1664. Preliminaries

The occurrences in the Mediterranean and on the coast of Africa were but incidents in a movement that was rapidly arid inevitably leading England and Holland into war. At the root of it all was commercial jealousy. The Dutch held the carrying trade of Europe, and the English growth threatened what they pleased to consider as their monopoly. The English too, as Albemarle said, were determined to have a larger share of the trade. “The trade of the world is too little for us two,” remarked a naval Captain, “therefore one must down.” The Navigation Acts had done their work in irritating the Dutch, if not in actually excluding them in the way intended. Frequent disputes on the vexed questions of the salute and ‘Dominion of the Seas’ claimed by England added to the general tension. Goaded as she was beyond all patience, Holland was not over-eager for war, and it was a difficult question how the war could be precipitated and at the same time blamed to her with at least some show of plausibility.

“It seems the King's design,” says Pepys, “is by getting underhand the merchants to bring in their complaints to the Parliament, to make them in honour begin a warr, which he cannot in honour declare first, for feare they should not second him with money.” The court was ‘mad’ for the war and the idea was intensely popular in the country.