Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/502

 sovereign lord the king and his noble progenitors have ever been lords of the sea," &c., &c. Nor were these claims, then, whatever they may have been in former ages, nominal titles. Without citing the opinions of Hugo Grotius, and other jurisconsults, on the necessity of a prince proclaiming by an overt act that he is lord of the sea, there can be no doubt that the English, from the earliest periods, did at least assert, if unable at all times to maintain, the dominion of the English Channel and a large portion of the North Sea. In the year 1674 the extent of the dominions of the British sovereign in the eastern and southern sea was ascertained and admitted to reach from the middle point of the land of Vans Staten, in Norway, to Cape Finisterre in Spain; a large extent of sea which England then asserted, and has since the reign of Charles II. maintained by many hard-fought naval engagements. Indeed, so far back as the reign of King John, we have already noticed, in the records of his marine laws, one to the effect that if a lieutenant of a king's ship encounter any vessel or vessels, laden or unladen, that will not strike and veil their bonnets at the command of the lieutenant of the king, they were to be taken and condemned.