1667 - The United Provinces at their Finest Hour

King Charles II

The second Anglo-Dutch war goes to an end after two years.

‘In all things, in wisdom, courage, force and success, the Dutch have the best of us and do end the war with victory on their side.’

Samuel Pepys, clerk to the Navy board

‘Don’t fight the Dutch, imitate them.’

Charles II, king of England

Pepys, 34, a complete naval administrator, and King Charles, 37, keen on scientific and naval matters, are fine observers. Effectively, the Dutch have held the strain against the first naval power in the world thanks to their higher spirits, stronger finances and larger industrial capacity.

The conflict between London and Amsterdam has been latent for long. As everybody knows, early in this century, the Dutch have become hegemonic in sea trade of grain, wood, wool, herring, chinaware, silk, furs, spices and even meddle in slave trade. Their merchant fleet has become the first in the world by far and is now three times larger than the British second. This situation led to steps of shipping protection by Britain, then to a first war in 1652.  

‘The English are about to attack a mountain of gold ; we are about to attack a mountain of iron.’

Premonitory comment of an advisor to Grand Pensionary Adriaan Pauw (†1653) during his embassy in 1652, the ultimate attempt to save peace

By the Navigation Act of 1651, Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell (†1658) imposed nationality restrictions on ships, captains and crews authorized to sail for trading with British territories. It created a demand on shipbuilding for lack of ships flying British flags but shipowners partly turned to Dutch dockyards as able to offer for £5 per ton against £7 from the English ones.

The United Provinces had ever skimped on war expenditures. They won the Eighty-Years war (1566-1648) against declining Spain without expending much money in an arms race. There was no race and war was partly self-sustaining. In the beginnings, the Watergeuzen, i.e. the Sea Beggars, as privateers, did not cost anything, and the aiding English navy either. After the decisive battle of the Downs (1639) and the ensuing dereliction of Spanish sea power, the Dutch admiralties had even sold warships to merchant shipowners. Thus the United Provinces tackled the first Anglo-Dutch war (1652-54) with obsolete weapons and outdated views, displaying merchant vessels as warships in disguise and assembling a fleet from a mosaic of individual interests. They had a single 50-gun ship, Broderode, while England had twelve larger warships to set against it. Moreover the English navy had already morphed : around 1647-52, it had heightened its old great ships to make pseudo three-deckers - two-and-a-half-deckers, so to speak - and had enlarged frigates to make two-deckers. Its ships were henceforth heavily gun-armed, and its tactics changed accordingly. From the battle of Gabbard (1653) onwards, the ships were positioned in a line of battle as a bulwark bristling with guns. A new age of naval warfare had begun.

The Dutch suffered successive disasters at Portland, Gabbard and Scheveningen (February, June and July 1653) in North Sea while the Dutch East Indies company (VOC) did much more than defend in the East Indies. On its own, in 1654, the Dutch West Indies company (GWC) lost the portion of Brazil it had seized and that it could not defend in the perilous context. In the aftermath, the GWC also lost then reconquered Gorée island, and lost Nieuw Nederland, its North-American colony, to Britain owing to the action of Richard Nicolls. Those events took place three years ago, before any official state of war.

¤ In honour of the duke of York's, Nieuw Amsterdam became New York. It has 1,500 inhabitants who are Dutch settlers and a few slaves - a modest loot. We may understand why the Dutch have given up on this little colony, only rich of beavers.

The Dutch had learnt from their mistakes but wasted time to complete solutions. Thus it was a hardly better fleet that put to sea when war broke out a second time, still lagging behind the British one in every respect. Waiting for the many warships under construction, the Dutch manned old small warships. Worse, tactics were non-existent. Decision was still left to individual captain’s initiative, who aimed at boarding the weakest enemy ship within sight without any regard to collective action. Even worse, the fleet was an assembly of seven squadrons sent by the five admiralties and steered, rather than commanded, by right-hand men of said admiralties. Unsurprisingly, that fleet of odds and ends was severely defeated at Lowestoft (1665) by the duke of York, a competent admiral who will be soon forbidden from exposing his life as he is the heir apparent to the throne.

¤ In the accounts, the number of guns displayed by the Dutch ships is surprisingly high. Have they add extra guns on their ships ? In the accounts too, the number of ships given as seized or destroyed seems to be lower than the real one, which could be thirty or over. A serious defeat for the Dutch, anyway.

Last year, the Dutch managed to display a fleet equal to the English one despite their previous and ongoing losses, and despite their limited capacity of raising crews, for impressment is illegal in the egalitarian republic of the United Provinces.

¤ They lost 2,500 killed and wounded, plus 2,000 captured at Lowestoft. They have nevertheless achieved to crew their inflating fleet with 25,000 hands. It is worth noting that there are foreigners aboard their warships - an unique feature - as aboard their merchant vessels. They are attracted by relatively high wages. The Dutch seafarers are probably more than 60,000, a 40th of the overall population. The fishermen are counted separately.

They also rectify the question of command by giving it to respected and experienced Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter, 59 years old. The subsequent Four-Days battle, a neat Dutch victory, and the Saint-James Day battle, a thin Dutch defeat, seemed to lead to a bloody stalemate between the two belligerents.

Four-Day battle

The United Provinces were able to do better than making up for losses whereas the English navy was running short of money. Furthermore, France joined the Dutch side while the Prince-Bishopric of Munster withdrew the British one. Denmark-Norway too rallied the Dutch side in balance with Sweden on the British one.

Instead of seeking ways of financing war, which was objectively difficult for King Charles, England stepped down to laying up capital ships – a disastrous disengagement based on the chimeric expectation that harassment of Dutch merchantmen by small warships in a race war, without any sea control, could either win the war or lead to a stalemate. It simply does not work.

‘The Dutch are known to be abroad with eighty sail of ships of war, and twenty fire-ships; and the French come into the Channell with twenty sail of men-of-war, and five fire-ships, while we have not a ship at sea to do them any hurt with; but are calling in all we can, while our Embassadors are treating at Bredah; and the Dutch look upon them as come to beg peace, and use them accordingly; and all this through the negligence of our Prince, who hath power, if he would, to master all these with the money and men that he hath had the command of, and may now have, if he would mind his business.’

Samuel Pepys, in his diary a few days before the final disaster on the Medway

Humiliation pushes Pepys to some resentment despite his faith to the king. Actually the French do not show up for they are preparing the Devolution war against Spain, a sort of military stroll in which they engage their full resources. The end of the plot is well known : Ruyter destroys the core of the British fleet at anchor in a raid on the Medway off Chatham while another squadron led by Admiral Willem Joseph van Ghent blockades the Thames. London is in panic, seeming to be at Dutch mercy. An invasion seems to be impeding soon from British viewpoint. Britain is effectively unable to resist but the Dutch prove to be unable to attack.

The Burning of the English Fleet off Chatham

Peace is signed at Breda hastily. The United Provinces, despite a strong position on military ground, are politically fragmented and unsettled which explains that the peace terms are rather lenient for the benefit of vanquished Britain. Nieuw Nederland remains in British hands as New England, and Nieuw Amsterdam as New York, while, as a juicy compensation, the GWC and other private Dutch interests gain Suriname, a fruitful source of sugar cane which is more appealing than beaver pelt, and the VOC is confirmed to own the disputed island of Run within the Maluku (Moluccas) archipelago, which assures it with the monopoly of precious nutmeg.     

There is no chance in a war game when it lasts half a year with so imbalanced resources. The United Provinces have made their industrial power strike in full last year, which appears in this table of ship-of-the-line building.

1660 1661 1662 1663 1664 1665 1666 1667

United Provinces 3 1 3 6 3 33 5 = 54

Britain 1 1 2 8 2 = 14

France 1 1 3 2 11 2 = 20

(Note that seven in eleven French warships launched in 1666 were built abroad, one in Denmark and six in Holland.)

Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt's leadership has been critical in those days. A brilliant mastermind, a mathematician and a lawyer, he has been ruling the United Provinces for fourteen years at the age of 42. His brother Cornelis, 44, was with Ruyter in the final battle and behaved with much gallantry. The Witts use their reinforced prestige to obtain the abolition of the function of Stathouder, which is a direct blow to the House of Orange.

____________

IN RETROSPECT FROM TODAY

NOTE A - About the aftermath.

Peace does not last long. The United Provinces joined England in the Triple Alliance as early as 1668. King Louis XIV countered it through the treaty of Dover (1670), which organizes a new alliance with Britain against its former ally, the United Provinces, which leads to war in 1672-74 for England and in 1672-78 for France.

The French invasion is followed by a plot against the Witts who are slaughtered in the most loathsome way.

NOTE B - On the influence on British mindset and further history.

England was afraid of a possible invasion if deprived of its navy. After the third Anglo-Dutch war (1672-74), King Charles II and Pepys, member of Parliament, will leverage invasion threat to build a powerful line of battle which could balance the coalition of the second and the third ones – a legacy which will pass centuries.

__________

SUGGESTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alfred T. Mahan – The Influence of sea Power upon History, 1660-1783 – New York, 1890 - available on the Internet

Alvin D. Coox – The Dutch Invasion of England, 1667 in Military Affairs, volume 13, Winter 1949 – London, 1949 - available on the Internet

Gijs Rommelse – The Role of Mercantilism in Anglo-Dutch Political Relations in The Economic History Review Vol 63 – London, 2010 - available on the Internet

____________

CREDITS

Unknown painter - King Charles II - oil on canvas, 1665 - © National Portrait Gallery

Willem van de Velde - Episode from the Four Day Battle - oil on canvas -  © Rijksmuseum

Peter van de Velde - The Burning of the English Fleet off Chatham – oil on canvas, 1667 – © Rijksmuseum