THE SECOND DUTCH WAR 457 



the ground that he was not in British waters, and that he 

 had verbal orders which authorised him in refusing. When 

 De Witt heard of his intentions, he immediately sent instruc- 

 tions in the name of the States of Holland strictly to observe 

 the treaty, and declaring that the lowering of the flag must 

 not be confined to British waters, since that might be inter- 

 preted into subjection to English dominion of the seas. If the 

 English admiral again declined to lower his flag in return, 

 De Ruyter was merely to report the fact to the States. 1 

 The action of De Witt was not designed simply to avoid 

 a- quarrel. As will be seen later, it expressed his settled con- 

 viction and the fixed policy of the Republic on this thorny 

 subject. 



All such questions as to the flag and the fisheries were 

 soon submerged in the second Dutch war. The causes 

 which brought it about were at root the same as those 

 which had led up to the first. Commercial jealousy was 

 always a smouldering flame, ready to burst into a great 

 conflagration. The English believed that the Dutch had 

 juggled them out of their trade and trading rights in several 

 quarters of the globe, and with some reason. But probably 

 the real motive was succinctly stated by Monk, now Duke 

 of Albemarle, when he said that the essential cause of the 

 quarrels between the two nations was that the English wanted 

 a larger share of the trade of the Dutch. Charles himself, 

 like his great Minister, the Chancellor Clarendon, seems to 

 have been disinclined to the war, which, however, was advo- 

 cated strongly by the Duke of York, who supported the 

 contention of the merchants that it would benefit English 

 commerce. Accusations were levelled against the Dutch of hav- 

 ing by fraud and stratagem driven English trade almost entirely 

 from the East and West Indies, and greatly reduced it in 

 the Mediterranean and in Africa. These complaints were 

 echoed in Parliament, and in April 1664 a resolution was 

 passed by the two Houses declaring that the wrongs and 



1 Pontalis, op. cit., i. 313. It would appear that on a previous occasion Lawson 

 had returned the salute with the flag, for in the controversy with France on the 

 striking of the flag a few years later, the Dutch stated, as an instance of the 

 custom with England, that Lawson had shown this courtesy to De Ruyter off 

 Tangiers. De Witt's Brieven, ii. 474. 



