470 First Dutch War.

Its importance for Dutch [1651-2

For the Dutch everything was at stake their carrying trade, their import and export trade, their fisheries, and their colonial trade and therefore they could be satisfied with nothing less than absolute naval supremacy. England, on the other hand, with a naval force almost as great, was risking far less commercially; and the result of this disproportion of risks is to be seen in the fact that the Dutch prizes taken during the war amounted to something like double the value of the whole ocean-going mercantile marine of England. The solitary advantage enjoyed by the Dutch was a better banking system, supported by greater financial resources; and even this was to a certain extent neutralised by the jealousies of the Provinces, and the difficulty of adjusting between them the burden of the war. Moreover, the finance of the Republic was based upon its commerce, and Ralegh's comment, made a generation earlier, had lost none of its point: "If... they subsist by their trade, the disturbance of their trade (which England only can disturb) will also disturb their subsistence." On the other hand, at no previous time had England been able so easily to bring her whole financial resources into play. The revolutionary Government had already emancipated itself from the vicious traditions of the subsidy, and had organised the whole power of the country for war; it was free from the constitutional limitations which had proved a hindrance to heavy taxation in the past; and the irresistible force of its veteran army could be applied at every point of the national life.

The outbreak of the war between England and the United Provinces was at one time attributed to the passing of the Navigation Act on October 9, 1651, but is more properly assigned to the effect upon the Dutch carrying trade of the informal maritime war between England and France. The letters of reprisal issued by the English Government let loose privateers, not only upon French ships, but, in accordance with the older maritime law, upon French goods in neutral ships; and this in turn carried with it the right of search. Down to the beginning of 1652, however, there was nothing to show that war was close at hand; but in February the irritation among the Dutch merchants was greatly increased by the news that Ayscue's fleet had seized at or near Barbados 27 Dutch ships found trading there in contravention of an Act of October 3, 1650, forbidding all commerce with the Royalist colonies of Virginia, Bermuda, Barbados, and Antigua. The result of the policy of England towards neutral commerce was that on February 22 the States General decided to fit out 150 extraordinary ships of war, over and above the ordinary fleet, which had been increased already to 76 ships. In spite of financial and other hindrances, by the end of April as many as 88 out of the 150 were reported to be nearly ready for sea. The arrangements made for their distribution show that the chief preoccupation of the Dutch Government was to guard against an invasion; but the instructions given to Tromp involved the ultimate certainty of war.

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Causes of the War

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He was ordered to resist any attempt to exercise the right of search, and it should also be observed that he neither received nor gave any instructions upon the important point of striking the flag.

Meanwhile, although negotiations were still going on in London, the English Government also was busily preparing for all eventualities. The news of the decision to fit out the 150 ships reached Westminster on March 5; and the first of the Orders of the Council of State designed to meet the new situation was dated March 8. The arrangements made included the reinforcement of the summer guard, the building of ships, and the purchase of ordnance. The nature of the emergency compelled the Government once more to rely in part upon armed merchantmen. On March 13 the Council required from all the ports a return of ships of 200 tons burden and over, fit to carry guns, and ordered the owners of them to get them ready for sea. The opening of hostilities might perhaps have been delayed if the two navies had not come into premature collision over the question of the flag. The action off Folkestone on May 19, 1652, was then and afterwards supposed to have been the result of a premeditated attack by the Dutch fleet. It is, however, now certain that the conflict was due to a misunderstanding between Tromp and Blake. The news was received by the Dutch Government with something like consternation; but the English Commission of Enquiry reported that Tromp had deliberately provoked the conflict, and against this it was impossible for the advocates of reconciliation to make any headway. Nor was it in England only that the tide of popular excitement was rising. The Dutch Government had always to reckon with the possibility of a revolution in favour of the House of Orange, if they should appear to be sacrificing the national honour of which the Stadholders had always been so jealous. Accordingly, on June 30, the final rupture took place, and the Dutch ambassadors withdrew. One of them remarked just before their departure: "The English are about to attack a mountain of gold; we are about to attack a mountain of iron."

The war opened with an English attack upon Dutch commerce. On June 26 Blake, with about sixty ships, set sail for the north. He was ordered "to take and seize upon the Dutch East India fleet homeward bound," and to "interrupt and disturb" the Dutch fishery upon the coast of Scotland and England, and the Dutch "Eastland" (or Baltic) trade, at the same time securing that of the Commonwealth. Ayscue with a small force was left in the Downs to guard the mouth of the Thames, and to intercept Dutch commerce as it passed the narrow part of the Channel. On July 2 with nine ships he attacked the Dutch fleet homeward bound from Portugal, and managed to take seven and burn three. Tromp had been prevented from an immediate pursuit of Blake by northerly winds; and he therefore turned upon Ayscue in overwhelming force, with 96 ships of war and 10 fireships, and on July 11 prepared to attack him in the Downs, where he lay with only 16 ships. By great

472

Blake and Tromp in the North Sea

[1652

good fortune, however, the wind dropped, and then blew strongly from the south, making it impossible for the Dutch to beat up against it through the Narrows, and at the same time giving the long-lookedfor opportunity for the pursuit of Blake. But it was only by this accident that Ayscue escaped annihilation.

When on July 11 Tromp started on his pursuit of Blake, he was without any certain information of the English admiral's whereabouts, and was prepared to "search the whole of the North Sea, even as far as Shetland"; and it was off Shetland that he found him, fresh from the inglorious exploit of breaking up the herring fleet. But once more the weather befriended England. On July 25, a few hours after Tromp had succeeded in locating the English fleet, a great storm blew up from the south-west, converting the Shetlands into a dangerous lee shore for the Dutch, while they served to shelter Blake, who was north-east of them, from the fury of the gale. On the morning of the 26th Tromp could only muster 34 warships out of 92 and one fireship out of 7. Most of the missing ships ultimately reached Dutch ports in safety, but at the time they were supposed to have been lost, and it was therefore decided to make for home.

When Tromp sailed away to the north, leaving Ayscue undamaged in the Downs, a situation was created which compelled the Dutch Government to take further steps for the protection of that part of their commerce which passed through the Straits of Dover. For this purpose a new fleet of 23 men-of-war and 6 fireships, under the command of Michael de Ruyter, put to sea on August 1 escorting a number of merchantmen outward bound to Spain and Italy, and intended to meet the ships homeward bound. Meanwhile, the policy of the English Government was being determined by precisely similar considerations. On July 20 instructions were sent to Ayscue to sail to the westward for the better security of the ships homeward bound from the Indies, the Straits, Guinea, Spain and Portugal, convoying them, if necessary, from the Land's End, or Scilly, or even "further to sea." Thus the two fighting fleets, drawn by identical motives, were moving westward along the great highway of trade; and the next action of the war was sure to be fought at the point at which they should meet. The fleets met on August 16 between Plymouth and the coast of France; and, in spite of the fact that Ayscue with his 40 men-of-war and 5 fireships outnumbered the war fleet of the enemy, now reinforced, by something like four to three, he was compelled, after a sharp engagement, to put into Plymouth to repair damages, and Ruyter was able to send his convoy on its way. The disparity of forces was to a certain extent redressed by the fact that some of the merchantmen which Ruyter was escorting were armed, and it is possible that they took part in the fight. In this engagement, as in the later battles of the war, the English fire was directed mainly upon the hulls of the Dutch ships; the Dutch, on the

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Actions off Plymouth and the Kentish Knock

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other hand, fired at the masts, sails, and rigging, "the enemy's main design being to spoil them, in hope thereby to make the better use of their fireships upon us." It is also noticeable that both sides complained of the behaviour of some of their captains.

sea.

The next action in the war was due to considerations of a different kind. On his return from the north Tromp had been suspended; and the command of his fleet had been given to Vice-Admiral de With. Towards the end of September de With found himself reinforced by Ruyter, and set free for a moment by the safe arrival of the homeward-bound fleet from Spain and Italy from the necessity of protecting trade; he was therefore tempted to strike directly at the English warforce in the hope of overwhelming Blake and obtaining command of the For such an enterprise the force at his disposal was inadequate ; but this was not realised at the time, and on September 25 he appeared at the back of the Goodwins, intending to attack Blake as he lay at anchor in the Downs. The weather, however, made the operation. impossible, and the action was not fought until September 28, when Blake took the initiative, and with sixty-eight sail encountered the Dutch fleet of fifty-seven ships off the Kentish Knock, one of the most easterly of the sands which guard the mouth of the Thames. The fight began about five in the afternoon, "continuing till it was dark night.' The resistance of the Dutch, strenuous and fierce as it was at the beginning, was beaten down by sheer weight of metal and accuracy of fire. They lost two ships in action and their fleet was further weakened by the withdrawal of about twenty more, most of them commanded by captains from Zeeland, who were hostile to the domination of Holland, which de With represented. On September 30, therefore, de With decided to return home, under the erroneous impression that Blake's fleet had been strengthened by the arrival of sixteen large ships on the preceding day.

The importance of the victory off the Kentish Knock appears to have been exaggerated by the English Government, who regarded the war as over for the year. The batteries constructed to protect the anchorage in the Downs were dismantled, and Blake was ordered to detach twenty ships for service in the Mediterranean. Towards the end of November, 1652, he was left with only forty-two ships of war in the Downs, besides fireships and smaller craft. Meanwhile the Dutch Government had recalled Tromp to his command, and had been straining every nerve to set forth another fleet. On November 21 Tromp put to sea from Helvoetsluys with a force which was soon augmented to eighty-eight ships of war, besides five fireships and eight smaller craft. He was, however, hampered by an enormous outward-bound convoy; and on the 22nd he had with him altogether as many as 450 ships. Leaving his merchantmen off the Flemish coast, on November 29 he appeared suddenly at the back of the Goodwins, and Blake decided to leave his anchorage and fight.

474 Action off Dungeness.- English reorganisation [1652

The two fleets came into action off Dungeness about three in the afternoon of November 30. The fight was stubbornly maintained with what a contemporary account describes as "bounteous rhetoric of powder and bullet" until the combatants were separated by the darkness, when Blake, completely outmatched, retreated to Dover Road under cover of night, and the next day returned to his anchorage in the Downs. The Dutch had succeeded in taking two ships; besides this, one had been burnt, three blown up, and many others severely damaged. Besides his inferiority in force there was another cause for his defeat-"much baseness of spirit, not among the merchantmen only, but many of the State's ships." The defence of the defaulting captains was that they "had not men enough to ply their tackle"; and the evidence of the want of seamen about this time makes this very probable.

The effect of their victory off Dungeness was to transfer to the Dutch the control of the Channel; and the great highway of Dutch trade once more swarmed with ships. English prizes were taken almost at pleasure, and a projected attack on the Thames itself was only abandoned for want of pilots. It was at this time, according to the popular fable, that Tromp hoisted a broom at his masthead to indicate that he had swept the English from the seas. There is of course no good authority for crediting so steady and sober-minded a seaman as Tromp with any such melodramatic proceeding. The year 1652 also closed badly for England elsewhere than in the Channel, for the Dutch established a decisive superiority in the Mediterranean, with the result that, early in 1653, the English Levant trade was at their mercy; and their understanding with Denmark led to the closing of the Sound against England, and the detention of English merchant ships bringing "Eastland commodities" from the Baltic. This cut the English navy off from the main source of its supply of hemp, tar, and certain kinds of timber and plank, but the starvation of the dockyards was averted, as naval stores came in slowly from various places in spite of the measures taken to intercept them, and the naval administrators of the Commonwealth displayed much ingenuity in opening new sources of supply.

The defeat off Dungeness was followed by an enquiry into its causes, and this in turn by extensive measures of reorganisation in the English navy, which were destined to exercise an important influence upon the issue of the war. A new scale of pay was adopted for officers and seamen ; a new scheme was adopted for putting an end to the delays in the distribution of prize-money; and, by the Laws of War and Ordinances of the Sea, published on December 25, 1652, captains and ships' companies displaying reluctance to engage were rendered liable to the penalty of death, as also those guilty of slackness in defending a convoy. A change of the utmost importance was also made in the system upon which armed merchantmen were hired. The reluctance of the merchant captains, who were often part-owners, to risk their ships in action, had