414 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE PARLIAMENT, THE COMMONWEALTH, AND THE 



PROTECTORATE continued. 



THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 



THE importance of the questions connected with the claim to 

 the sovereignty of the sea was revealed in the long negotiations 

 with the Dutch which preceded the conclusion of peace. These 

 were begun at a very early stage of the contest. From the first 

 the war had been as distasteful to Cromwell as it was to 

 John de Witt and the leading men in the States of Holland, 

 and so soon as the beginning of August 1652, within three 

 months of Tromp's encounter with Blake, clandestine 

 negotiations were set on foot, with the approval of Cromwell, 

 Vane, Whitelock, and other leaders in England, with the 

 object of bringing about peace ; and though nothing came 

 of them at the time, they were resumed early in 1653. 

 The Speaker informed the Parliament on 22nd March 

 that he had received a formal letter from the States of 

 Holland desiring that the negotiations might be resumec 

 and on 1st April the Parliament replied favourably, offering 

 take up the negotiations at the point at which they had beer 

 broken off when the special ambassador, Pauw, quitted Londoi 

 in the previous year. 1 This implied payment to the Parliament 

 of the expense incurred in consequence of the Dutch nav* 

 preparations and of Tromp's fight with Blake, and " security 

 for a close alliance, conditions unacceptable by the rulii 

 oligarchy at The Hague. 



1 Geddes, i. 282, 289, 292. Gardiner, ii. 128, 183, 329. Aitzema, iii. 804. 



