George Edmundson

“ The news of the journey of Prince Charles to Madrid changed disquietude into genuine alarm, lest James, irritated as he was by a succession of fruitless negotiations and long-protracted disputes, might be tempted to cement the Spanish marriage by an alliance with the hereditary foe, and to seek redress against the United Provinces by force of arms. ”

“ The treaty with England still subsisted by the terms of which the Commander of the English auxiliary troops with two colleagues had seats in the Council of State, but the Council of State ceased ere long to have any but executive functions. The conduct of affairs affecting the whole Union was vested in the States-General as representing the States of the seven sovereign provinces from which its authority was derived. A more cumbrous system of government than that under which the United Provinces were now to develop rapidly into a powerful and flourishing State, probably never existed. ”

“ I have heard great lords with tears of the deepest affliction lamenting the present state of things and grieving how England has already fallen in reputation with all the world, England whose name and whose forces were feared by foes and esteemed by friends. ”

“ It was no small relief to her that the coast lying opposite to the mouth of the Thames, with its many ports and hardy sea-faring population, should no longer be at the disposal of the master of the strongest navy in the world. She felt a certain amount of sympathy with the Dutch on religious grounds, but a sympathy tempered by political considerations, and strictly subordinated to them. To support the rebellion of subjects against their legitimate ruler was to the instincts of the Tudor Queen a course which only necessity could justify. ”

“ Then on the top of this the shameful treatment to which the parliamentary envoys had been persistently exposed was angrily recalled, the refusal of the States-General for years to admit Strickland to an audience, the murder of Doreslaar, and lastly the insults offered to the latest embassy. All these things formed a formidable bill of indictment. As the efforts of the Parliament to effect a close union between the republics for their common interest had failed, it became the clear duty of the English Government to take measures to protect the national interests against unscrupulous rivals. ”

“ Nevertheless there was genuine alarm in the Netherlands that the continuance of the war between France and England would be injurious to their interests by forcing one of the combatants to seek the alliance of Spain. The missions of Cats to England and of Carleton to the Hague, though they failed in bringing about any real settlement of the differences between the two powers, at least effected an understanding that, for a time at any rate, grievances were not to be pressed. ”

“ The English people saw the growing maritime strength and rapidly increasing commercial prosperity of the Dutch with jealous eyes. Their practical monopoly of the British fisheries was deeply resented. Pamphlets were written lamenting the decadence of English shipping and trade. [9] It was felt that the ancient claim of England to the sovereignty and dominion of the narrow seas was being challenged, and that its maintenance depended upon the numbers and the experience of the sea-faring population, for whom the fisheries were the best and most practical school. ”

“ The big fishes eat the small ones. He who has the might uses it; every one speaks merely of uprightness, of sincerity, of affection, and there is nothing but deception and hypocrisy on all sides. The English thought also (as was quite true) that they had done much for the common cause and for the Reformed Religion: and that it behoved this State likewise to suffer some inconvenience in their commerce; because otherwise all business which was in England, would find its way to the United Provinces, if these with too great and undisturbed freedom should use the sea, and not the English. ”

“ These words required explanation, but it seemed that they could only point to an alliance so intimate and binding as to be another term for coalition. Such was indeed its meaning in the minds of those who proposed it, and so the Dutch interpreted it. To them, however, not unnaturally, the only idea suggested by a coalition with the English Commonwealth was the loss by the smaller republic of its independence, and its practical absorption in the larger. Such an idea was simply [152] unthinkable to men who had just won the recognition of their independence after eighty years of heroic struggle. ”

“ The English resented the continued presence of the Dutch fishermen both in the home waters and in the Northern Seas, for they not only carried off the profits from what were regarded as British industries, but behaved with overbearing arrogance as if in their own domain. The Hollanders found themselves permitted, as it were on sufferance, to continue an occupation which supplied a large part of their population with sustenance and was the basis of their prosperity. ”

“ The Dutch were greatly disturbed, as the twelve years' truce was drawing to an end, at the prospect of the Spaniards being able through their alliance with the Emperor to march from their post of vantage on the Rhine straight upon the Netherlands, and were therefore anxious to secure the goodwill and help of England in the serious struggle which they saw before them. They felt confident that, despite his love of peace, James would be forced to take active steps to defend his son-in-law's lands from conquest, and the cause of Protestantism in Germany from ruin. ”

“ Worse than all, a number of Dutch merchant vessels had been seized and searched on the ground that they were carrying contraband and trading with the Spanish enemy. The Hollanders throughout the War of Independence had always insisted on the right to freedom of commerce even with their foes, and by supplying the Spaniards not only with food but with arms and munitions, had made [95] immense profits, which helped largely to fill the rebel war-chest. It was the attempt of Leicester to stop this commerce, which chiefly caused his unpopularity in the Netherlands. ”

“ The varying fortunes of the obstinate and fiercely contested struggles with the Dutch for maritime and commercial supremacy in the days of the Commonwealth and the Restoration are familiar to all readers of English history, and especially of English naval history. Never did English seamen fight better than in these Dutch wars, and never did they meet more redoubtable foes. ”

“ Thus by the efforts of these two men, each eminent in his separate sphere, the youthful Republic, despite the inherent weaknesses of a confederacy so loosely compacted as that of the United Provinces, was able to carry out a wise and consistent foreign policy, to defend its borders, and meanwhile to thrive and flourish.
The relations between England and the States required the most careful handling during the whole of the period that intervened between the return of Leicester and the death of Elizabeth. ”

“ Richelieu was now firmly established in power, and in his hands Henry IV's policy of hostility to the ascendancy in Europe of the house of Habsburg was revived. Charles was therefore not without hopes of obtaining armed assistance from France in that war with Spain for the recovery of the Palatinate on which his heart was set. In the United Provinces, Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, succeeded to all the posts and to more than the influence of his brother. He was, as a general, the equal of Maurice, and was far superior to him as a statesman. ”

“ The 'Greenland' fisheries question had reached an acute stage. Such a condition of things could not continue, and Sir Dudley Carleton, the English ambassador, appeared in person before the States-General (October 3, 1618) to utter a strong remonstrance and to urge the States, if they wished to remain on good [48] terms with the King, to dispatch a special embassy to deal with the disputes that had arisen between the two countries, not only concerning the 'Greenland' fishing, but in the East Indies, and about the herring fishery and the cloth trade also. ”

“ If, then, any people had preferential rights in the waters surrounding Spitzbergen, it was the Dutch, but the States did not claim or admit any such rights. They held that the sea was open to all to navigate and to fish in without let or hindrance. To Winwood, who in August, 1613, quitted the Hague to become Secretary of State in London, was entrusted the mission of bringing the complaints and the protest of the States to the notice of James, and further, of asking for reparation to the Amsterdammers, whose vessels had been seized and plundered. ”

“ The command of the sea—then as at all times—was vital to an island power. The English were beginning to see in the Dutch not merely competitors in trade, who were ousting them from every market, but possible rivals for the dominion even of those 'narrow seas [19] ' in which the Kings of England had so long claimed to have paramount sovereignty and jurisdiction. ”

“ By these instructions he was bidden to assist Carleton in pressing upon the States the advantages of friendship with England in preference to France, and the necessity, if they wished to obtain it, of forbidding the construction of French war-vessels in the Dutch ports, and of punishing adequately the perpetrators of 'the foule and bloody fact' of Amboina. It will thus be seen that diplomacy during these years 1627 and 1628 was indeed busy, so busy that it is by no means easy to see light clearly amidst such a tangled web of negotiations. ”

“ The appearance of a Russian embassy at the Hague in 1614 was the mark of the triumph of Dutch diplomacy at Moscow: henceforth Russia was practically closed to all but Netherlanders. In 1615 a treaty with the Hanse towns placed the Baltic trade even more completely than it had been in Dutch hands. In the East Indies the English Company could not compete with its far wealthier and more thoroughly organized rival. ”

“ No sooner were the signatures appended to the treaty than James took a step which exposed to a very severe strain his relations with the people whose emancipation from Spanish rule he had, ostensibly at least, worked hard to accomplish. Many indeed in Holland had been suspicious of the real friendliness of [19] his attitude during the negotiations, but very few probably imagined that he was preparing, as soon as they were ended, to put to the test their sense of the value of his services and of his alliance by striking a deadly blow at the most important of their industries. ”

“ You have in the Indies a Man [33] who well deserves to be hanged. Your people over there represent everywhere your Prince of Orange as a great King and Lord, and hold me up as a little kinglet, as if I stood under him, thus misleading the barbarian kings. ”

“ An accord at last having been reached on East Indian affairs, the envoys announced that after fourteen months' sojourn in London they were unable to remain longer. Caron, they said, would have full powers to carry on negotiations about the Greenland matter. So far as any real settlement of disputes was concerned, the embassy was again a complete failure. Even the accord in the East was a sham. The English Company had obtained a nominal position of equality with its Dutch rival in the Indies, and a definite share of the coveted trade in the Spice islands. ”

“ France had promised to the States a yearly subsidy, and a loan of troops on condition that the Dutch would send a squadron to assist in the blockade of La Rochelle, and would undertake not to conclude a peace or truce with Spain without the knowledge and consent of the French King. Charles felt that his strenuous efforts to increase his fleet and render it more efficient, with the aim of making the English navy supreme in the Channel and the North Sea, were directly threatened by such an alliance. ”

“ Frederick was head of the Protestant Union, but the forces of the Union were disunited (indeed it was soon [64] afterwards dissolved) , and although Sir Horace Vere, at the head of a fine body of 2,000 English volunteers, escorted by a strong Dutch force, made his way to the scene of conflict, he was unable to prevent the Spanish conquest of the Lower Palatinate. The unfortunate King of Bohemia, a homeless fugitive, was compelled with his wife, Elizabeth of England, to seek refuge with his uncle, the Prince of Orange, at the Hague. ”

“ If we want ships, we are dissolved.' As Gentleman's pamphlet is valuable for its detailed statistics of the fishing industry of the Hollanders, even more so is that of J. R. for its broad survey of and comparison between the Dutch and English trade in every part of the world. From country to country and sea to sea in all branches of commerce he shows how the English are being driven out by their more enterprising competitors. ”

“ In the interval James's third Parliament had met (February 9) . The King's financial necessities had forced him to summon a Parliament, and the session was to prove a very stormy one. The leaders of the Commons at once demanded the redress of many grievances and proceeded to attack those whom they charged with being the cause of the abuses they denounced, more especially the omnipotent favourite, Buckingham himself. ”