CHAPTER VIII— THE DUTCH WAR 



The Cause of it all. 



For some years past events had been leading towards a clash of 

 interests between England and Holland and the tension of the Civil 

 War did nothing to avert it. In the East fighting was the rule rather 

 than the exception and in time this was bound to breed ill-will at home. 

 When the herrings deserted the Baltic and thereby ruined many Hanse 

 towns the Dutch took up their pursuit and did a great part of their 

 fishing along the English coast without going to the trouble and expense 

 of taking out the licences that were supposed to be necessary. In 

 addition the Dutch carrying trade was rapidly increasing, and although 

 it was undoubtedly the biggest in the world it was feeling the growing 

 English competition very badly indeed. Besides the actual compet- 

 ing interest there was the fact that England was in a position to shut 

 in the Dutch just as she shut in the Germans during the late war, and 

 this fact was constantly in the minds of their shipping folk. Fuel was 

 added to the fire by the fact that relations with the French were getting 

 very strained and that the Dutch were becoming more and more 

 friendly, not only with them but with the Danes as well. When the 

 Prince of Orange died, Cromwell proposed a very close alliance with 

 the Dutch republic, an alliance which afterwards grew into what was 

 virtually a merging of the two countries, but as Holland would 

 obviously get very much the worst of the bargain and would practically 

 lose her independence this offer was rejected and its rejection gave 

 further offence. Finally the famous Navigation Act — often spoken of 

 as the original but really only a revival of mediaeval legislation — put a 

 full stop on the Dutch carrying trade as far as England was concerned. 

 The Dutch regarded it as being directed against them entirely and in 

 a very short time ambassadors were recalled. Attempts to arrange a 

 compromise were met with an astounding list of English grievances all 

 over the world, while a large number of Dutch ships were seized under 

 the provisions of the Act. 



The Aniboyna Affair. 



There were many causes of friction between the Dutch and the 

 English and in most of these it must be confessed that, owing to poor 

 and slack government, the latter were the aggressors. Generally 

 speaking, the Dutch behaved with admirable restraint, the one blot on 

 their record being the terrible Amboyna affair of 1623. Amboyna, or 

 Ambon as it is now generally called, is an island in the East Indies 

 which was discovered by the Portuguese in 1511. They returned ten 

 years later and founded a factory but did not really obtain full posses- 

 sion until 1580. In 1609 the Dutch turned them out and five or six 

 years later the English founded a station on one end of the island 

 remote from the Dutch settlement. This caused great uneasiness to 

 the Dutch, who in 1623 descended on the factory, captured it, and 

 put the inhabitants to death with appalling tortures that were quite 

 foreign to the normal Dutch nature as one imagines it by reading their 



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