Second Anglo-Dutch War - Prelude

Prelude

The First Anglo-Dutch War was concluded with an English victory in the Battle of Scheveningen in August 1653, although a peace treaty was not signed for another eight months. The Commonwealth government of Oliver Cromwell tried to avoid further conflict with the Dutch Republic. It did not come to the aid of its ally, Sweden, when the Dutch thwarted the Swedish attempt to conquer Denmark in the Battle of the Sound. The Commonwealth was at war with Spain and feared Dutch intervention, in part because the Republic contained a strong Orangist party hostile to Cromwell and under the influence of exiled English royalists. However the Treaty of Westminster planted the seeds of future conflict as its secret annex, the Act of Seclusion, forbade the Province of Holland (and by practical extension, any other province of the Netherlands) from installing any member of the House of Orange as their stadtholder.

The Restoration of Charles II, in 1660, produced a general surge of optimism in England. Many hoped to reverse the Dutch dominance in world trade. At first, however, Charles II sought to remain on friendly terms with the Republic, as he was personally greatly in debt to the House of Orange, which had lent enormous sums to Charles I during the English Civil War. Nevertheless, a conflict soon developed with the States of Holland over the education and future prospects of his nephew William III of Orange, the posthumous son of Dutch stadtholder William II of Orange, over whom Charles had been made a guardian by his late sister Mary. The Dutch, in this coordinated by Cornelis and Andries de Graeff, tried to placate the king with prodigious gifts, such as the Dutch Gift of 1660. Negotiations were started in 1661 to solve these issues, which ended in the treaty of 1662, in which the Dutch conceded on most points. In 1663, Louis XIV of France stated his claim to portions of the Habsburg Southern Netherlands, leading to a short rapprochement between England and the Republic as Lord Clarendon, for a time, saw France as the greatest danger.

In 1664, however, the situation quickly changed. Clarendon's enemy, Lord Arlington, became the favourite of the king and began to cooperate with the king's brother James, Duke of York, the Lord High Admiral, in order to bring about war with the Dutch, from which both expected great personal gain. James headed the Royal African Company and hoped to seize the possessions of the Dutch West India Company. The two were supported by the English ambassador in The Hague, George Downing, who despised the Dutch, and reported that the Republic was politically divided between Orangists, who gladly would collaborate with an English enemy in case of war, and a States faction consisting of wealthy merchants that would give in to any English demand in order to protect their trade interests. Arlington planned to subdue the Dutch completely by permanent occupation of key Dutch cities. Charles was easily influenced by James and Arlington as he sought a popular and lucrative foreign war at sea to bolster his authority as king. Many naval officers welcomed the prospect of a conflict with the Dutch as they expected to make their name and fortune in battles they hoped to win as decisively as in the previous war.

As enthusiasm for war rose among the English populace, privateers began to attack Dutch ships, capturing about two hundred of them. Dutch ships were obligated by the new treaty to salute the English flag first. In 1664, English ships began to provoke the Dutch by not saluting in return. Though ordered by the Dutch government to continue saluting first, many Dutch commanders could not bear the insult. Still, the resulting flag incidents were not the casus belli, as in the previous war. To provoke open conflict, James already in late 1663 had sent Robert Holmes, in service of the Royal African Company, to capture Dutch trading posts and colonies in West Africa. At the same time, the English invaded the Dutch colony of New Netherland in North America on 24 June 1664, and had control of it by October. The Dutch responded by sending a fleet under Michiel de Ruyter that recaptured their African trade posts, captured most English trade stations there and then crossed the Atlantic for a punitive expedition against the English in America. In December 1664, the English suddenly attacked the Dutch Smyrna fleet. Though the attack failed, the Dutch in January 1665 allowed their ships to open fire on English warships in the colonies when threatened. Charles used this as a pretext to declare war on the Netherlands on 4 March 1665.

The war was supported in England by much propaganda; the cause célèbre was the previous Amboyna Massacre of 1623. That year, ten English factors, resident in the Dutch fortress of Victoria on Ambon were executed by beheading on accusations of treason. During the trial, the English prisoners were allegedly hung up with cloth placed over their faces, upon which water dripped until the victims inhaled water (this is today called waterboarding). After some time, they were taken down to vomit up the water, only to repeat the experience. The Dutch also allegedly placed candles on the victims' bodies to demonstrate the translucence of the flesh. The English at the time milked the alleged atrocity for all it was worth in a long drawn-out diplomatic incident. The English East India Company published an extensive pamphlet in 1631, setting out its case against the Dutch VOC, and this was used for anti-Dutch propaganda during the First Anglo-Dutch War. Though the matter was supposed to be settled with the Treaty of Westminster (1654), now pamphleteers reminded the public of it as the war neared. Additionally, broadsheets demonized the Dutch as drunken and profane, with Andrew Marvell's 1653 insult of Holland, "The Character of Holland," reprinted ("This indigested vomit of the Sea,/ Fell to the Dutch by Just Propriety"). When De Ruyter recaptured the West African trading posts, many pamphlets were written about presumed new Dutch atrocities, although these contained no basis in fact.

The deeper cause of the conflict was mercantile competition. The English sought to take over the Dutch trade routes and colonies while excluding the Dutch from their own colonial possessions. Contraband shipping had gone on from English colonies in America and Surinam for a decade, and the English felt that they were being cheated of their revenues. The Dutch, for their part, considered it their right to trade with anyone anywhere, defending the principle of the mare liberum. However, they enforced a monopoly in the Dutch Indies, and threatened to expand it to India, after having expelled the Portuguese from that region. The vilification of Dutch traders in England was at least partially an expression of unease with the presence of notable Cromwellian politicians and officers in Holland in exile. Charles II had reason to be nervous about the possibility of a Dutch invasion coordinated with an uprising within England. In addition, many members of the English elite would gain personally if Dutch ships were captured.

After their defeat in the First Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch had become much better prepared. Beginning in 1653, a "New Navy" was constructed, a core of sixty new, heavier ships with professional captains. Losses had been consequently replaced after this. However, these ships were still much lighter than the ten "big ships" of the English navy. In 1664, when war threatened, it was decided to completely replace the fleet core with still heavier ships. Upon the outbreak of war in 1665, these new vessels were mostly still under construction, and the Dutch only possessed four heavier ships of the line. During the second war, the new ships were quickly completed, with another twenty ordered and built. England, meanwhile, could only build a dozen ships, due to financial difficulties.

In 1665, England boasted a population about four times as large as that of the Dutch Republic. This population was dominated by poor peasants, however, and so the only source of ready cash were the cities. The Dutch urban population exceeded that of England in both proportional and absolute terms and the Republic would be able to spend more than twice the amount of money on the war compared to England, the equivalent of ₤11,000,000. The outbreak of war was followed ominously by the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London, hitting the only major urban centre of the country. These events, occurring in such close succession, virtually brought England to its knees, as the English fleet had suffered from cash shortages even before these calamities, despite having been voted a record budget of ₤2,500,000 by the English parliament. The navy did not pay its sailors with money, but with "tickets", or debt certificates. Charles lacked an effective means of enforcing taxation. The only way to finance the war, in effect, was to capture Dutch trade fleets. English penury made the war's outcome dependent on the fortunes of its privateers; in fact Dutch privateers would be the more successful.