Anglo-Dutch Rivalry during the First Half of the Seventeenth Century. Edmundson George
who were ousting them from every market, but possible rivals for the dominion even of those 'narrow seas19' in which the Kings of England had so long claimed to have paramount sovereignty and jurisdiction. Thus a feeling of dissatisfaction and resentment gathered head which found vent, as was the custom of those days, in political pamphlet-writing. Two of these pamphlets20, no less than that of Ralegh, call for particular notice, for they are full of material bearing upon the subject of the relations between the English and Dutch at the time of their publication, and throwing light upon the causes of the growing estrangement between the two people.
England's Way to win Wealth, by Tobias Gentleman, Fisherman and Mariner, bears the date 1614. The purpose of the writer is thoroughly practical. He sets out in great detail the statistics of the fisheries on the British coasts, and of the immense profits derived by the Hollanders from the pursuit of this industry, and he then proceeds to urge upon his countrymen to take a lesson from the foreigners, and not to neglect, as they are doing, a source of wealth which lies at their very doors. The following quotation is a good specimen of the homely vigour and directness of Gentleman's arguments; it will be seen that here, as throughout the pamphlet, they profess to be based on his own personal experience: —
'What their [the Hollanders] chiefest trade is, or their principal gold mine is well known to all merchants, that have used those parts, and to myself and all fishermen; namely, that his Majesty's seas is their chiefest, principal, and only rich treasury whereby they have so long maintained their wars, and have so greatly prospered and enriched themselves. If their little country of the United Provinces can do this (as is most manifest before our eyes they do) then what may we, his Majesty's subjects, do, if this trade of fishing were once erected among us, we having, in our own countries, sufficient store of all necessaries to accomplish the like business?.. And shall we neglect so great blessings, O slothful England and careless countrymen! Look but on these fellows, that we call the plump Hollanders, behold their diligence in fishing and our own careless negligence.'21
Another pamphlet, The Trades Increase22, was of wider scope. It was directly inspired, as its anonymous author J. R. informs us, by the reading of England's Way to win Wealth. It deals not only with the question of the fisheries, but of shipping and trade generally, and rightly with shipping first of all. 'As concerning ships,' J. R. writes – and how true do his words ring in an Englishman's ears to-day – 'by these in a manner we live, the kingdom is, the King reigneth… If we want ships, we are dissolved.' As Gentleman's pamphlet is valuable for its detailed statistics of the fishing industry of the Hollanders, even more so is that of J. R. for its broad survey of and comparison between the Dutch and English trade in every part of the world. From country to country and sea to sea in all branches of commerce he shows how the English are being driven out by their more enterprising competitors.
'In consequence want of employment is breeding discontents and miseries, while the means for remedying threatened disaster are in our own hands, the place our own seas and within his Majesty's dominions.'
Nor is J. R. content with mere assertion. Basing his arguments on those of Gentleman, he proceeds to set forth how by the encouragement of English fishing
'we shall repair our Navy, breed seamen abundantly, enrich the subject, advance the King's custom, and assure the Kingdom, and all this out of fishing and especially out of herrings.'
As to the Hollanders, he remarks significantly: —
'Howsoever it pleaseth his Majesty to allow of his royal predecessor's bounty, in tolerating the neighbour nations to fish in his streams, yet other princes take more straight courses.'
This powerful and reasoned summary of a condition of affairs so threatening to England's supremacy as a maritime power, and to the welfare of her people, testifies to the mixture of indignation and alarm with which the English people regarded the rapid progress in commerce and wealth of 'their neighbours the new Sea-Herrs', as J. R. names the Dutch. If further evidence were wanting as to the state of feeling in the country, it is furnished by the striking language of the Venetian envoy, Pietro Contarini (1617/18). According to the report of this impartial observer23: —
'Loud praises of past times and the worthy deeds of forefathers form the topic of conversation. I have heard great lords with tears of the deepest affliction lamenting the present state of things and grieving how England has already fallen in reputation with all the world, England whose name and whose forces were feared by foes and esteemed by friends. Now the memory of past glory lost, as it were fallen into forgetfulness of herself, she abandons not only the interests of others, but even her own.'
Such was the result of the forciful feeble policy of James, striving to pose as the keeper of the peace of Europe, and to hold the balance between the rival forces of Catholicism and Protestantism already arming for the terrible struggle of the Thirty Years' War. After the marriage of his only daughter with the head of the Protestant Union in Germany, he was soon once more in eager pursuit of the phantasmal Spanish match, which was for so many years to make him follow a vacillating policy. The skilful diplomacy of Diego Sarmiento d'Acuña, Count of Gondomar, who represented Philip III in London after 1613, enabled him at this time to acquire a great ascendancy over James, which with brief intervals he maintained for some years. The Spanish envoy left no steps untried in the course of the disputes which arose with the United Provinces to prejudice the King's mind against the Dutch. He found the moment peculiarly favourable for making his influence felt, and he used his opportunities to the utmost. It must be remembered that the year 1612, in which first Robert Cecil, Lord Salisbury, died, and then six months later Henry, Prince of Wales, a youth of great promise and popularity, whose strong personality must have impressed itself on the history of his times, is a critical dividing point in the reign of James I. Ranke has in his account of this period laid considerable stress on this fact: —
'In the first years of his reign in England', he writes, 'so long as Robert Cecil lived, King James exercised no great influence. The Privy Council possessed to the full the authority, which belonged to it of old custom. James used simply to confirm the resolutions, which were adopted in the bosom of the Council under the influence of the treasurer. He appears in the reports of ambassadors as a phantom King, and the minister as the real ruler of the country. After the death of Cecil all this was changed. The King knew the party divisions which prevailed in the Council; he knew how to hold the balance between them, and in the midst of their divisions to carry out his views… Great affairs were generally transacted between the King and the favourite in the ascendant at the time in conferences to which only a few others were admitted, and sometimes not even these. The King himself decided, and the resolutions that were taken were communicated to the Privy Council, which gradually became accustomed to do nothing more than invest them with the customary forms.'24
It was at this very time, when King James, yielding himself more and more to the persuasive blandishments of Gondomar, began to take a more markedly personal part in the direction of foreign policy, that a succession of fresh difficulties with the Dutch arose. The execution of the proclamation, which had been deferred for two years in 1610, actually remained a dead letter until 1616. Not that there had been any removal of the causes which had originally called it forth. On the contrary, the first years of the truce were a period of marked activity and vigorous forward policy in the United Provinces. In every direction, through the energetic and vigilant statesmanship of Oldenbarneveldt, the commercial enterprise of the people was enabled to open out fresh outlets for trade, and finally to secure the recognition of the young Republic as an influential member of the European family of nations. Diplomatic missions were dispatched to Venice in 1609 and to Constantinople in 1612, which prepared the way for a great extension of Dutch trade in the Eastern Mediterranean. Even more important were the close relations established with Sweden and Russia. Göteburg became after 1609 virtually a Dutch town, and before the middle of the century all Swedish industries and Swedish commerce had passed more or less into Dutch management or under Dutch control. In the reign of Elizabeth the friendliest relations had subsisted
See Note B.
See Note.
Ranke,