BUST OF CROMWELL.
ATTRIBUTED TO BERNINI.
(In the Palace of Westminster, 1899.)
Ere this took place, England had become involved in a war with Holland. The two Protestant Republics seemed created by nature for allies. England had helped the Dutch to establish their freedom, and Holland had ever been the chosen refuge of Puritan fugitives. But ever since 1642, dynastic and commercial causes had driven the two states farther apart. The marriage of William II. with Mary, daughter of Charles I., had secured the support of the Stadtholder to Charles I. and Charles II., and neutralised the good will of the Dutch republicans. With the death of William II., in October, 1650, and the practical abolition of the office of Stadtholder, the republican party gained the ascendancy, and better relations seemed possible. Six months later, the Commonwealth sent St. John and Strickland to The Hague to offer on behalf of England, not merely a renewal of the old amity, but “a more strict and intimate alliance and union, whereby there may be a more intrinsical and mutual interest of each in other than hath hitherto been, for the good of both.” The Dutch were willing to make a close commercial alliance, but would go no farther, and negotiations were broken off without any discussion of the “coalescence,” or political union, which the English ambassadors were empowered to propose. After this failure the commercial rivalry of the two nations became more acute. “We are rivals,” a member of the Long Parliament once said, “for the fairest mistress in the world—trade.” In March, 1651, the Dutch made a treaty with Denmark, which damaged English trade in the Baltic. In October, England passed the Navigation Act, which at one stroke barred Dutch commerce with the English colonies, deprived Dutch fishermen of their market in England, and threatened to destroy the Dutch carrying trade. The United Provinces sent ambassadors to negotiate for its repeal, but other questions arose which complicated the situation still further. There were old disputes about the acknowledgment of the sovereignty of England in the British seas, the salute due to the English flag, and the right to exact tribute for permission to fish. There was a new dispute about the rights of neutrals. England, practically at war with France, claimed the right of seizing French goods in Dutch ships, whilst the Dutch put forward the principle that the flag covered the cargo. Memories of the Amboyna Massacre, and demands for compensation for old misdeeds of the Dutch in the East Indies, put fresh obstacles in the way of agreement. Then on May 12, 1652, came a chance collision between Blake and Tromp, off Dover, and the two Republics were at war.
To Cromwell, nothing could have been more unwelcome than this war with the Dutch. He thought England in the right on the questions at issue between the two states, and when Parliament sent him to investigate the causes of the fight, he came back convinced that the fault lay with Tromp and not with Blake. But the war threatened to frustrate for ever the scheme of a league of Protestant powers which Cromwell cherished in his heart. “I do not like the war,” he declared to the representatives of the Dutch congregation in London; “I will do everything in my power to bring about peace.” In every attempt made to come to terms with the Dutch, Cromwell headed the peace party, and the negotiations through unofficial agents, which began in the summer of 1652, were inspired by him.
At first, the result of the war was favourable to England. The Dutch had an enormous commerce and a comparatively small navy; England had a large navy and comparatively little commerce. “The English,” said a Dutchman, “were attacking a mountain of gold, while the Dutch were attacking a mountain of iron.” Individually, the English men-of-war were stronger vessels than the Dutch, and armed with heavier guns. Moreover, English naval operations were under the direction of one body, whilst the Dutch were managed by five distinct admiralty boards. Added to this, the geographical position of England gave it the command of the route by which Dutch fleets approached their own shores, and while Blake and Ayscue were free to attack as they chose, the Dutch admirals were generally hampered by the task of defending large convoys of merchantmen. In November, 1652, however, Tromp defeated Blake off Dungeness, and for more than two months the command of the Channel passed to the Dutch. It was not regained till Blake and Monk defeated him in a three days’ fight off Portland, in February, 1653. Meanwhile, in the Mediterranean, one English squadron had been defeated off Elba, and another was blockaded in Leghorn; the Baltic was closed to English commerce, Denmark was about to ally itself with Holland to maintain the exclusion, and 1652 closed gloomily for the Commonwealth.
A still stronger argument for peace was provided by the internal condition of England. The war put a stop to all reforms; instead of progress there was a retrograde movement. The army cost a million and a half a year, the navy nearly a million; three hundred thousand pounds were required to build new frigates, and there was a deficit of about half a million. To meet this expenditure, the Long Parliament fell back on the old plan and confiscated the estates of about 650 persons, and applied the proceeds to the maintenance of the navy. Most of the persons thus sentenced to beggary were insignificant people who had done nothing deserving such a punishment. The healing policy which Cromwell had advocated was definitely abandoned, and he was full of indignation at the injustice he witnessed. “Poor men,” he afterwards said, “were driven like flocks of sheep by forty in a morning to confiscation of goods and estates, without any man being able to give a reason why two of them should forfeit a shilling.”
The reorganisation of the Church ceased to make any progress. Parliament discussed some of the proposals of Cromwell’s committee, but did nothing. One of its last acts was to decline to continue the powers of the Commissioners for the Propagation of the Gospel in Wales, appointed some three years earlier. To Cromwell, this refusal seemed a deliberate discouragement of “the poor people of God in Wales,” and a clear proof that men zealous for the spread of religion had little to hope from the Parliament. “That business,” he said, “to myself and officers was as plain a trial of their spirits as anything.” As to the reform of the law, it appeared equally hopeless. Hale’s bills lay neglected on the table of the House, or, like that for the registration of all titles to land, were swamped by floods of talk in committee.
“I will not say,” said Cromwell of the Parliament, “that they were come to an utter inability of working reformation, though I might say so in regard to one thing—the Reformation of the law, so much groaned under in the posture it is now. That was a thing we had many good words spoken for, but we know now that three months together were not enough for the settling of one word ‘Incumbrances.’”
The army grew more and more impatient. In August, 1652, the council of officers presented a petition to Parliament demanding that “speedy and effectual means” should be taken for carrying out a long list of reforms specified. But for Cromwell they would have included in it the demand for an immediate dissolution. The House gave the officers good words in plenty, and told them that the things they asked for were “under consideration,” but months passed and there were only a few feeble indications of activity. In October, meetings began between the officers and the leading members of Parliament.
“I believe,” affirmed Cromwell, “we had at least ten or twelve meetings, most humbly begging and beseeching of them that by their own means they would bring forth those good things which had been promised and expected; that so it might appear that they did not do them by any suggestion from the army, but from their own ingenuity: so tender were we to preserve them in the reputation of the people.”