The resolve of the King in 1610 to postpone any action in the matter of his proclamation on the fisheries question seems not to have aroused any popular expression of disapproval. The English people were from the political and religious standpoint well disposed to the Dutch. What they suspected and dreaded was the King's obvious leaning to Spain. Their intense dislike to the Spanish marriage, concerning which it was common knowledge that negotiations were on foot, led them to favour a good understanding with the United Provinces. But the spectacle of the growing Dutch monopoly of the carrying trade, and the decline of English commerce in the face of these formidable rivals, could not fail before long to stir public opinion.
A succession of noteworthy pamphlets drew attention to the subject. Foremost among these, from the personality of the writer, was Ralegh's[18] _Observations touching trade and commerce with the Hollanders and others, wherein is proved that our sea and land commodities serve to enrich and strengthen other countries than our own_. These _Observations_ were, as the title page informs us, presented to King James, and there are indications that the date of their presentation was about the time of the Dutch embassy of 1610. Their object was to show how Dutch trade was prospering at the expense of that of England. Ralegh pointed out in particular the immense profit derived by the Hollanders from their fishing in the British seas, and he asks why 'this great sea-business of fishing' should not be kept in English hands, and suggests that the King should appoint Commissioners to inquire into the matter, and 'forthwith set forward some scheme for preventing foreigners from reaping all the fruits of this lucrative industry on his Majesty's coasts.' He warns the King that 'the Hollanders possess already as many ships as eleven kingdoms, England being one of them', and expresses his conviction that 'they [the Hollanders] hoped to get the whole trade and shipping of Christendom into their own hands, as well for transportation, as otherwise for the command and mastery of the seas.'
Ralegh's pamphlet did not affect the King's decision to defer, for political reasons, taking any active steps concerning the fisheries, but we may well believe that the hint about 'the command and mastery of the seas' would not pass unheeded. It touched a question about which James was peculiarly sensitive. That question, though for a few years apparently dormant, was one that neither King nor people could afford to disregard. The command of the sea--then as at all times--was vital to an island power. The English were beginning to see in the Dutch not merely competitors in trade, who were ousting them from every market, but possible rivals for the dominion even of those 'narrow seas[19]' in which the Kings of England had so long claimed to have paramount sovereignty and jurisdiction. Thus a feeling of dissatisfaction and resentment gathered head which found vent, as was the custom of those days, in political pamphlet-writing. Two of these pamphlets[20], no less than that of Ralegh, call for particular notice, for they are full of material bearing upon the subject of the relations between the English and Dutch at the time of their publication, and throwing light upon the causes of the growing estrangement between the two people.