[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. July 10.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. July 14.]

[Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. Jan. 31.]

[Sidenote e: A.D. 1650. April 3.]

[Sidenote e: A.D. 1650. May 26.]

[Sidenote g: A.D. 1650. May 27.]

six Englishmen entered the house; four remained below to watch; two burst into the room, exclaiming, "Welcome, gallants, welcome;" and in a moment both the amba.s.sador and the interpreter lay on the floor weltering in their blood. Of the a.s.sa.s.sins, one, a servant to Cottington and Hyde, the envoys from Charles, fled to the house of the Venetian amba.s.sador, and escaped; the other five took refuge in a neighbouring chapel, whence, by the king's order, they were conducted to the common goal. When the criminal process was ended, they all received judgment of death. The crime, it was acknowledged, could not be justified; yet the public feeling was in favour of the criminals: the people, the clergy, the foreign amba.s.sadors, all sought to save them from punishment; and, though the right of sanctuary did not afford protection to murderers, the king was, but with difficulty, persuaded to send them back to their former asylum. Here, while they remained within its precincts, they were safe; but the moment they left the sanctuary, their lives became forfeited to the law. The people supplied them with provisions, and offered the means of escape. They left Madrid; the police pursued; Sparkes, a native of Hampshire, was taken about three miles from the city; and the parliament, unable to obtain more, appeared to be content with the blood of this single victim.[1]

6. These negotiations ended peaceably; those between the commonwealth and the United Provinces, though commenced with friendly feelings, led to hostilities. It might have been expected that the Dutch, mindful of the glorious struggle for liberty maintained

[Footnote 1: Compare Clarendon, iii. 369, with the Papers in Thurloe, i.

148-153, 202, and Harleian Miscellany, iv. 280.]

by their fathers, and crowned with success by the treaty of Munster, would have viewed with exultation the triumph of the English republicans. But William the Second, prince of Orange, had married[a] a daughter of Charles I.; his views and interests were espoused by the military and the people; and his adherents possessed the ascendancy in the States General and in all the provincial states, excepting those of West Friesland and Holland.

As long as he lived, no atonement could be obtained for the murder of Dorislaus, no audience for Strickland, the resident amba.s.sador, though that favour was repeatedly granted to Boswell, the envoy of Charles.[1] However, in November the prince died[b] of the small-pox in his twenty-fourth year; and a few days later[c] his widow was delivered of a son, William III., the same who subsequently ascended the throne of England. The infancy of his successor emboldened the democratical party; they abolished the office of stadtholder, and recovered the ascendancy in the government. On the news of this revolution, the council advised that St. John, the chief justice of the Common Pleas, and Strickland, the former envoy, should be appointed amba.s.sadors extraordinary to the States General. St. John, with the fate of Ascham before his eyes, sought to escape this dangerous mission; he alleged[d] the infirmity of his health and the insalubrity of the climate; but the parliament derided his timidity, and his pet.i.tion was dismissed on a division by a considerable majority.[2]

Among the numerous projects which the English leaders cherished under the intoxication of success, was that of forming, by the incorporation of the

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, i. 112, 113, 114, 124.]

[Footnote 2: Journals, 1651, Jan. 21, 23, 28.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1646. Dec. 8.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Nov. 6.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. Nov. 14.]

[Sidenote d: A.D. 1651. Jan. 28.]

United Provinces with the commonwealth, a great and powerful republic, capable of striking terror into all the crowned heads of Europe. But so many difficulties were foreseen, so many objections raised, that the amba.s.sadors received instructions to confine themselves to the more sober proposal of "a strict and intimate alliance and union, which might give to each a mutual and intrinsical interest" in the prosperity of the other.

They made their public entry into the Hague[a] with a parade and retinue becoming the representatives of a powerful nation; but external splendour did not check the popular feeling, which expressed itself by groans and hisses, nor intimidate the royalists, who sought every occasion of insulting "the things called amba.s.sadors."[1] The States had not forgotten the offensive delay of the parliament to answer their emba.s.sy of intercession for the life of Charles I.; nor did they brook the superiority which it now a.s.sumed, by prescribing a certain term within which the negotiation should be concluded. Pride was met with equal pride; the amba.s.sadors were compelled to solicit a prolongation of their powers,[b]

and the treaty began to proceed with greater rapidity. The English proposed[c] a confederacy for the preservation of the liberties of each nation against all the enemies

[Footnote 1: Thus they are perpetually called in the correspondence of the royalists.--Carte's Letters, i. 447, 469; ii. 11. Strickland's servants were attacked at his door by six cavaliers with drawn swords; an attempt was made to break into St. John's bedchamber; Edward, son to the queen of Bohemia, publicly called the amba.s.sadors rogues and dogs; and the young duke of York accidentally meeting St. John, who refused to give way to him, s.n.a.t.c.hed the amba.s.sador's hat off his head and threw it in his face, saying, "Learn, parricide, to respect the brother of your king." "I scorn,"

he replied, "to acknowledge either, you race of vagabonds." The duke drew his sword, but mischief was prevented by the interference of the spectators,--New Parl. Hist. iii. 1, 364.]

[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 circ.u.mstances.

The States, having demanded in vain an explanation of the proposed confederacy,[a] presented a counter project;[b] but while the different articles remained under discussion, the period prefixed by the parliament expired, and the amba.s.sadors 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 amba.s.sadors 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 pet.i.tioners in their turn. Their amba.s.sadors 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 circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.sed 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 amba.s.sadors 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 Francois 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.]

amba.s.sadors were reminded of the claim of indemnification for the losses sustained by the English in the East Indies, of a free trade from Middleburgh to Antwerp, and of the tenth herring which was due from the Dutch fishermen for the permission to exercise their trade in the British seas.

While the conferences were yet pending, Commodore Young met[a] a fleet of Dutch merchantmen under convoy in the Channel; and, after a sharp action, compelled the men-of-war to salute the English flag. A few days later[b]

the celebrated Van Tromp appeared with two-and-forty sail in the Downs. He had been instructed to keep at a proper distance from the English coast, neither to provoke nor to shun hostility, and to salute or not according to his own discretion; but on no account to yield to the newly-claimed right of search.[1] To Bourne, the English, commander, he apologized for his arrival, which, he said, was not with any hostile design, but in consequence of the loss of several anchors and cables on the opposite coast. The next day[c] he met Blake off the harbour of Dover; an action took place between the rival commanders; and, when the fleets separated in the evening, the English cut off two ships of thirty guns, one of which they took, the other they abandoned, on account of the damage which it had received.

It was a question of some importance who was the aggressor. By Blake it was a.s.serted that Van Tromp had gratuitously come to insult the English fleet in its own roads, and had provoked the engagement by firing the first broadside. The Dutchman replied that

[Footnote 1: Le Clerc, i. 315. The Dutch seem to have argued that the salute had formerly been rendered to the king, not to the nation.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. May 12.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1652. May 18.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1652. May 19.]

he was cruising for the protection of trade; that the weather had driven him on the English coast; that he had no thought of fighting till he received the fire of Blake's ship; and that, during the action, he had carefully kept on the defensive, though he might with his great superiority of force have annihilated the a.s.sailants.[1]

The reader will probably think, that those who submitted to solicit the continuance of peace were not the first to seek the commencement of hostilities. Immediately after the action at sea, the council ordered the English commanders to pursue, attack, and destroy all vessels the property of the United Provinces; and, in the course of a month, more than seventy sail of merchantmen, besides several men-of-war, were captured, stranded, or burnt. The Dutch, on the contrary, abstained from reprisals; their amba.s.sadors thrice a.s.sured the council that the battle had happened without the knowledge, and to the deep regret of the States;[a] and on each occasion earnestly deprecated the adoption of hasty and violent measures, which might lead to consequences highly prejudicial to both nations.

They received an answer,[b] which, a.s.suming it as proved that the States intended to usurp the rights of England on the sea, and to

[Footnote 1: The great argument of the parliament in their declaration is the following: Tromp came out of his way to meet the English fleet, and fired on Blake without provocation; the States did not punish him, but retained him in the command; therefore he acted by their orders, and the war was begun by them. Each of these a.s.sertions was denied on the other side. Tromp showed the reasons which led him into the track of the English fleet; and the States a.s.serted, from the evidence before them, that Tromp had ordered his sails to be lowered, and was employed in getting ready his boat to compliment the English admiral at the time when he received a broadside from the impatience of Blake.--Dumont, vi. p. ii. 33. Le Clerc, i. 315, 317. Basnage, i. 254. Heath, 315-320.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. May 24, 27, June 3.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1652. June 5.]

destroy the navy, the bulwark of those rights, declared that it was the duty of parliament to seek reparation for the past, and security for the future.[1]

Soon afterwards Pauw, the grand pensionary, arrived.[a] He repeated with the most solemn a.s.severations from his own knowledge the statement of the amba.s.sadors;[b] proposed that a court of inquiry, consisting of an equal number of commissioners from each nation, should be appointed, and exemplary punishment inflicted on the officer who should be found to have provoked the engagement; and demanded that hostilities should cease, and the negotiation be resumed. Receiving no other answer than had been already given to his colleagues, he asked[c] what was meant by "reparation and security;" and was told by order of parliament, that the English government expected full compensation for all the charges to which it had been put by the preparations and attempts of the States, and hoped to meet with security for the future in an alliance which should render the interests of both nations consistent with each other. These, it was evident, were conditions to which the pride of the States would refuse to stoop; Pauw demanded[d] an audience of leave of the parliament; and all hope of reconciliation vanished.[2]

If the Dutch had hitherto solicited peace, it was not that they feared the result of war. The sea was their native element; and the fact of their maritime superiority had long been openly or tacitly acknowledged by all the powers of Europe. But they wisely

[Footnote 1: Heath, 320, 321.]

[Footnote 2: Compare the declaration of parliament of July 9 with that of the States General of July 23, Aug. 2. See also Whitelock, 537; Heath, 315-322; the Journals, June 5, 11, 25, 30; and Le Clerc, i. 318-321.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1652. June 11.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1652. June 17.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1652. June 25.]

[Sidenote d: A.D. 1652. June 30.]

judged that no victory by sea could repay them for the losses which they must sustain from the extinction of their fishing trade, and the suspension of their commerce.[1] For the commonwealth, on the other hand, it was fortunate that the depredations of Prince Rupert had turned the attention of the leaders to naval concerns. Their fleet had been four years in commission: the officers and men were actuated by the same spirit of civil liberty and religious enthusiasm which distinguished the land army; Ayscue had just returned from the reduction of Barbadoes with a powerful squadron; and fifty additional ships were ordered to be equipped, an object easily accomplished at a time when any merchantman capable of carrying guns could, with a few alterations, be converted into a man-of-war.[2] Ayscue with the smaller division of the fleet remained at home to scour the Channel.[a]