a force sufficient to revenge
themselves on the English, or to have nothing to fear from them.

The dispute growing serious, to prevent any acts of hostility, and to
know on what grounds they went, a conference was held in 1615 between
the Commissaries of England and Holland, in which the debate turned
chiefly on the whale-fishery. Grotius, who was one of the Commissaries
from the Province of Holland, gives the history of this conference in a
Letter to Du Maurier, dated at Rotterdam, June 5, 1615. The Dutch
Commissaries put the English to silence, by demonstrating, that neither
the land nor the sea of Greenland belonged to them, and that they had no
right to hinder the Dutch to navigate and catch whales in that sea, of
which none could claim the property. That the land did not belong to
them, because till the year 1596 no mortal had set foot on it; that the
Dutch discovered it the year before, and gave it the name it still
retains, as may be seen in all the modern geographers, on the globes,
and carts. The English wanted to reply that Hugh Willoughby discovered
it in 1553: but the Dutch shewed even by the Journal of his voyage, that
setting out from Finland he landed on the Island which bears his name,
at a great distance from Greenland; that he died of hunger and cold,
with all his companions, on the coast of Lapland, where the Laplanders
found him, next summer, and from whence his Journals were sent to
England. The English, not knowing what to answer, said, it was a high
indignity to their master, to dispute a right of which he had hitherto
been in peaceable possession; and that their instructions imported, they
should break off the conference unless the Dutch would acknowledge
England's claim to Greenland. What was still more diverting (continued
Grotius) they added, that they had not then their titles, but would shew
them to Caron, the Dutch Agent in England, and, they flattered
themselves, on seeing them, he would yield the point. They like better
(adds he in the conclusion) to deal with him, than dispute with us,
because they will take his silence, as they have done already, for
submission.

FOOTNOTES:

[61] Mercure Francois, an. 1613.

XXIII. If Grotius had ground to be dissatisfied with the
disingenuousness and injustice of the English Ministry in his
negotiation concerning the Fishery, he had at least reason to be pleased
with the politeness of King James, who, Casaubon informs us, gave
Grotius a most gr