St. John and W. Strickland, but though officially received with great ceremony, they were insulted by the Orange and Royalist faction, and had to be guarded in their hotel. Among the proposals on this occasion was one for the exile of Charles II. and his party from the United Provinces. In an evil moment for Holland, the Orange party, whose head (the infant William III.) was Charles the Second's nephew, prevailed, and the envoys of the Commonwealth returned to England infuriated by their bad treatment. There is no doubt that the Puritan Government, without a single ally on the Continent at that moment, had strenuously worked for an amicable alliance between the two countries. Their failure to achieve it facilitated the policy of Vane, who by the introduction of the Navigation Act, August 5th, 1651, was able to bring the navy into a foremost position in England, and thereby hoped to minimize for the moment the overweening influence of the army, now wholly under the control of Cromwell. The Act, which was passed in October, enjoined that foreign vessels should only bring into England products of their own country.

This was a staggering blow to the carrying

trade of the United Provinces, but it gave a very marked impetus to English shipping. The idea of action for the expansion of our shipping trade had not originated with Vane, but with Sir Walter Raleigh, who was always busying himself with England's maritime preponderance while he lay a close prisoner in the Tower of London, thirty-six years before this date.*

Parliament issued letters authorizing English vessels to make reprisals on the Dutch. The envoys whom de Witt had sent to conciliate Cromwell found their task hopeless.† England was at last anxious for war, and Admiral Van Tromp, who was cruising in the Channel, with

* Sir Walter Raleigh. In a volume of Tracts on Wool, 1669, British Museum, "Some collections of Sir Walter Rawleys, presented to King James, taken out of his Remains, discus England's los for want of due Informations of its Native Commodities." Among other recommendations (page 24) is, "Multiply your Navy, increase your Traffick."

...

† J. Burchett, "Complete History of the most Remarkable Transactions," etc. Edition 1720, Book III. p. 293. "Despatched an Extraordinary Envoy to England . . . fitted out fleet of 150 with a view to secure peace.' English some months before taken all Dutch ships they could meet with, the number of which, say the Dutch writers, amounted to near 200."

orders to act peacefully unless provoked, came into collision with Admiral Blake's force off Dover, May 18, 1652 (Brandt, p. 15).* Each commander blamed his adversary for beginning the fight. Van Tromp had 42 ships, and English accounts give Blake 15, which were joined by eight under Bourne. The battle raged from four p.m. till after eight o'clock. The James, Blake's flag-ship, alone suffered severely. Six men were killed in her and 35 severely wounded. There were only nine further men killed in the English fleet, which took 250 prisoners. Two Dutch vessels were taken, but set adrift. The fight was drawn somewhat in our favour.†

The Dutch envoys now leave London in haste, and reveal a portion of the English plan of operations under which Sir George Ayscue, newly returned from attacking Barbadoes, is to threaten Dutch shipping in the Channel, with his 21 ships,

* Lediard gives same date.

"Columna Rostrata," Samuel Colliber, 1727, page 95, says, "The James had 80 guns and 500 to 600 men. She received 700 great shots. . . . The fight ended to the advantage of the English, who took two Dutch men of war without loss of any ship, Tromp drawing his shattered fleet back to the Goodwin Sands." The Dutch accounts relied on here are Brandt, Belinfante, Looman, and de Liefde.

and at the same time protect the small English commerce there. Blake meanwhile is to take 66 or 68 vessels to the Shetland Isles to destroy the Dutch herring fleet. This of course weakens the English force in the Downs, and leaves it at the mercy of van Tromp, who with 70 ships (Col. Rostrata) was cruising in search of Ayscue.

Van Tromp, missing Ayscue, and hearing that Blake, after capturing a large number of Dutch boats, had gone north-follows Blake. He

arrives too late to save the valuable fleet of 100 large herring buizen, or "busses," as we call them. Blake, after taking out a large number of fish, had generously sent the men home. A terrific storm breaks over the two fleets as they are preparing for fight, August 5, 1652. Blake, sheltered by the Scotch coast, was comparatively secure, but van Tromp's fleet suffered so severely, that on his return to Holland, his command was taken away from him. This, however, was only an incident in the career of a "Zee-held" in the period when the hardy mothers of the little villages of Zealand and South Holland, sending their boys out to the sea fights, might well expect to welcome them as captains or even admirals, on their return; and again, in an equally short

space of time, see them condemned for some misadventure over which they probably had no control. The career of Marten Harpertszoon van Tromp is so typical, and so important, that it demands more than a passing notice. Born in 1597, at Brielle, in South Holland, the son of a sailor, he accompanied his father to sea at eight years of age. On his father's frigate, he took part in Heemskerk's glorious victory over the Spaniards at Gibraltar. Thus he joined the traditions of the earlier school of Dutch seamen and explorers, William Barentz, the discoverer of Spitzbergen, and Linschoten, the great explorer of the north, to the exploits of the contemporaries of de Ruyter. Shortly after the battle of Gibraltar, his father was killed by the fire from an English cruiser, when the boy van Tromp called out to his comrades, "Won't you avenge my father's death?" He was, however, taken prisoner by the English, and it was two years before he regained his freedom. Therefore it was with no love for this country that he had cruised along our coasts.

After rising to high rank in the navy (the famous Piet Heyn had been killed on his ship), he had retired dissatisfied, and was leading the