First Anglo - Dutch War The First Anglo - Dutch War ( ) ( 1652 – 54 ) ( called the First Dutch War in England ) was the first of the four Anglo - Dutch Wars . It was fought entirely at sea between the navies of the Commonwealth of England and the United Provinces of the Netherlands . Caused by disputes over trade , the war began with English attacks on Dutch merchant shipping , but expanded to vast fleet actions . Ultimately , it resulted in the English Navy gaining control of the seas around England , and forced the Dutch to accept an English monopoly on trade with England and English colonies . " ( Dates in this article are given in the Gregorian calendar , then ten days ahead of the Julian calendar in use in England . ) " Background . In the 16th century , England and the Netherlands had been close allies against the ambitions of the Habsburgs . They cooperated in fighting the Spanish Armada . England supported the Dutch in the Eighty Years ' War by sending money and troops . There was a permanent English representative in the Dutch government to ensure coordination of the joint war effort . The separate peace in 1604 between England and Spain strained this relationship . The weakening of Spanish power at the end of the Thirty Years ' War in 1648 also meant that many colonial possessions of the Portuguese and some of the Spanish empire were effectively up for grabs . The ensuing rush for empire brought the former allies into conflict . Also the Dutch , having made peace with Spain , quickly replaced the English as dominant traders with the Iberian peninsula , adding to an English resentment about Dutch trade that had steadily grown since 1590 . By the middle of the 17th century the Dutch had built by far the largest mercantile fleet in Europe , with more ships than all the other states combined , and their economy , based mainly on maritime commerce , gave them a dominant position in European trade , especially in the North Sea and Baltic . Furthermore they had conquered most of Portugal ' s territories and trading posts in the East Indies and Brazil giving them control over the enormously profitable trade in spices . They were even gaining significant influence over England ' s trade with her as yet small North American colonies , profiting from the turmoil of the English Civil War . With their victory over the Spanish fleet at the Battle of the Downs , Dutch confidence in their naval abilities grew to such a degree , that after peace was made with Spain , they allowed their navy to deteriorate greatly . The Dutch had five autonomous admiralties and after 1648 these sold off many of their ships . By 1652 , fewer than fifty ships were seaworthy and the deficiency had to be made good by arming merchantmen . All were inferior in firepower to the largest English first and second rates . The navy of the Commonwealth of England was in better condition . It had emerged victorious from the English Civil War ; supported and supplied Cromwell ' s army in the wars in Scotland and Ireland ; blockaded the royalist fleet of Prince Rupert in Lisbon ; and organised a system of convoys to protect the commerce of the Commonwealth against the swarms of privateers set upon it from every European port . On 24 September 1650 General - at - Sea Robert Blake had defeated the Portuguese fleet in a violent gale , sinking the Portuguese Vice - Admiral and taking seven prizes , compelling Portugal to cease protecting Rupert . In 1651 the royalist strongholds in the Isles of Scilly , the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands had been captured , and in 1652 General George Ayscue had recovered England ' s colonial possessions in the West Indies and North America . The English navy had been placed on a secure financial footing by an Act of 10 November 1650 , which imposed a 15 percent tax on merchant shipping and provided that the money thus raised should be used to fund the naval forces protecting the convoys . It had eighteen ships superior in firepower to the heaviest Dutch vessel , the " Brederode " . Political tensions between the Commonwealth and the Republic . During the English Civil War the Dutch stadtholder Frederick Henry had given major financial support to Charles I of England , to whom he had close family ties , and had often been on the brink of intervening with his powerful army . When Charles was beheaded , the Dutch were outraged by the regicide . Oliver Cromwell therefore considered the Dutch Republic as an enemy . Nevertheless the Commonwealth and The Republic had many things in common : they were both republican and protestant . When after the death of Frederick Henry his son stadtholder William II of Orange tried to fulfill the monarchical aspirations his late father had always fostered by establishing a military dictatorship , the States of Holland made overtures to Cromwell , seeking his support against William , suggesting vaguely the province of Holland might join the Commonwealth . The English delegation to The Hague . In 1650 William suddenly died however , so there was no longer any need for Cromwell ' s support against him . When on 28 January 1651 the States - General recognised the Commonwealth , they fully expected this to be sufficient to solve all problems between the two countries . To their enormous embarrassment however on 7 March a large English delegation of 246 arrived at The Hague , headed by Oliver St John , to negotiate the conditions under which the Dutch Republic might unite itself with England , sent by Cromwell who had taken the earlier suggestions quite too seriously . Trying to be polite the delegation left it to the Dutch to provide the first proposals . The Dutch however were too stunned and confused for a coherent reaction , so after a month the English delegation disclosed a plan by Cromwell to divide the world into two spheres of influence : the Dutch could control Africa and Asia ; in return they would assist the English in conquering both Americas from the Spanish . Cromwell hoped that this way the colonial rivalry would be eased by giving the English their own profitable empire . But the Dutch saw it as an absurd grandiose scheme , which offered them little hope for profit but the certainty of much expense and a new war in the Southern Netherlands . After much deliberation by the delegates of the seven provinces , they on 24 June made a counter - proposal of 36 articles of which they hoped it would be agreeable to the English without involving themselves in a war for world conquest . This proposal was in essence a free trade agreement and nothing could have angered the English delegation more : precisely the fact that the English were unable to compete with the Dutch under conditions of free trade lay at the heart of the conflict between them . They interpreted the counter - proposal as a deliberate affront . Meanwhile other events had convinced the delegation of Dutch animosity . The Hague was the residence of the young widow of William II , Charles I ' s daughter Mary Henrietta Stuart , the Princess Royal . Those English noblemen in exile not fighting with her brother Charles in Scotland had mostly gathered in The Hague , which had become a Royalist bulwark , while it had been for many years an Orangist stronghold . The delegation members could only leave their lodgings under armed escort , for fear of being assaulted by Royalists or large mobs paid by them . The States of Holland feared open revolt if they would try to restore order between the English factions . Deeply disappointed the English delegates left for England in the last week of June , reporting the Dutch were untrustworthy and that the United Provinces were under control of the Orangist party and thus a threat to the security of the Commonwealth . Outbreak of war . French support for the English royalists had led the Commonwealth to issue letters of marque against French ships and against French goods in neutral ships . These letters carried the right to search neutral ships , which were mostly Dutch . Infuriated by the treatment of the English delegation in The Hague and emboldened by their victory against Charles in the Battle of Worcester , the English Parliament passed the first of the Navigation Acts in October 1651 . It ordered that only English ships and ships from the originating country could import goods to England . This measure was particularly aimed at hampering the shipping of the highly trade - dependent Dutch and often used as a pretext simply to take their ships ; as General Monck put it : " The Dutch have too much trade , and the English are resolved to take it from them . " Agitation among the Dutch merchants was further increased by George Ayscue ' s capture in early 1652 of 27 Dutch ships trading with the royalist colony of Barbados in contravention of an embargo imposed by the Commonwealth . Over a hundred other Dutch ships were captured by English privateers between October 1651 and July 1652 . Moreover , the death of Dutch stadtholder William II , who had favoured an expansion of the army at the expense of the navy , had led to a change in the defence policy of the United Provinces towards protecting the great trading concerns of Amsterdam and Rotterdam . Accordingly , the States - General decided on 3 March 1652 to expand the fleet by hiring and equipping 150 merchant ships as ships of war to allow effective convoying against hostile English actions . The news of this decision reached London on 12 March 1652 and the Commonwealth too began to prepare for war , but as both nations were unready , war might have been delayed if not for an unfortunate encounter between the fleets of Dutch Lieutenant - Admiral Maarten Tromp and General at Sea Robert Blake in the English Channel near Dover on 29 May 1652 . An ordinance of Cromwell required all foreign fleets in the North Sea or the Channel to dip their flag in salute , reviving an ancient right the English had long insisted on , but when Tromp was tardy to comply , Blake opened fire , starting the brief Battle of Goodwin Sands . Tromp lost two ships but escorted his convoy to safety . Conduct of the War . The States of Holland sent their highest official , the Grand Pensionary Adriaan Pauw to London in a last desperate attempt to prevent war , but in vain : English demands had become so extreme that no self - respecting state could meet them . War was declared by the English Parliament on 10 July 1652 . The Dutch diplomats realised what was at stake : one of the departing ambassadors said , " The English are about to attack a mountain of gold ; we are about to attack a mountain of iron . " The Dutch Orangists were jubilant however ; they expected that either victory or defeat would bring them to power . The first months of the war saw attacks by the English against the convoys of the Dutch . Blake was sent with 60 ships to disrupt Dutch fishing in the North Sea and Dutch trade with the Baltic , leaving Ayscue with a small force to guard the Channel . On 12 July 1652 , Ayscue intercepted a Dutch convoy returning from Portugal , capturing seven merchantmen and destroying three . Tromp gathered a fleet of 96 ships to attack Ayscue but winds from the south kept him in the North Sea . Turning north to pursue Blake , Tromp caught up with the English fleet off the Shetland Islands but a storm scattered his ships and there was no battle . On 26 August 1652 Ayscue attacked an outward - bound Dutch convoy commanded by Vice - Commodore Michiel de Ruyter but was beaten back in the Battle of Plymouth and relieved of his command . Tromp had also been suspended after the failure at Shetland , and Vice - Admiral Witte de With was given command . The Dutch convoys being at the time safe from English attack , De With saw an opportunity to concentrate his forces and gain control of the seas . At the Battle of the Kentish Knock on 8 October 1652 the Dutch attacked the English fleet near the mouth of the River Thames , but were beaten back with a high number of casualties . The English Parliament , believing the Dutch to be near defeat , sent away twenty ships to strengthen the position in the Mediterranean . This division of forces left Blake with only 42 men of war by November , while the Dutch were making every effort to reinforce their fleet , and this led to an English defeat by Tromp in the Battle of Dungeness in December but didn ' t save the English Mediterranean fleet , largely destroyed at the Battle of Leghorn in March 1653 . The Dutch had effective control of the Channel , the North Sea , and the Mediterranean , with English ships blockaded in port . As a result Cromwell managed to convince Parliament to make secret peace contacts with the Dutch . In February 1653 , Adriaan Pauw responded favourably , sending a letter from the States of Holland indicating their sincere desire to reach a peace agreement . Despite its successes , the Dutch Republic was unable to sustain a prolonged naval war . As press - ganging was forbidden , enormous sums had to be paid to attract enough sailors . English privateers inflicted serious damage on Dutch shipping . Unable to assist all of their colonies the Dutch had to allow the Portuguese to reconquer Brazil . Though the politicians were close to making an end to the conflict , the war would prove to have a momentum of its own . Over the winter of 1652 – 53 , the English repaired their ships and considered their position . Robert Blake wrote the Sailing and Fighting Instructions , a major overhaul of naval tactics , containing the first formal description of the line of battle . By February 1653 the English were ready to challenge the Dutch , and in the three - day Battle of Portland in March they drove them out of The Channel . Their success saw an abrupt end to the English desire for peace . On 18 March the States - General sent a detailed peace proposal to the English Parliament , but it replied on 11 April by reiterating the same demands that had put off Pauw in June the previous year , to be accepted before negotiations were even to begin . On 30 April the States - General ignored this and asked for negotiations to begin in a neutral country ; on 23 May Cromwell , having dissolved the pro - war " Rump Parliament " , responded that he would receive Dutch envoys in London ; on 5 June the States - General decided to send them . Meanwhile the English navy tried to gain control over the North Sea also and in the two - day Battle of the Gabbard in June drove the Dutch back to their home ports , starting a blockade of the Dutch coast , which led to an immediate collapse of the Dutch economy and even starvation . The Dutch were unable to feed their dense urban population without a regular supply of Baltic wheat and rye ; prices of these commodities soared and the poor were soon unable to buy food . The final battle of the war was the costly Battle of Scheveningen in August . The Dutch desperately tried to break the English blockade ; after heavy fighting with much damage to both sides , the defeated Dutch retreated to the Texel but the English had to abandon the blockade . Tromp was killed early in the battle , a blow to morale , which increased the Dutch desire to end the war . Similar feelings arose in England . Although many had gained riches from the war ( Dutch prizes taken during the war , about 1200 merchantmen or 8 % of their total mercantile fleet , amounted to double the value of England ' s entire ocean - going merchant fleet ) , trade as a whole had suffered . Cromwell himself was exasperated that two Protestant nations should exhaust themselves in this useless conflict he had started , while catholic Spain profited . He decided to begin negotiations in earnest with the four Dutch envoys having arrived in late June . Hostilities largely ended until the conclusion of peace . Aftermath . Cromwell again put forward his plan for a political union between the two nations , but this was rejected by the States - General on 21 October , so emphatically that now for the first time Cromwell came to understand that the Dutch hadn ' t the slightest inclination to join the Commonwealth . He then , repeating the line of argument the English delegation had made two years previously , proposed a military alliance against Spain , promising to repeal the Navigation Act in return for Dutch assistance in the conquest of Spanish America . This too was rejected however . As a result Cromwell , more than a little annoyed , made a proposal of 27 articles , two of which were utterly unacceptable to the Dutch : that all Royalists had to be expelled and that Denmark , the ally of the Republic , should be abandoned in its war against Sweden . In the end Cromwell gave in . The peace was declared on 15 April 1654 with the signing of the Treaty of Westminster , ratified by the States - General on 22 April and Cromwell on 29 April . The treaty had a secret annex , the Act of Seclusion , forbidding the Dutch ever to appoint the son of the late stadtholder , the later William III of England , to the position of his father . This clause , overtly a demand by Cromwell fearing the Orangists , was perhaps inserted on the covert wishes of the leading Dutch States party politicians , the new Grand Pensionary , the young Johan de Witt , and his uncle Cornelis de Graeff . However , the commercial rivalry between the two nations was not resolved . Especially in the vast overseas empires , hostilities continued between Dutch and English trading companies , which had warships and troops of their own . The Dutch had started on a major shipbuilding programme to remedy the lack of ships of the line evident at the fleet battles of the Kentish Knock , the Gabbard , and Scheveningen . The admiralties were now forbidden by law to sell off these 60 new ships . The Second Anglo - Dutch War was distantly in the making .