First Stadtholderless Period - The Second Anglo-Dutch War

The Second Anglo-Dutch War

If the Dutch Republicans wanted an example of a Prince, who fomented trouble by foreign military adventures to the detriment of the common good, they only had to point across the English Channel to the uncle of the Prince of Orange, Charles II of England. Charles had been restored to the throne of his father in 1660, after first apparently making his peace with the Dutch regents, who had so scornfully treated him after 1654. The end of the Protectorate had given the Dutch regents hope that the new English regime might be less bellicose than the Commonwealth. To insure the good graces of Charles he was extensively fêted during his stay in the Netherlands before his triumphant return to England. It was hoped that the Dutch Gift would further mellow his feelings toward the Dutch, maybe even persuade him to rescind the Navigation Acts. Charles took the opportunity to further the interests of his sister Mary and nephew William (now ten years old) by emphasizing his great affection for both. The Orangists, of course, needed little encouragement to add this to their quiver of arguments in favor of dynastic preferment. But also many opportunistic States-Party regents, discerning a change in the wind, started to make pro-Orange noises, especially in the Amsterdam vroedschap. This disturbed De Witt no end, as he feared that this would undermine the position of his party.

Amsterdam now started pushing a special embassy to England that was to negotiate a treaty of friendship, and a defensive alliance against third-party aggression, with Charles. They hoped to persuade the king to formally rescind the Navigation Acts, and to agree to the principle of "Free Ship, Free Goods" (by which they meant an immunity of neutral ships from visitation and confiscation of contraband in time of war), the latter to prevent a recurrence of the English capture of neutral Dutch shipping in the recent English war with Spain. The very generous gift to Charles at first seemed to have the desired effect.

However, soon the hopes of the Dutch peacemongers were dashed with the reappointment of Sir George Downing as English ambassador in The Hague. Downing had also represented the Commonwealth since 1657, but made his turn to the new regime in time. He was not a friend of the Dutch, as they were well aware. On his return he immediately started meddling in Dutch internal affairs by stoking up the Orangist sentiment and undermining De Witt, where possible. The situation was ripe for this, as the Princess Mary had made great advances since August, 1660, convincing Zeeland and Friesland to come out in favor of promising a future stadtholdership for William. The Act of Exclusion was not recognized by the other provinces, as we have seen, and even Holland started to have second thoughts. Leiden and Haarlem proposed that the Prince would be designated stadtholder in future, and De Witt deflected this with some difficulty, at the same time making financial concessions to William's mother, promising to pay for his education as "Child of State." To further mollify her (in hopes of her influencing her brother in favor of the Dutch), the Act of Exclusion was formally revoked in September, 1660 (the Commonwealth having expired as a state, this could be excused as not being a breach of treaty).

However, the improvement of De Witt's personal relations with the Prince and his mother was brought to nought when she suddenly died, like her late husband also of smallpox, in January 1661. She appointed her brother Charles William's guardian in her will. This gave him formal stature to interfere in his nephew's education, and Dutch affairs of state. At the same time, the negotiations about the treaty were not going well. Not only did Charles refuse to retract the Navigation Acts, but he even reissued them in his own name. A further protectionist measure was the bill before the Cavalier Parliament to restrict fishing in a zone of ten miles from the English coast (though in those days territorial waters were supposed to go no further than three miles). This the Dutch would not recognize.

However, the English obstructionism, also in the matter of the peace with Portugal (which Downing helped to frustrate for a long time) actually helped to unify the Dutch politicians in the end behind De Witt. The Amsterdam regents, seeing that they did not get anywhere with Charles, lost their interest in the cause of the Prince. Holland therefore reunited, and the recalcitrant provinces had no chance against a united Holland. Zeeland was brought back in the fold by the aggressive behavior of the new Royal African Company against the WIC (in which Zeeland traditionally had an important interest) in West Africa. This threat to its own interests by the English (and especially William's royal uncles) helped cool Zeeland's fervor for the Orangist cause in 1661.

This left only Friesland to support a pro-English course. At Frisian insistence during 1662 the Republic made a concerted effort to conclude the sought for treaty with England, even if it meant making concessions in the case of trumped up English demands for compensation for alleged damages in the East Indies. Meanwhile, however, De Witt managed to conclude a treaty of alliance with France in April, 1662, among other things guaranteeing the threatened Dutch fisheries. De Witt now felt strengthened enough to start demanding recall of the Dutch plenipotentiaries in England, if no progress with the English treaty could be made. Downing, however, calculated that Friesland, and the land provinces, could be counted upon to keep the Dutch position weak, as he thought they would refuse to pay their share of the cost of a war with England. This was in itself not improbable, if only because the land provinces felt threatened by Bernhard von Galen, the prince-bishop of Münster, who made territorial demands on parts of Overijssel in the early 1660s. They, not unreasonably, demanded military protection against this aggressor from the Generality. However, Downing miscalculated. De Witt managed to strengthen his position, and start a program of naval rearmament in the Summer of 1662. Nevertheless, in the Fall of the same year a treaty of alliance with England was actually signed. But the relations between the two countries had become so strained, that it probably was not worth the parchment it was written on.

Relations continued to deteriorate during 1663 and early 1664. Charles' problem was that with his kingdom also the financial arrangements that had kept his father short of money were restored. Parliament had voted him a seemingly generous grant from the customs and excise duties for life, but his financial needs were greater, and he consequently was constantly looking for additional sources of income. The chartered companies, like the EIC and the RAC, looked promising in this respect, but their profitability depended on a rather predatory method of doing business, that brought them in conflict with especially their Dutch competitors, the VOC and the WIC. The EIC was no match for the VOC, but the WIC was in its turn weaker than the RAC. The latter company managed in 1664 to conquer most of the trading posts of the WIC in West Africa, while in the same year the WIC colony of New Netherland was captured by an English expedition, outfitted by the Duke of York, Charles' brother. These acts of war happened in peace time. The English were confident that the Dutch, because of their supposed internal divisions, would not react forcefully. Again this was a miscalculation. De Witt ordered Vice-Admiral De Ruyter, who was at the time cruising in the Mediterranean, to retake the WIC forts (even though the WIC was supposed to handle its own affairs; in a way by involving the Dutch navy, De Witt was therefore raising the stakes in the conflict).

Charles declared war in March, 1665. Most European courts considered the Dutch the weaker party because (other than the Dutch republican theorists, as we have seen) they considered the Dutch system of government inferior to the English absolute monarchy. Downing predicted that the Dutch would capitulate without a fight. Even if they would fight, they would be hopelessly divided. He expected the land provinces to refuse to pay for the war, or contribute in other ways to the war. In this he was to be disappointed. Even though the war went badly at first for the Dutch (mainly due to the inferiority of their ships and to lacking quality of command), things soon started to pick up, when the Dutch naval construction program started to bear fruit, and De Ruyter was put in overall command. Patriotic fervor among the population helped to subdue Orangist dissension for the duration of the war. The inland provinces not only paid their share, but even did this with alacrity. Friesland even raised special loans for its increased share. The fact that bishop Von Galen, in alliance with England, invaded the eastern provinces in 1665, and even threatened Friesland, after having overrun Drenthe, probably concentrated Frisian minds wonderfully in this respect.

The initial military debacle this provoked for the Dutch army did cause trouble for the De Witt regime. De Witt's brother Cornelis, who acted as deputy-in-the-field (a kind of political commissar) to the army's commander-in-chief John Maurice, Prince of Nassau-Siegen (a cousin twice-removed of the Prince of Orange, who however, was acceptable to the States Party) was implicated in the initial panicky retreat behind the IJssel, that left the eastern provinces unprotected. However, now the French intervened, thanks to De Witt's treaty of alliance of 1662. French forces helped stabilize the Dutch front, and when promised English subsidies failed to materialize, Von Galen was forced to retreat ignominiously. He concluded a humiliating peace in early 1666.

Things started to look up for the Dutch in the naval war also. It is important to understand that both countries had each other in a strategic death-grip. The English might be stronger in their home waters, but like in the first conflict, the Dutch were able to close down English communications farther afield. This time also, the Danes joined the war on the Dutch side, shored up by a Dutch fleet, and closed the Sound to English shipping and trade. The Hanseatics on the other hand, ostensibly neutral, helped the Dutch circumvent any English blockades. In the Mediterranean, the parties made trade impossible for each other. In the East Indies, the VOC swept the EIC from the seas, and took this opportunity to help itself to the last remaining English toeholds in the Indonesian archipelago. In other words, English trade was devastated, with predictable results for the economy, and Charles' finances. This was the crucial factor. The English might arguably win a few more naval battles, and even inflict appreciable damage, as in the raid by admiral Holmes in August, 1666, but the end was never in doubt. The strangulating grip of the Dutch blockade got worse by the day, even preventing coal from Newcastle reaching cold Londoners during the Winter of 1666.

By 1667 Charles had run out of money. He was forced to lay up his fleet, giving free rein to the Dutch blockade. In June, 1667, De Ruyter, now ably assisted by Cornelis de Witt, again as deputy-in-the-field, performed his daring Raid on the Medway, a day that went down in English infamy. But it was less a feat of Dutch arms than one of Dutch finance, as it would not have been possible without the Dutch government simply outspending the English, till the latter was exhausted.

The end came soon thereafter. Charles sued for peace and most Dutch war aims were met at the Treaty of Breda (1667). The Dutch declined to take back New Amsterdam in exchange for Surinam, a decision that may seem unconscionable in modern American eyes, but which in the circumstances of the time must be deemed completely rational: the sugar plantations of Surinam were certainly more valuable than the already hard-pressed fur traders in their environment of hostile New-Englanders. In any case, the next time round, in 1673, the Dutch effortlessly retook "New York" (as it was then styled), renaming it "New Orange", but they again relinquished it to the English, because other things were more valuable.

More important in the long run was that Charles had to recognize the Dutch doctrine of "Free Ship, Free Goods" in the treaty (a concession that was confirmed at the Treaty of Westminster (1674)). This protected neutral Dutch shipping during the many English wars of the 18th century in which the Dutch did not take part, up to the American Revolutionary War. Also, the Navigation Acts were modified in the sense that the German hinterland was recognized as a legitimate place of origin for Dutch commerce, appreciably softening the protectionist bite of those Acts . The territorial concessions of the English were insignificant in comparison.

An intriguing internal political accompaniment to the war was the affair that has become known as the "Buat Conspiracy." Henri Buat was a French officer in the Dutch States Army, who was part of the retinue of the young Prince of Orange. He was engaged, at a low level, in an English conspiracy to bring about an Orangist coup d'état in August, 1666, to overthrow the De Witt regime, end the war, and restore the stadtholderate. Buat, who handled English diplomatic correspondence with the knowledge and consent of De Witt, handed over the wrong letter to the Dutch pensionary in a moment of confusion. This letter exposed the plot and the main plotters. One of them was Johan Kievit, the corrupt Rotterdam regent who would play an ignominious role in the murder of the De Witt brother's in 1672. Though the whole affair was rather farcical, it strengthened De Witt's hand appreciably against his Orangist opponents. De Witt was able to tighten his hold on the "Child of State," among others by having the Prince's beloved governor, his illegitimate uncle, Frederick Nassau de Zuylestein, removed from the Prince's entourage. Apparently, this earned him the enduring enmity of the impressionable boy, who loved the older man dearly. The episode also for the moment put paid to attempts to appoint the Prince to the Raad van State.