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lishmonarchhadbotheredtointervene.James'saunt,ElizabethI,hadregardedthe
seas as free and open; it did not occur to her that it was her business to tell the
Dutch to quit the North Sea. It would have done no good in any case. The Dutch
were better equipped to work on the open seas and relied on the herring fishery
as the foundation of the global empire they were just at that moment beginning to
build. James viewed matters otherwise. The herring the Dutch caught should have
been going to Scottish fishermen, and if they weren't, the Dutch should be paying
him a toll for the right to fish there. Now that he was king not just of Scotland but
of England as well, he could move the issue to the top of the state's agenda.
In his opening address before the king on 6 April 1613, de Groot talked only
about the Dutch position in the East Indies. He explained at length how the VOC
had several times been obliged to intervene on behalf of Asian rulers with whom
they had preferential trading relationships to save them from 'imminent destruc-
tion'atthehandsofthePortuguese.Hepointedouttheenormousexpenseinvolved
in breaking into the spice trade and suggested that, rather than contend with each
other, the English and the Dutch should work out 'a fair partnership'. Piling in-
stance upon example, the long-winded, youthful orator operated the machinery of
rhetoric so relentlessly that some of those present judged that he had scaled un-
matched heights of tedium. But this was diplomacy, and everybody had to be nice.
De Groot said nothing about the herring fishery in his dissertation before the king.
He regarded his remit as something else entirely. He was there to advance the in-
terests of his employers, the VOC, in Asia. Still struggling to establish themselves
profitably in the East Indies, the Company did not want its English counterpart in
the same waters competing with them. De Groot could hardly argue that the Dutch
now owned the seas that they had disputed with the Portuguese, but he could point
out the enormous costs involved in running a trading operation on the other side of
the globe.
De Groot returned to the podium six weeks later to give the farewell address on
behalf of the delegation. Mercifully briefer than he had been at his first perform-
ance, he acknowledged that no formal agreement had been reached. Rather than
admit defeat, though, he proposed two provisional working measures: that neither
should act against the other in those places where both were established, and that
'in all other parts of the Indies, both nations extend to each other every possible
token of friendship, both freely conducting business according to their wishes'.
James had some interest in the Asian trade, but he was much keener to figure
out how to make the Dutch pay royalties on the herring trade. The two sides were
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