Tromp answered with a broadside, and then followed an action that lasted till nine at night, when, Blake being reinforced, the Dutch made off. Peace was made in 1654. In that treaty nothing was said as to our sovereignty in respect to the fisheries, but amongst other articles was the acknowledgment of the dominion of the English at sea and the agreement to strike to the meteor bunting. But the prowess of Admiral Blake may have provided for this without any obligation of specification; for in this year, coming to an anchor off Cadiz, a Dutch Admiral who was there would not hoist his flag whilst Blake was present. Indeed, such was the awe in which Blake was held, that the Algerines, merely with the idea of obtaining his favour, made a point of overhauling the Sallee rovers for English prisoners and sending all they found to him.

The honour of the flag seems a noticeable element in the origin of the war of 1665. Sir John Lawson, in command of a squadron of ships, was in the Mediterranean with De Ruyter. The Dutch admiral saluted the English flag, a compliment which Lawson refused to return, alleging that his orders did not allow him to strike to the subjects of any king or State whatever. It may be supposed that such treatment pretty liberally envenomed the soul of the fine old Dutchman, who, when he was shortly afterwards sent to commit hostilities against us, made sail on that adventure with a hot heart. In 1674 we find the Dutch in the treaty of peace professing to understand a point that in spite of previous treaties they had refused to admit. In the treaty with Cromwell they had agreed that their ships should salute the English, and in subsequent treaties the same undertaking appears. But their usual apology for failure was that striking was a mere matter of civility, and that if they declined to pull off their hat there was no obligation upon them to do so. But by 1674 the political atmosphere had been cleared by British cannons, and the Dutch were now able to distinguish. The treaty ended the doubt; what was before styled courtesy was here confessed a right. Not only was the extent of the British sovereignty clearly defined; the State undertook that whole fleets, as well as separate ships, “should strike their sails to any fleet or single ship carrying the King’s flag, as the custom was in the days of his ancestors.” It was said by Secretary Coke in a letter addressed by order of Charles I. to Sir William Boswell, Ambassador at the Hague, “This cannot be doubted, that whosoever will encroach upon him (the King) by sea, will do it by land also, when they see their time. To such presumption ‘Mare Liberum’ gave the first warning piece, which must be answered with a defence of ‘Mare Clausum,’ not so much by discourses, as by the louder language of a powerful navy, to be better understood when overstrained patience seeth no hope of preserving her right by other means.”

sings Campbell, and in Coke’s words one finds a noble example of the sort of message those spirits knew how to deliver. What has been done for the honour of the flag by a language louder than discourses may be easily traced through the Rookes, the Shovels, the Mansels, the Howes, the Rodneys, Keppels, Nelsons.

How has that honour broadened since the days of striking topsails! Colonial men-of-war are now entitled to fly the flag of the British Navy. There was obviously much deliberation before the resolution was arrived at in respect of the Gayundah, a vessel that has the honour to signally advance that great scheme of federation which is occupying the minds of all English-speaking men. Indeed, it is perfectly obvious that no flag could be so fitly flown at the masthead or peak of our Colonial men-of-war as those same colours which the heroism of the grandsires of our distant kinsmen rendered emblematic of power, justice, and freedom.

The British national flag is the Union Jack. This consists of the blended crosses of St. George, red; of St. Andrew, white; of St. Patrick, red, marginating Scotland’s cross so as to admit of a portion of the white being shown. These several crosses combined upon a blue ground form that meteor flag of which the poet writes, though not certainly that noble piece of bunting which, we are reminded by the same poet in the same song—

The wishes of the Colonials were eminently honourable and loyal, and the gratification of their desires in respect of a flag whose glory and traditions are certainly not less theirs than they are ours should prove a source of sincere satisfaction to the people of this country. For the honour of the flag! We know what that inspiration has done for us of old, and how it must influence in the future the world-wide English-speaking races whose artillery shall thunder under the shadow of Britain’s blood-red cross.^[23] Without his flag what would be fighting or even mercantile Jack? We all know how old Commodore Dance, at the head of his little squadron of tea ships, put to flight the formidable Frenchman bristling with tiers of cannon. Even under the red flag, symbol of peaceful trade, there have been performed many noble and valorous exploits, and it is no doubt the memory of scores of brilliant deeds performed by the British merchant sailor that excites the regret very widely felt that in these times, when the water is smooth, and the political barometer fairly high, the foreigners in their hundreds should be driving the English mariner out of his legitimate home—the British forecastle.

But it is to naval story that we must turn for nearly all of what pertains to the honour of the flag. The contests have been tough and sharp touching the “doffing” question. Whether it was our duty to bow first to the haughty Spaniard at sea, as he maintained, or whether it was for him to “make a leg” at the sight of good Queen Bess’s flag, was a question for Drake and Raleigh, for Hawkins and that noble gentleman Charles Howard, Baron of Effingham, to settle, just as Blake and Monk and Ascue and Commodore Young, as has been shown, decided the same matter with reference to the broomstick of the brave and desperate Dutchman. It was the sailor of Queen Elizabeth’s day, however, that made the flag the emblem which the world has ever since recognized it to be. The story of Sir Robert Mansell, Admiral of the “narrow seas,” as the English Channel was then termed, is typical of our naval history from the first chapter of it. He went to Gravelines to receive the Spanish Ambassador, whilst Sir Jerome Turner, his Vice-Admiral, attended at Calais for the French Ambassador. “But,” says the quaint historian, “the Frenchman coming first and hearing the Vice-Admiral was to attend him, the Admiral the other, in a scorn put himself in a passage boat in Calais and came forth with flag in top. Instantly Sir Jerome Turner sent to know of the Admiral what he should do. Sir Robert Mansell sent him word to shoot and strike him if he would not take in the flag. This, as it made the flag be pulled in, caused a great complaint, and it was believed it would have undone Sir Robert Mansell, the French faction put it so home; but he maintained the act and was the better beloved of his Sovereign ever after to his death.”

Even the old pirates talked of the honour of their flag! a very dismal piece of bunting, indeed, consisting of a skull, cross-bones, and hour-glass on a black ground. Yet let such records as “Tom Cringle’s Log,” which are very true history, though disguised with the mask of fiction, bear witness to the furious heroism with which those murderous savages, in earrings and sashes, in ringlets and jack-boots, fought for the abhorred flag at their masthead, swaying in masses half-naked at their cannons, and occasionally blowing themselves to pieces in their efforts to sink the enemy, just as ancient mariners tell of mutilated sharks twisting round to get at their own wounds in their dreadfully gluttonous desire to eat themselves up. Nelson stormed in among the Frenchmen and the Spaniards with six flags flying in different parts of his rigging, because he could not endure to think of the possibility of a stray shot making him look, even for a breathless moment, to have struck. There is very little change between the flags of his time and those of ours. Of course this regards the colours as shown by men-of-war; in signalling Marryatt’s Code—as all other codes which existed prior to the clever combinations of the author of “Peter Simple”—has made way for the International Code. In the British Navy flags are either red, white, or blue, and are hoisted at one or another of the royal mastheads, according to the rank of the Admiral. This has been the custom for centuries. Previous to 1801 the Union flag, as it was called, bore only the Crosses of St. George and St. Andrew; but it was then, as after, appropriated to the Admiral of the Fleet, who was regarded as the first military officer under the Lord High Admiral.

Indeed, the history of our flags is the history of our Navy. Much of the interest one finds in reading the old accounts of naval battles lies in waiting to see who was the first to strike. Just as a ship looks glorified when “dressed”—that is to say, when she has hung out all her colours from peak end to mastheads, and from mastheads to the end of the flying-jibboom, and thence to the water—so is our national marine story radiant with the flags, pennons, and “ancients,” which flutter through it, sometimes blowing saucily, sometimes riven and seared with flame and bullet, sometimes a mangled rag valiantly hanging by a nail at the top of the mast, or “seized” in the rigging, whilst below it the battle rages like a thunderstorm. It is, indeed, in these days, almost inconceivable that mortal men should ever have been able to achieve for the honour of their flag the triumphs which rendered the British colours the terror they became. Campbell, Brenton, James, Naval Chronicles, Annual Registers, Maritime Records of all sorts and descriptions teem with illustrations of dauntless bravery, of headlong fearlessness such as might make one believe that the Jacks of those days not only bore a charmed life, but were giants as mighty in stature as the early Irish are supposed to have been, to judge from the colossal remains that are occasionally dug up in various parts of that “kingdom.” It is impossible to read the voyage of Anson or the accounts of the early explorers of the South Seas without a feeling of pity for the miserable terror aroused in the Spaniards, the half-castes, and blacks by the sight of the English flag or by the sound of an English voice. The way the story usually runs is—the vessel is seen to approach, is recognized as an English South Seaman; whereupon the Governor collects all his plate and treasure, piles it into waggons drawn by mules, which he sends up country, and then hastily follows, occasionally, in his fright, leaving his wife behind him. A wretched priest is sent off in a boat pulled by shivering blacks, and, with teeth chattering, suggests a compromise, which the English regard as a stratagem to furnish the Governor with time enough to make good his escape. So they send the priest ashore with a polite intimation that if, by a certain hour, so many thousands of ducats and dollars, not to mention silver candlesticks and golden crucifixes, are not brought off and safely stowed away in their hold, they will sack and burn the town. If the Governor fails to comply, then we are admitted to a humiliating spectacle. The English row ashore, and find the coast lined with troops; but as the boats approach the troops retire, and by the time the keels have grounded upon the beach, the Governor’s army, along with a band of music and several hundreds of horsemen, are to be observed watching the proceedings of the English from the top of a very lofty hill. Such was the honour of the flag! Such is it still, and such is it sure to remain in the hands of those distant children of Old England who will grasp the halliards by which it is hoisted.

But let the humble “driver,” the obscure trawler, have his merit too. Were the herring woven into the symbolism of the Royal Standard it would not be amiss. When you hear the pensive cry of “fine bloaters,” or the melodious rattle of “Caller herrin,” think how much the honour of the flag owes to that kind of fish. The sovereignty of the sea is still ours, but to justify our inheritance we ought really to suffer our souls to be tinged with the old Parliamentary spirit in our response to the cries of our fishermen calling upon the country to help them against the Flemish “devil” in the North Sea, and the drift-net-cutting weapon of the Calais smacksmen in our “narrow waters.”