page_title: Third Anglo-Dutch War
section_title: Preparations
hierarchical_section_title: Third Anglo-Dutch War / Preparations
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter, 1607–1676, Lieutenant-Admiral-General of the United Provinces
context_page_description: The Third Anglo-Dutch War or the Third Dutch War was a military conflict between the Kingdom of England and the Dutch Republic that lasted from 7 April 1672 to 19 February 1674. It was part of the Franco-Dutch War between the Dutch Republic and her allies—the Quadruple Alliance—and France.
  In comparison to First and Second Anglo-Dutch War, political reasons were more important as causes for this war than economic ones. In 1667, Charles II of England had been humiliated by the Dutch Raid on the Medway, and in 1668, Louis XIV of France had been offended by the Dutch preventing his conquest of the Spanish Netherlands through the Triple Alliance. In 1670, the two kings concluded the Secret Treaty of Dover, intending to destroy the Dutch Republic. This outcome seemed achievable as the Dutch land army was weak and, although their navy was strong, the combined English and French fleets outnumbered it. The prospect of war was unpopular in England, so Charles had difficulty obtaining the necessary money. He relied on secret French subsidies, deceiving Parliament and refusing to pay the Crown debts and fabricated diplomatic incidents to justify a conflict.
context_section_description: Louis instructed his ambassador in the Hague to continue negotiations with De Witt as a delaying tactic, while he finalised invasion plans. Since Dutch defences were concentrated along the border with the Spanish Netherlands, Louis agreed an alliance with Electoral Cologne, allowing his army to use the Principality of Liège (see Map). It also complied with an undertaking to Emperor Leopold I not to use the Spanish Netherlands as an invasion route. In April 1672, France paid Sweden subsidies to remain neutral, while also promising military support if 'threatened' by Brandenburg-Prussia; this offset an agreement of 6 May between the Republic and Frederick William, whose territories included the Duchy of Cleves on their eastern border.
  Hoping to gain English support, on 25 February 1672 the States General appointed 22-year-old William Captain-General of the federal army, an authorised total of 83,000 men. Uncertainty over French strategy meant most of these were based in the wrong place, while actual numbers were very different; on 12 June, one commander reported his official garrison of eighteen companies only had enough men for four.
  The Republic was better prepared for a naval war, although to avoid provoking the English, on 4 February the States General reduced the naval budget from 7.9 million to 4.8 million guilders. After the 1667 Medway raid, their navy was the largest in Europe; by 1672, the combined Anglo-French fleet outnumbered them by over a third. However, the French were inexperienced, their ships badly designed and co-operation with the English plagued by suspicion. While Dutch numbers were further reduced by Friesland retaining ships for defence against Münster, better training gave them operational equality. 
  In the battles of 1666, the Dutch were hampered by lack of familiarity with their new, much heavier, warships, the complex federal command system and conflict between Michiel de Ruyter and Cornelis Tromp. By 1672, these had been corrected, and De Ruyter's intensive training of his fleet in line-of-battle manoeuvres installed a new sense of coherence and discipline.
  Dutch ships were generally better gun platforms, whose shallow draft suited operations close to shore but were slow and less effective in open seas. Their maritime power was past its peak by the time of the Peace of Nijmegen in 1678: it had substantially declined in the preceding four years under the continuing stress of the Franco-Dutch and Scanian Wars which had prevented it strengthening its fleet, and because of qualitative improvements among its rivals.
  England provided two-thirds of an Anglo-French fleet of 98 'great ships and frigates', whose role was to gain control of Dutch waters, land an expeditionary force and attack its shipping. Parliament generally approved naval expenditure, seen as protecting English trade, but refused to fund land forces. The British brigade was largely composed of Dumbarton's, a mercenary unit in French service since 1631, and very few members saw service before the war ended.
  Opposition forced Charles to seek other sources of finance; in January 1672, he suspended repayment of Crown debts, which produced £1.3 million but had disastrous economic effects. Many London merchants were ruined and it shut off the short-term financing essential to international trade. Shortly before the declaration of war, in late March he ordered an attack on a Dutch Levant Company convoy in the Channel, which was beaten off by its escort under Cornelis Evertsen the Youngest.
  Charles and his ministers appreciated that an unprovoked war against the Protestant Netherlands an alliance with Catholic France would probably be unpopular, and that the Stop of the Exchequer of 2 January 1672 would make financiers in the City of London cautious about providing funds to the government to prosecute such a war. It was partly to increase the government's popularity among Nonconformist merchants he issued Declaration of Indulgence in 15 March. In the event, the Declaration of Indulgence, which removed restrictions on Catholics as well as Nonc
caption: Lieutenant-Admiral Michiel de Ruyter, whose training compensated for numerical inferiority
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