and endeavour to procure its withdrawal or its
modification. This was by no means an easy matter. The fisheries, on
which a large part of the population of Holland and Zeeland depended for
their livelihood, were of vital importance to the States. On the other
hand their virtual monopoly by the Dutch caused keen resentment in
England. In the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth that adventurous
sea-faring spirit, which was destined eventually to plant the flag of
England on the shores of every ocean, had come to the birth, and
everywhere it found, during this early part of the 17th century, Dutch
rivals already in possession and Dutch ships on every trading route. The
Dutch mercantile marine in fact far exceeded the English in numbers and
efficiency. The publication of Hugo Grotius' famous pamphlet, _Mare
Liberum_, in March, 1609, was probably the final cause which decided
James to issue his Fisheries' proclamation. The purpose of Grotius was
to claim for every nation, as against the Portuguese, freedom of trade
in the Indian Ocean, but the arguments he used appeared to King James
and his advisers to challenge the _dominium maris_, which English kings
had always claimed in the "narrow seas." The embassy of 1610,
therefore, had to deal not merely with the fisheries, but with the whole
subject of the maritime relations of the two countries; and a crowd of
published pamphlets proves the intense interest that was aroused. But
the emergence of the dispute as to the Juelich-Cleves succession, and the
change in the policy of the French government owing to the assassination
of Henry IV, led both sides to desire an accommodation; and James
consented, not indeed to withdraw the edict, but to postpone its
execution for two years. It remained a dead letter until 1616, although
all the time the wranglings over the legal aspects of the questions in
dispute continued. The Republic, however, as an independent State, was
very much hampered by the awkward fact of the cautionary towns remaining
in English hands. The occupation of Flushing and Brill, commanding the
entrances to important waterways, seemed to imply that the Dutch
republic was to a certain extent a vassal state under the protection of
England. Oldenbarneveldt resolved therefore to take advantage of King
James' notorious financial embarrassments by offering to redeem the
towns by a ready-money payment. The nominal indebtedness of the United
Provinces for loans advanced by Eliz