Anglo-Dutch Wars -- Trade War at Sea
England and the Dutch Republic fought three naval wars between 1652 and 1674, and a fourth a century later, over trade rather than territory. The Dutch had won the carrying trade of Europe. Their fluyt was cheap to build and needed a small crew, Amsterdam was the entrepôt for Baltic grain and Asian spices, and their shipping tonnage exceeded that of every other European nation combined. England's Navigation Act of 1651 was aimed squarely at that: goods could enter England only in English ships or in ships of the producing country, which cut the Dutch out of the middleman's business they lived on. The first war from 1652 was fought in the Channel and the North Sea in fleet actions of a new kind, with ships fighting in line ahead to bring broadsides to bear — a tactic developed in these wars and used for the next two centuries. England won on the strength of heavier ships. The second from 1665 went the other way. Plague and the Fire of London hit England mid-war, the fleet was laid up for want of money, and de Ruyter sailed into the Medway in June 1667, burned the ships at anchor and towed away the flagship. The peace conceded the Navigation Acts and gave England New Netherland, which had been taken in 1664 and renamed New York. The third from 1672 saw England allied with France against the republic and withdrawing when the alliance became unpopular. The Dutch stadtholder became King of England in 1688.
- Year: 1652 CE
- Category: Military
