Anglo-Dutch Rivalry during the First Half of the Seventeenth Century

The two captains, as in duty bound, reported the matter at once to the home authorities. Great was the surprise and indignation at Enkhuysen and other centres of the fishing industry at the reception of the news. On August 27 it was discussed by the States-General, who denounced the attempt to levy a toll as 'an unheard-of and unendurable novelty, conflicting with previous treaties'. Two dispatches were sent, one to Caron telling him 'that the States had taken the matter extremely to heart, and desired him to seek for redress by every possible means'; the other to the captains of the convoy bidding them 'not to permit any toll to be exacted'. In obedience to his instructions Caron made repeated representations to the King, to Lennox, to the Scottish Council, but his arguments and remonstrances fell on deaf ears, and his efforts to obtain satisfaction proved fruitless. In these circumstances the opening of the fishing season of 1617 was awaited in Holland with anxiety, and by those acquainted with the temper of the Dutch seamen, with apprehension. Their fears were justified.

Browne again visited the fishing fleet, and began his task of levying toll, which according to all testimony he carried out in a tactful and considerate manner. Arriving at the Rotterdam convoy-ship he met with a flat refusal from the captain, Andries Tlieff of Rotterdam, in his own name and that of the other Dutch fishermen. After having received this refusal in writing, Browne was preparing quietly to go away to visit the other fishing boats, mostly French, when Jan Albertsz, captain of the Enkhuysen convoy-ship, stepped on board. He was one of the two captains who had in the previous year forcibly compelled Browne to stop his collection of toll. Albertsz now declared that he had orders to arrest Browne, and, despite his protests, the Scottish official was made a prisoner and carried to Holland.

The indignation of James, when he heard of what had taken place, knew no bounds. Two captains of Dutch vessels in the Thames were seized, as hostages, and Carleton was instructed to go in person to the States-General and demand satisfaction for the insult and injury done to his Majesty's honour by the 'exemplary punishment and in a public and open fashion of those, who had committed such an act: a satisfaction such as may hold a just proportion unto the insolency of the grievance.'31 On August 23, Carleton, describing the result of an interview with the Advocate, spoke of 'Barneveldt not knowing what to say, but that the taking of Browne was ill-done, and desiring me with his hat in his hand (much differing from his use) to make report thereof to his Majesty.' Both he and also Maurice disavowed Albertsz's action, and the States-General in their turn declared that the captains had acted without instructions, and ordered Browne to be released. At the same time they respectfully insisted that their fishermen were specially exempted from paying any toll for their fishing. They ask Carleton to beg James, as Browne had been set free, to release the hostages that he had seized. But Winwood peremptorily informed Carleton (August 27, O.S.), 'His Majesty will take no satisfaction, but to have the captains and chief officers of the ships sent over prisoners to England.' This demand, however, was most unpalatable in Holland. The States of that province stood upon their privileges. The captains should be tried, they said, but only by their own courts and laws. James, however, would not give way. In Winwood's words 'he insisted, fort et ferme, on the offenders being delivered into his hands'. Thus for many months the obstinate dispute continued. At last (February 1) the States of Holland, the opposition of the towns of Rotterdam and Enkhuysen to deliver up their citizens having been overcome, consented that Albertsz and Tlieff should be sent to Noel Caron to submit themselves to his Majesty's mercy, 'for which,' says Carleton,32 'in a letter they sue, and' he adds 'they also ask for the freedom of fishing on the coast of Scotland, to which they lay claim, without molestation.' Not till April did Tlieff actually set sail for England, and then without the worse offender, Albertsz, who was very ill, and in fact died shortly afterwards. James now, however, professed himself satisfied, the hostages were set free, and the Browne incident closed without a breach of the peace.

The fishery dispute meanwhile remained an open sore. Loud complaints were made by the Scottish Council that the Dutch not only claimed the right to fish free from any toll, but they under the protection of their armed convoy hindered the Scottish boats from fishing, and took away their nets and otherwise treated them 'with daily outrages and insolences'. This was the state of affairs in 1617. Carleton made many and strong remonstrances, but in 1618 the complaints of the Scotch that they were driven away from the fishing grounds by acts of violence were louder than ever. Instructions had been given to Carleton (April 10, 1618) that, as a means for avoiding these disputes and encounters, he should request the States to order their fishermen to ply their trade out of sight of land, as had been, so he averred, their former custom. After a delay of two months the States, while promising to punish severely all who could be shown to have committed such acts as those complained of, declared that after examination of witnesses on oath they could not discover that any offences such as those spoken of by the King had taken place. As to the Netherlanders fishing out of sight of land, they denied any knowledge of such a custom, and prayed the King not to disturb their countrymen in the exercise of that right of free fishing granted them from time immemorial by a succession of treaties.

Thus in the summer of 1618 we have seen that no less than three burning questions – the Greenland or Spitzbergen fishery, the Great or Herring fishery, and the refusal to admit English dyed or dressed cloths into the Netherlands – were causing the relations between England and the United Provinces to be very strained. A fourth question, that of the disputes of the rival East India Companies as to trading rights in the Banda Islands, Amboyna, and the Moluccas, where the Dutch, being in far stronger force, prevented the English from sharing in the lucrative commerce in spices, was also becoming acute. Several islands – among them one named Pulo Run, which the English, by the consent of the natives, had occupied – were seized by the Dutch, and actual hostilities between the fleets representing the two nations in those waters were only avoided because the English were not in a position to offer effective resistance to their superior adversaries. Negotiations had therefore been set on foot as early as 1615 to effect a friendly understanding by which the English should be allowed a fair share in the spice trade, and the companies co-operate for their common interest. So far, however, in 1618, were matters from being arranged, that a strong fleet had been dispatched from London in that year under Sir Thomas Dale to restore the balance of power in the Bunda archipelago.

When, therefore, as has been already related, Carleton on October 3 appeared in the States-General to protest in the strongest possible language against the acts of hostility committed against the fishing fleet of the Muscovy Company off Spitzbergen, he did not confine himself to this one cause of embittered dispute, but demanded that the States should send at once, promptly and without delay, the special embassy, which had been often spoken of but never taken seriously in hand, to discuss in London all the points of difference between the two nations – the East Indian spice trade, the herring fishery, and the dyed cloth question – and to strive to arrive at a friendly arrangement. Otherwise, he warned them that the King, though he had shown himself willing to bear much at their hands, had now reached the limit of his endurance.

III: 1618-1623

In the Netherlands the minds of all men were throughout the year 1618 preoccupied with the fierce political and religious discords that had brought civil strife into the land. The sword of Maurice had, in the name of the States-General of the Union, overthrown the power of the provincial oligarchies, and despite the strenuous opposition of the States of Holland under the leadership of Oldenbarneveldt, had made good the claim of the States-General to sovereign authority in the Republic. The aged Advocate of Holland, so long supreme in the administration of public affairs, with his chief adherents, lay in prison awaiting trial and condemnation. Anxious, therefore, at such a crisis, to avoid a breach with King James, or to provoke on his part measures of reprisal (especially in view of the approaching meeting of the Synod of Dort, at which James was to be officially represented), the States announced their readiness (October 18) to accede to Carleton's request for the speedy dispatch of a special embassy. But they wished to confine the subjects of discussion to the East Indian and Greenland disputes. In vain Carleton pressed upon the States the urgency of including the Great (Herring) Fishery and dyed cloth questions in the instruction. The reply was that it would be dangerous in the disturbed condition of the country to touch matters of such great importance affecting the interests of so large a portion of the population of the maritime provinces. A clear indication was moreover given that on these two points there was little possibility of concession.

The ambassadors arrived in England (December 7) accompanied by five commissioners of the East India Company. The King received them with expressions of friendliness (December 20), but the examination of their instructions by the Privy Council at once revealed that the subject of the Great Fisheries, which had most interest for the English, was omitted. The Dutch envoys accordingly were informed that the King was very astonished that the warnings of Carleton had been without effect, and that their mission would be fruitless unless this point, which concerned the King's sovereign rights, were placed in the forefront of the negotiations. James, indeed, refused to proceed unless the instructions were altered, and held out the threat of an alliance with Spain if his wishes were not complied with. Carleton, indeed, in a long and angry representation made to the States-General, January 12, 1619, practically demanded, not only that the ambassadors should be instructed to deal with the Great Fishery question, but to admit that their rights under ancient treaties and their contention as to the freedom of the sea were claims that could not be sustained in face of the King's 'lawful title and exclusive sovereign rights and property in the fisheries upon the coasts of his three kingdoms'. In case of delay, England would maintain her rights with the armed hand. The King was resolved that the grievances of which his subjects complained must cease.

The States-General, however, dared not in the midst of the crisis through which the country was passing, interfere with the fishery question. Maurice, as Captain-General of the Union, had by military force overpowered the resistance of the Province of Holland to the will of the States-General. Its leaders had been incarcerated, and the town magistracies throughout Holland changed. Feelings were very embittered, and the position of the new magistrates would have been seriously endangered had the dominant party consented to yield to English threats the rights of free fishing, an industry on which some 50,000 persons in Holland depended for their livelihood. Both Maurice and his cousin and trusted adviser, William Lewis of Nassau, Stadholder of Friesland, were agreed that such a course was at the moment unwise, if not impracticable. These considerations were laid before James, who had throughout the discussions in the Republic strongly sympathized with the triumphant Contra-Remonstrant party. The result was a modification in his unbending attitude. The King agreed to defer the discussion of the 'Great Fishery' question until the internal state of the Netherlands had become more settled, and to proceed with the Greenland fishery and East Indian matters first, on condition that the delay was to be as short as possible and not to extend beyond the end of the year. Indeed, September 1 was named as the actual limit of time. The States were quickly informed (January 21) of the English concession, and now that the tension was relieved, took more than three weeks in which to consider carefully the terms of their answer to Carleton. They were in a difficult position, and they finally (February 13) gave in general terms a non-committal undertaking that 'so soon as the affairs of this land, political and religious, shall be brought into a better state – if possible within a year', they will send ambassadors to treat of the Great Fishery, the cloth trade, and other points, as a preliminary to the revision of the treaties of intercourse. Meanwhile they trusted that all should go on as before, and that the English would make no innovation in contravention of the ancient customs and treaties. So the matter rested, the States being warned that the King demanded that the placard of June 5, 1618, forbidding the Dutch fishermen to commit further outrages and excesses 'on pain of severe penalties', or to approach within sight (the English said within 14 miles, but to this the Dutch objected) of the Scottish coast, should be rigidly enforced during the intermediate period of delay.

The efforts of the Dutch ambassadors to settle the two questions which according to their instructions were the chief object of their mission nevertheless encountered serious difficulties, and it was soon apparent that the views of the two parties were almost irreconcilable. The scheme for a working union of the two East India Companies was speedily given up. For months, however, the rights and wrongs of the two nations with regard to the Greenland (Spitzbergen) fisheries were the subject of many conferences and interchanges of notes. The English maintained that they, on the ground of first discovery and of being the first to fish in the Spitzbergen waters, had exclusive rights of sovereignty both on the land and the seas that surrounded it. The Dutch set up the counter-claim that they had not only first discovered, but first occupied the land, and they held firmly that the sea was free to all nations. For the damages suffered by the English fishing fleet at the hands of the Netherlanders in 1618 an indemnity was demanded by the English Government amounting to £43,800, and this did not include the amounts due to private ship-owners for the loss of their trade, and to the relatives of those who had been killed or wounded. The Dutch replied by pointing to the repeated provocations the Hollanders and Zeelanders had had year by year to endure, and to the losses they on their side had suffered not only through being hindered in their fishing, but through actual plundering of their goods. The ambassadors promised to give reparation, if the English would do the same. Tired at last of fruitless discussions, prolonged month after month, the Dutch envoys sought a personal interview with the King, July 10, at Greenwich, to see if any modus vivendi could be arrived at. All the old arguments on both sides were repeated, and neither would yield on the point of their several 'rights'; the utmost the King would concede was a suggestion that, as a favour, he might connive at the Netherlanders fishing in his waters. This did not satisfy the ambassadors, and they fell back on the familiar device of asking that the question should be put off for later settlement. To this finally James agreed, and it was arranged that the matter should be deferred for further negotiations for a period of three years, and that meanwhile the English and Dutch were to fish peaceably together. The King insisted that restitution should be made for the damage done by the armed attack on the English fleet in 1618 within three months, and for all other losses inflicted by the Dutch within the three years. As soon as the full English claims were settled (such was the ultimatum), the question of the satisfaction due to the Netherlanders should be considered. With this decision, however unpalatable to them, the envoys had perforce to be content. They sailed from Gravesend, on August 1, without having really effected anything but a postponement of disputes, which mere delay was more likely to aggravate than to appease.

The results then of the embassy of 1618 were disappointing to both parties. The English resented the continued presence of the Dutch fishermen both in the home waters and in the Northern Seas, for they not only carried off the profits from what were regarded as British industries, but behaved with overbearing arrogance as if in their own domain. The Hollanders found themselves permitted, as it were on sufferance, to continue an occupation which supplied a large part of their population with sustenance and was the basis of their prosperity. The States-General, though they were committed by their envoys to send a fresh embassy to deal with the question of the Great Fisheries, as soon as the internal troubles of the country were settled, were in no hurry to move in the matter. It was in vain that Carleton in the early months of 1620 reminded them of their undertaking. The general opinion in Holland, and in this Prince Maurice himself shared, was that there could be no surrender of the treaty right to free fishing, even though it should be at the cost of war.

Their position was greatly strengthened by the momentous events that had been occurring in Germany. The Elector Palatine, Frederick – King James's son-in-law – had accepted the Crown of Bohemia (November, 1619) but a year later his forces were crushed by the Imperial army at the White Hill near Prague (November 5). Meanwhile his hereditary dominions had been invaded and conquered by a Spanish force under Spinola. Frederick was head of the Protestant Union, but the forces of the Union were disunited (indeed it was soon afterwards dissolved), and although Sir Horace Vere, at the head of a fine body of 2,000 English volunteers, escorted by a strong Dutch force, made his way to the scene of conflict, he was unable to prevent the Spanish conquest of the Lower Palatinate. The unfortunate King of Bohemia, a homeless fugitive, was compelled with his wife, Elizabeth of England, to seek refuge with his uncle, the Prince of Orange, at the Hague. The Dutch were greatly disturbed, as the twelve years' truce was drawing to an end, at the prospect of the Spaniards being able through their alliance with the Emperor to march from their post of vantage on the Rhine straight upon the Netherlands, and were therefore anxious to secure the goodwill and help of England in the serious struggle which they saw before them. They felt confident that, despite his love of peace, James would be forced to take active steps to defend his son-in-law's lands from conquest, and the cause of Protestantism in Germany from ruin. The news of the complete defeat of Frederick at the White Hill therefore, together with the necessity of renewing the treaty between the two countries, which expired in April, 1621, at the end of the truce, had more effect than Carleton's remonstrances and threats in hastening a renewal of negotiations. The English ambassador was instructed to assure the States that James would lend assistance for the recovery of the Palatinate, and it was resolved by them that a special mission should be dispatched as soon as possible. It was well known that the King was still on the most confidential terms with Gondomar, and that the Spanish envoy continued to exercise a strong influence upon the royal policy, and that the project of a Spanish marriage had not been abandoned. It was felt therefore that a strong effort should be made to counteract this secret leaning of James to listen to the subtle counsels of the Spaniard, and to persuade him to break with Spain and to take decisively the Protestant side in the war against the allied forces of the House of Habsburg.

The ambassadors set sail from Veere, January 28, 1621, and arrived in London on February 1. They were six in number, representing the three maritime provinces of Holland, Zeeland, and Friesland, in itself a proof that though the affairs of the Palatinate were the principal subject that filled their instructions, the fishery questions, for the moment placed in the background, had in reality lost none of their importance. The names of the special envoys were Jonkheer Jacobus van Wijngaerden, Johan Camerling, Albert Sonck, Albert Bruyninck, Jacobus Schotte, and Jonkheer Frederik van Vervou tot Martenahuys, and with them was associated the resident in London, Noel Caron. At their first audience with the King (February 7) the situation in Germany was almost exclusively referred to. They laid stress upon the extent of the Spanish conquests on the Rhine, and after pointing out that the States had been paying monthly subsidies to certain of the Protestant princes and had collected a great army on the frontier, expressed their gratification at the information that had been received through Sir Dudley Carleton to the effect that the King would, if diplomacy failed, restore his children in the possessions by force. Should he indeed be prepared to take steps for military intervention, they were commissioned to assure him that the States would be ready to second his action and to go to war.

The embassy had arrived at a critical moment in the reign of James I, and after some words of friendly compliment their conference with the Privy Council was deferred until February 15. In the interval James's third Parliament had met (February 9). The King's financial necessities had forced him to summon a Parliament, and the session was to prove a very stormy one. The leaders of the Commons at once demanded the redress of many grievances and proceeded to attack those whom they charged with being the cause of the abuses they denounced, more especially the omnipotent favourite, Buckingham himself. The sojourn of the Dutch mission therefore coincided with a period of political stress and anxiety. But the envoys had the satisfaction of knowing that the English Parliament, which in this was thoroughly representative of public opinion in the country, was enthusiastically in favour of active support being given to the King of Bohemia for the recovery of the Palatinate. Subsidies were without delay voted for that purpose, and the vote was accompanied by a petition urging the King to make war with Spain and to break off the negotiations for the Spanish marriage.

But Gondomar found no difficulty in trading upon James's habitual preference for peaceful methods. According to the testimony of the Venetian, Girolamo Lando, the Spanish ambassador 'had access to the King at any hour, and found all doors open to him which were accustomed to be shut to others', and he is described as 'with ever-increasing boldness carrying on a campaign against these kingdoms with unspeakable intrigues and corruption.' Through his counsels the King entered upon a series of negotiations with the Courts of Madrid and Vienna in the interests of Frederick, which were perfectly futile and merely afforded the Catholic powers time to strengthen their position upon the Rhine. At the same time James, by opposing himself to the expressed wishes of his Parliament and people in this matter of the Palatinate, only heightened the determination of the House of Commons to assert their privileges and insist upon their demand for a redress of grievances. In foreign no less than in domestic affairs, the views of the King and those of the representatives of his people proved to be diametrically opposed. In December accordingly, no compromise being possible, Parliament was dissolved, and James, left in desperate financial straits, was unable to carry out any policy that involved expenditure. In considering the course of the negotiations with the Dutch, these facts must be borne in mind, for they are vitally important for a right understanding of the situation.

The embassy, delayed by the opening of Parliament, had a conference with the Privy Council on February 15. Once more they impressed upon their audience the seriousness of the dangers which threatened both the United Provinces and England from the war in Germany, and urged, now that the truce with Spain was almost expired, the renewal of the treaty of alliance between the two countries to defend the Protestant cause against a common enemy. In the words of the contemporary historian Aitzema, 'they laid strong emphasis upon this last point as if it were the only object and aim of the embassy.' But the Council had no desire, so immediately after the meeting of Parliament, to commit themselves on the subject of military intervention, for they were well aware of the King's disinclination to break with Spain. The question was accordingly put to the Dutchmen as to whether there were no other points in their instructions, mention being specially made of the fisheries, the cloth, and the East Indian disputes. The reply was that in the present critical condition of European affairs the interest of both States required that secondary questions should be allowed to rest and continue on the same footing as before in the presence of the grave danger (now the truce was drawing to an end) from a mighty enemy. Some lesser differences which had arisen about the 'tare' in the cloth trade, and the 'mint', they were ready to discuss, but nothing more.