458 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



outrages committed by the Dutch on our merchants in India, 

 Africa, and elsewhere were "the greatest obstruction of our 

 foreign trade," and that the king should be asked to "take 

 some speedy course for redress." John de Witt fruitlessly 

 endeavoured by all honourable means to avert hostilities. 

 The warlike and marauding expedition of Holmes (now 

 restored to favour) against the Dutch settlements on the 

 west coast of Africa and in America was followed, as it 

 was bound to be, by the retaliatory expedition of De Ruyter, 

 which gave the English the pretext for declaring war in 

 the spring of 1665. 1 



The war was exceedingly popular in England, and large 

 sums were willingly voted by the House of Commons. Pepys 

 tells us that the Court were "mad" for it, and another con- 

 temporary writer says it was the universal wish of the people. 2 

 Thus no appeal to the national passion of Englishmen about 

 the sovereignty of the sea was required on this occasion, and 

 such references as were made to the subject were of a formal 

 kind. One of the accusations which the Parliament flung 

 at the Dutch was that they had " proclaimed themselves Lords 

 of the South Sea; and, in contempt, shot at and use other 

 indignities to our royall flag, thereby affronting his Majesty 

 and this nation." Then, in the preamble of the Act granting 

 money for the equipment of a fleet, it was declared to be " for 

 the preservation of his Majesty's ancient and undoubted sov- 

 ereignty and dominion in the seas"; 3 and in his instructions 

 to the Duke of York as Lord High Admiral, the king said 

 the great fleet he had prepared was "to assert his right to 

 the dominion of the Narrow Seas," and for the mastery of 

 the sea and the security of navigation. 4 But these phrases 

 were to be expected. For the same reason, popular literature 

 on England's dominion of the seas was on this occasion scanty, 



1 Commons' Journals, viii. 548, 553 ; Lords' Journals, xi. 599, 614 ; Parlt. Hist., 

 iv. 291, 308 ; Clarendon's Memoirs, ii. 235-237, 288 ; Hume, Hist, of England, 

 Ixiv. ; Pepys' Diary, iv. 31, 42, &c. ; Pontalis, John de Witt, i. 309. 



2 The Dutch Draiim to the Life, 1664. "Never was anything so unanimously 

 applauded by men of all persuasions and interest as a Dutch Warre, which is the 

 universal Wish of the people." 



* 16 & 17 Car. II. 



4 The king to the Duke of York, 22nd March 1665. State Papers, Dom.', 

 cxv. 76. 



