The penalty was the forfeiture of the ship and cargo,
one moiety to the commonwealth, the other to the informer.--New Parl. Hist.
iii. 1374.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Oct. 9.]
ambassadors were reminded of the claim of indemnification for the losses
sustained by the English in the East Indies, of a free trade from
Middleburgh to Antwerp, and of the tenth herring which was due from the
Dutch fishermen for the permission to exercise their trade in the British
seas.
While the conferences were yet pending, Commodore Young met[a] a fleet of
Dutch merchantmen under convoy in the Channel; and, after a sharp action,
compelled the men-of-war to salute the English flag. A few days later[b]
the celebrated Van Tromp appeared with two-and-forty sail in the Downs. He
had been instructed to keep at a proper distance from the English coast,
neither to provoke nor to shun hostility, and to salute or not according to
his own discretion; but on no account to yield to the newly-claimed right
of search.[1] To Bourne, the English, commander, he apologized for
his arrival, which, he said, was not with any hostile design, but in
consequence of the loss of several anchors and cables on the opposite
coast. The next day[c] he met Blake off the harbour of Dover; an action
took place between the rival commanders; and, when the fleets separated in
the evening, the English cut off two ships of thirty guns, one of which
they took, the other they abandoned, on account of the damage which it had
received.
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