1660-2] England and the United Provinces.- Portugal 107

thereof." He began by erecting a Council of Trade (November 7, 1660), and by its side a Council for Foreign Plantations (December 1, 1660). The alliance with Portugal was dictated by commercial consideration, and it was popular because the Portuguese was "the most beneficiallest trade that ever this nation was engaged in." Bombay was to be the centre of a lucrative traffic with India, while the possession of Tangier was not only to secure for England the trade of northern Africa, but to enable it "to give the law to all the trade of the Mediterranean." When Burnet visited England in 1663 "Tangier was talked of at a mighty rate, as the foundation of a new empire." It was by holding out the prospect of easy conquests in Africa and the Indies, and of enormous mercantile profits, that D'Estrades, on behalf of Louis XIV, encouraged Charles to accept the offers of Portugal.

Other causes of conflict

The materialism of the King's policy exactly fitted the temper of his people; but any attempt to obtain for England a larger share of the commerce of the world was certain to produce a conflict with the present holders of commercial dominion, the Dutch. between England and Holland were not lacking. Charles II had a personal grievance against the Dutch Government. He was anxious for the restoration of his nephew, the Prince of Orange, to the political and military functions from which he had been debarred by the Act of Exclusion in 1654, and the position was further complicated by a dispute about the guardianship of William, who was but ten years old in 1660. At the Hague, before he returned to England, Charles urgently recommended the interests of his sister and her son to the StatesGeneral; after his return he became still more pressing. The Dutch Government revoked the Act of Exclusion (September 25, 1660) and the States of Holland took the care of the Prince's education into their own hands. The death of the Princess Mary on December 24, 1660, reopened the question. Charles at her request assumed the guardianship of the Prince, which he shared by agreement with another uncle, the Elector of Brandenburg: they entrusted William to the control of his grandmother, Amalia, Princess-Dowager of Orange, ousting the representatives of Holland from their charge.

Portuguese affairs added to the friction. For nearly twenty years the Dutch and Portuguese had been fighting over their possessions in South America and the East Indies. Cromwell had sought to mediate between the two States, and Charles pledged himself by a secret article in his marriage-treaty to follow Cromwell's example. Downing, the very diplomatist Cromwell had employed, was dispatched again to the Hague to continue the mediation. On August 6, 1661, a treaty was signed by which the Portuguese retained Brazil and the Dutch Ceylon, but its ratification was retarded till December, 1662, owing to disputes about the comparative privileges of Dutch and English commerce in the Portuguese possessions.

108

The origin of the Dutch War

[1662-5

These quarrels retarded the treaty between England and the United Provinces which had been set on foot in 1661 and was not concluded till

September, 1662. It settled the long disputes about freedom of fishing and the salute of the British flag, but it left two outstanding questions undetermined. One was the question of the compensation claimed by the owners of two English ships taken by the Dutch in 1643, the other was the question of the restoration of Pularoon, one of the Spice Islands. The Dutch had expelled the English from it about 1620; and the ver dict of the arbitrators appointed under the treaty of April 5, 1654, had adjudged it to England. The new treaty promised that the longdelayed transfer should be effected; but when one of the ships of the English East India Company arrived with authority to take possession the Dutch Governor refused to give it up. Besides this breach of faith, there were fresh complaints of the capture of English ships in the East Indies and the forcible obstruction of English traders in West Africa. Reprisals inevitably followed. Shortly after the Restoration Charles had granted letters-patent for the formation of the Royal African Company (December 18, 1660), to which he subsequently granted a charter (June 10, 1663). The Duke of York was the special patron of the company and one of its founders. At his instigation in October, 1663, Robert Holmes, with a small squadron, was sent to the African coast to protect the trade of the company against the Dutch, which he effected by capturing most of the Dutch stations there. England had also shadowy claims on the territories occupied by the Dutch West India Company in America. On March 12, 1664, Charles granted to his brother James a patent for Long Island and the whole country between the Connecticut and Delaware rivers. In May a small expedition under Colonel Nicolls set sail from Portsmouth to put the Duke in possession.

Throughout 1664 the war-feeling in England grew stronger and stronger. In April the Turkey Company and the East India Company presented complaints to Parliament claiming that damages to the amount of £714,000 had been inflicted upon them by the Dutch, and the two Houses petitioned the King to take effectual measures to obtain redress. In October and the following months de Ruyter recaptured the English possessions on the Gold Coast. In December an English squadron under Allen attacked the Dutch Smyrna fleet. War was declared on March 14, 1665.

Charles II was pushed into war by his people and by his brother. "I never saw so great an appetite to war as is in both this town and country, especially in the parliament men," he wrote to the Duchess of Orleans on June 2, 1664. "I find myself almost the only man in my kingdom who doth not desire war," he added three months later. Clarendon too was notoriously opposed to war; but, like his master, he was obliged to follow the current. When the English Government saw that war was inevitable, it began to look round for allies. Fanshawe

1664-6]

The defeat of English diplomacy

109

was sent to Madrid and Southwell to Lisbon, to negotiate a truce between Spain and Portugal, and if possible an offensive and defensive league with Spain. Sir Gilbert Talbot was sent to Denmark, and Henry Coventry to Sweden, to secure the aid of those Powers against the Dutch. Lord Carlingford went to Vienna to propose to the Emperor Leopold a league between England and the House of Habsburg; Sir Walter Vane was dispatched to Berlin to gain the support of the Elector of Brandenburg. But the only ally England could obtain was the Bishop of Münster, who offered his services in return for a subsidy, made a treaty with Charles II on June 13, 1665, and invaded Holland two months later. All this diplomatic activity was frustrated by the attitude of Louis XIV. On April 27, 1662, he had signed an alliance with Holland by which he was pledged, if Holland were attacked, to aid the Dutch with 12,000 men, and to declare war against its assailant within four months. Charles was badly served by Lord Holles, his ambassador at Paris, and neither realised the precise nature of the engagements of Louis to the Dutch nor the political motives which swayed the French King. Through his sister he endeavoured in vain to procure the support of the French King, or at least his neutrality, and argued that since the Dutch were in reality the aggressors, Louis was not bound to help them. It was all in vain. Louis had no love for the Dutch, but, in view of his designs against the Spanish Netherlands, their future neutrality was necessary to him; nor was he disposed to overthrow their maritime and commercial power for the benefit of England. When the war broke out he sent two extraordinary ambassadors to England in April, 1665, to endeavour to mediate, and sought through his diplomacy to prevent other Powers from taking part in the war. The death of Philip IV of Spain (September 17, 1665) somewhat altered the situation, since an agreement between England and Holland might hinder the designs of Louis on the Netherlands, and its prolongation might facilitate their execution. Accordingly he sent an auxiliary force to the aid of the Dutch, which drove the Münster forces out of Holland, and declared war against England on January 26, 1666. The result was decisive. The King of Denmark, guaranteed by France against any danger from Sweden, allied himself with the Dutch on February 11, 1666. The Elector of Brandenburg on February 16, 1666, made a treaty with the Dutch, promising to aid them with 12,000 men. England's only ally, the Bishop of Münster, threatened alike by France and Brandenburg, made his peace with the Dutch on April 18. Sweden, which had been on the point of forming a league with England, declared itself neutral on July 17, and offered its mediation in the quarrel. Finally, on October 25, 1666, Holland, Denmark, Brandenburg, and the Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg formed what was known as the " Quadruple Alliance" for mutual defence. The diplomatic defeat of England was complete.

110

Effect of the Dutch War on England

[1665-6

At sea during the same period, in spite of some reverses, England had more than held its own. The details of the naval war are related elsewhere. Southwold Bay (June 3, 1665) was a great victory, and the repulse at Bergen (August 16, 1665) had been compensated by the capture of many Dutch ships during the next few months. The battle of June 1-4, 1666, was a defeat, but it was avenged by the victory of July 25, and by the burning of the Dutch merchantmen in the Vlie on August 8. In the West Indies Jamaica and Barbados were two strongholds from which English expeditions sallied forth against the Dutch or the French. Privateers from Jamaica captured St Eustatia, Santa Saba, and Tobago in 1665. In 1666 fortune turned the other way. Antigua, Montserrat, and the English half of St Christopher's fell into the hands of the French, and Surinam was captured by the Dutch.

On the other hand, the internal condition of England at the close of 1666 was extremely unfavourable. The strain of the war had been aggravated by two extraordinary calamities. The plague, which raged in London during the summer and autumn of 1665, swept away nearly 70,000 persons out of a population of rather less than half a million. It was still raging in the eastern and south-eastern counties during the first half of 1666, and in Colchester alone between 4000 and 5000 persons perished from it. In September, 1666, came the Great Fire of London, which is said to have destroyed 13,200 houses and reduced two-thirds of the capital to smouldering ruins. Throughout England there was wide-spread discontent, with complaints of heavy taxes, and of abuses. "The nation," said an anonymous letter addressed to Charles himself, "are ready with every puff of wind to rise up in arms because of the oppression that is laid upon them." There were rumours of conspiracies for the restoration of the Republic. Ludlow, Algernon Sidney, and other exiled republicans were summoned to Amsterdam. It was said that the Dutch Government intended "to relieve the good people," and that Dutch statesmen had at last come to see that their government could not long subsist if monarchy continued in England. De Witt suggested that Louis XIV should seize a convenient port in Ireland, and call on that people to shake off the English yoke. In Scotland there was still greater danger. The war with Holland had closed the only remaining market for Scotch merchandise; and in the western shires, exasperated by religious presecution, a general rising would certainly have followed any landing of the Dutch troops. The Pentland rising showed the temper of the Whigs; and its suppression at Rullion Green on November 27, 1666, was a piece of undeserved good fortune for the Government.

The real difficulty of Charles the Second's Ministers, however, was not the political, but the financial, situation. The King's ordinary revenue, nominally £1,200,000 a year, was really about £900,000, and he was in debt before the war began. In June, 1664, at the first threat of war,

1664-6]

The financial breakdown

111

he had to borrow £100,000 from the City of London in order to equip a fleet for sea. Parliament voted large sums for the expenses of the war. In December, 1664, it imposed a "Royal Aid" of £2,477,500, to be raised by a monthly assessment during the next three years beginning in January, 1665. In October, 1665, it voted an additional aid of £1,250,000, to be levied in the next two years beginning in January, 1666. Thus during 1665 the monthly assessment levied was £68,500 per month, while during 1666 and 1667 it rose to £120,000 per mensem, which was what the Long Parliament had raised during the first Dutch War. But this sum was far from sufficient. The expenses

of the navy between September 1, 1664, and September 29, 1666, came to £3,200,000, and of that sum about £900,000 was still owing. About £238,000 had been spent in subsidies to the Bishop of Münster, whose services had proved a very insufficient return. The deficiency was freely attributed to malversation in high places. It was reported that since the war began £400,000 had been diverted from the service of the State to the Privy Purse, and people said: "Give the King the Countess of Castlemaine, and he cares not what the people suffers." In reality Charles was not to blame for the deficit. No doubt he was extravagant in his private pleasures, but the embarrassments of the State were due to other causes. The new taxes should have been imposed when the preparations for war began, not months after war had broken out. They dribbled in slowly; not a penny of the " Royal Aid" voted in December, 1664, reached the Exchequer till April, 1665. They brought in less than their estimated yield; the "Royal Aid" fell short by about £85,000; the "additional aid" by about £100,000. The Government had to borrow money from bankers at high rates for its daily expenditure, and it could only borrow with great difficulty. For there was no efficient way of anticipating the receipts of taxes already voted by borrowing on the credit of them, nor was the device of funding the debts of the State and assigning certain revenues to provide the interest due upon them as yet naturalised in England. In both respects the Dutch Government had a great advantage over the English. Not only were the United Provinces a far richer country, in which the rate of interest was much lower than it was in England and the available capital much larger, but the whole machinery of public finance was more highly developed, so that the Dutch could bear with comparative ease the burden of a war expenditure which was crushing to an economically more backward nation.

When Parliament met in September, 1666, it resolved to raise £1,800,000 for the King's service; but long disputes followed before the method of raising the sum could be agreed upon. Eventually it was determined to raise £1,256,000 by a monthly assessment beginning in January, 1667, and a poll-tax which was expected to produce £500,000, but really brought in only half that sum. At the same time the House