[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. March 10.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. April 17.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. May 10.]
of either by sea and land, and a renewal of the whole treaty of 1495, with such modifications as might adapt it to existing times and circumstances. The States, having demanded in vain an explanation of the proposed confederacy,[a] presented a counter project; but while the different articles remained under discussion, the period prefixed by the parliament expired, and the ambassadors departed. To whom the failure of the negotiation was owing became a subject of controversy. The Hollanders blamed the abrupt and supercilious carriage of St. John and his colleague; the ambassadors charged the States with having purposely created delay, that they might not commit themselves by a treaty with the commonwealth, before they had seen the issue of the contest between the king of Scotland and Oliver Cromwell.[1]
In a short time that contest was decided in the battle of Worcester, and the States condescended to become petitioners in their turn. Their ambassadors arrived in England with the intention of resuming the negotiation where it had been interrupted by the departure of St. John and his colleague. But circumstances were now changed; success had enlarged the pretensions of the parliament; and the British, instead of shunning, courted a trial of strength with the Belgic lion. First, the Dutch merchantmen were visited under the pretext of searching for munitions of war, which they were carrying to the enemy; and then, at the representation of certain merchants, who conceived themselves to have been injured by the Dutch navy, letters of marque were granted to several individuals, and more than eighty prizes brought into
[Footnote 1: Thurloe, i. 179, 183, 188-195. Heath, 285-287. Carte's
Letters, i. 464. Leicester's Journal, 107. Parl. History, xx. 496.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. June 14.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. June 20.]
the English ports.[1] In addition, the navigation act had been passed and carried into execution,[a] by which it was enacted that no goods, the produce of Africa, Asia, and America, should be imported into this country in ships which were not the property of England or its colonies; and that no produce or manufacture of any part of Europe should be imported, unless in ships the property of England or of the country of which such merchandise was the proper growth or manufacture.[2] Hitherto the Dutch had been the common carriers of Europe; by this act, the offspring of St. John's resentment, one great and lucrative branch of their commercial prosperity was lopped off, and the first, but fruitless demand of the ambassadors was that, if not repealed, it should at least be suspended during the negotiation.
The Dutch merchants had solicited permission to indemnify themselves by reprisals; but the States ordered a numerous fleet to be equipped, and announced to all the neighbouring powers that their object was, not to make war, but to afford protection to their commerce. By the council of state, the communication was received as a menace; the English ships of war were ordered to exact in the narrow seas the same honour to the flag of the commonwealth as had been formerly paid to that of the king; and the
[Footnote 1: It seems probable that the letters of marque were granted not against the Dutch, but the French, as had been done for some time, and that the Dutch vessels were detained under pretence of their having French property on board. Suivant les pretextes de reprisailles contre les François et autres.—Dumont, vi. ii. 32.]
[Footnote 2: An exception was made in favour of commodities from the Levant seas, the West Indies, and the ports of Spain and Portugal, which might be imported from the usual places of trading, though they were not the growth of the said places. The penalty was the forfeiture of the ship and cargo, one moiety to the commonwealth, the other to the informer.—New Parl. Hist. iii. 1374.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Oct. 9.]