First Anglo-Dutch War

he First Anglo-Dutch War (Dutch: Eerste Engels-Nederlandse oorlog) (1652–54) was a conflict fought entirely at sea between the navies of the Commonwealth of England and the United Provinces of the Netherlands. Caused by disputes over trade, the war began with English attacks on Dutch merchant shipping, but expanded to vast fleet actions. Ultimately, it resulted in the English Navy gaining control of the seas around England, and forced the Dutch to accept an English monopoly on trade with England and her colonies.^[1] It was the first of the Anglo-Dutch Wars.

In the 16th century, England and the Netherlands had been close allies against the ambitions of the Habsburgs. They cooperated in fighting the Spanish Armada. England supported the Dutch in the Eighty Years' War by sending money and troops. There was a permanent English representative in the Dutch government to ensure coordination of the joint war effort. The separate peace in 1604 between England and Spain strained this relationship. The weakening of Spanish power at the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648 also meant that many colonial possessions of the Portuguese and some of the Spanish empire and their mineral resources were effectively up for grabs. The ensuing rush for empire brought the former allies into conflict. Also the Dutch, having made peace with Spain, quickly replaced the English as dominant traders with the Iberian peninsula, adding to an English resentment about Dutch trade that had steadily grown since 1590.

By the middle of the 17th century the Dutch had built by far the largest mercantile fleet in Europe, with more ships than all the other states combined, and their economy, based mainly on maritime commerce, gave them a dominant position in European trade, especially in the North Sea and Baltic. Furthermore, they had conquered most of Portugal's territories and trading posts in the East Indies and Brazil, giving them control over the enormously profitable trade in spices. They were even gaining significant influence over England's trade with her as yet small North American colonies.^[2]

The trading and shipping disparity between England and the Dutch United Provinces was growing: first, because the English shipping and trading system was based on duties and tariffs; while the Dutch trading system was based on free trade without tariffs and duties. Thus Dutch products would be less expensive and more competitive on the world market than English products. For example, an English wool trader, who dealt largely with ports in English-speaking America, complained in 1651 that although his English ships would take wool cloth to America to be sold, they could expect to leave American ports with 4000 to 5000 bags of wool cloth unsold. Dutch ships, on the other hand, would leave American ports with barely 1000 bags of wool cloth unsold. Because of this disparity, English trade with her traditional markets in the Baltic, Germany, Russia and Scandinavia withered.^[3]

A second cause of the Dutch advantage in shipping and trading in the mid-1600s was the end of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) which, from the Dutch point of view, was the end of the Eighty Years' War (1568-1648) for Dutch independence from Spain. The end of the war meant a lifting of the Spanish embargoes of the Dutch coast and Dutch shipping.^[4] This translated into cheaper prices for Dutch products due to a steep and sustained drop in Dutch freight charges and Dutch marine insurance rates. Furthermore, with normalized relations between Spain and the Dutch United Provinces, trade between the two countries resumed almost immediately. Meanwhile, English trade with Spain was still limited. By 1651, England was in an economic slump.^[5]

The third cause of the Dutch trading advantage was the English Civil War (1642-1651). In 1649, Parliament overthrew the monarchy and beheaded King Charles I. Until 1651, the English Parliament remained at war with royalists both at home and in some of England's colonies. From 1649 to 1651, Parliament in London set about expanding and improving the English Navy to pursue the civil war at sea.^[2] Meanwhile, the war raised havoc with English trading and shipping.^[6] The English accused the Dutch of profiting from the turmoil of the English Civil War.

With their victory over the Spanish fleet at the Battle of the Downs on October 21, 1639,^[7] Dutch confidence in their naval abilities grew to such a degree that after peace was made with Spain in 1648, they allowed their navy to deteriorate greatly. The Dutch navy had five autonomous admiralties ("colleges"). After 1648 these colleges sold off many of their ships. One of the ships sold was Dutch Admiral Maarten Tromp's own flagship, the Aemilia, of 600 tons and fitted with 57 guns. Admiral Tromp was forced to take up the 600-ton Brederode with its 54 guns as his flagship. By the onset of this first Anglo-Dutch War in 1652, the Dutch navy had only 79 ships at its disposal.^[2] Furthermore, many of these ships were in bad repair, so that fewer than 50 ships were seaworthy. The deficiency in the Dutch navy was to be made good by arming merchantmen. All were inferior in firepower to the largest English first and second rates.

On the other hand, the navy of the Commonwealth of England was in better condition initially and was constantly improving. The Commonwealth had won the English Civil War in 1652 with a strong and effective navy that had supported and supplied Cromwell's army in the wars in Scotland and Ireland; blockaded the royalist fleet of Prince Rupert in Lisbon; and organised a system of convoys to protect the commerce of the Commonwealth against the swarms of privateers set upon it from every European port. On 24 September 1650, General-at-Sea Robert Blake had defeated the Portuguese fleet in a violent gale, sinking the Portuguese Vice-Admiral and taking seven prizes, compelling Portugal to cease protecting Rupert. In 1651 the royalist strongholds in the Isles of Scilly, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands had been captured, and in 1652 General George Ayscue had recovered England's colonial possessions in the West Indies and North America. The English navy had been placed on a secure financial footing by an Act of 10 November 1650, which imposed a 15% tax on merchant shipping and provided that the money thus raised should be used to fund the naval forces protecting the convoys. Between 1649 and 1651 the English parliament considerably expanded and improved the British navy. Dutch Admiral Tromp's new flagship Brederode was the largest ship in the Dutch navy; Britain had 18 ships superior in firepower to the Brederode. Furthermore, not only were the British ships larger, with more guns, but the British guns themselves, were bigger than the guns of the Dutch navy.^[8] The British could thus fire and hit enemy ships at a longer distance, causing comparatively more damage with their shot.