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 

 w r ere 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 ths negotiations might be resumed, 

 ,and on 1st April the Parliament replied favourably, offering to 

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

 broken off when the special ambassador, Pauw, quitted London 

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

 of the expense incurred in consequence of the Dutch naval 

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

 for a close alliance, conditions unacceptable by the ruling 

 oligarchy at The Hague. 



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



