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 Elizabeth was L600,000; the Advocate offered in settlement L100,000 in cash and L150,000 more in half-yearly payments.  James accepted the offer, and the towns were handed over, the garrisons being allowed to pass into the Dutch service, June 1616.  Sir Dudley Carleton, however, who about this time succeeded Sir Ralph Winwood as English envoy at the Hague, continued to have a seat in the Council of State.

Oldenbarneveldt thus, at a time when his dominant position in the State was already being undermined and his career drawing to an end, performed a great service to his country, the more so as King James, in his eagerness to negotiate a marriage between the Prince of Wales and a Spanish infanta, was beginning to allow his policy to be more and more controlled by the Count of Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador at Whitehall.  James’ leaning towards Spain naturally led him to regard with stronger disfavour the increasing predominance of the Dutch flag upon the seas, and it was not long before he was sorry that he had surrendered the cautionary towns.  For the fishery rights and the principle of the dominium maris in the narrow seas were no longer the only