The First Anglo Dutch War

Robert Blake and the Anglo Dutch War
By Oliver Tanner - Volunteer and Bath Spa University Student

As a volunteer transcribing MarineLives documents I had become interested in finding out more about the Anglo Dutch Wars, the first of which was during the same period as many of the MarineLives documents. The First Anglo Dutch war was also the cause of many disputes in the MarineLives documents, most significantly, the Silver Ship case, in which the court attempts to discover whether or not the ships were legally bound for the Spanish Netherlands, or illegally for Amsterdam, which was off-limits to trading vessels because of the Anglo Dutch War.
In this document I will introduce the First Anglo Dutch War and, due to his importance I will also include a brief biography of Robert Blake, and show his role in the First Anglo Dutch War, however due to his limited link to impressment, I will not devote too large a portion of this document to him.

Robert Blake (1598-1657) was the admiral of the British navy during the First Anglo Dutch War. Blake rose to prominence during the civil war, when his blockading of Prince Rupert’s fleet allowed Cromwell to finally land in Dublin in 1649. Blake later blockaded Prince Rupert in Lisbon for several months, before going on to capture the Isles of Sicily, the last Royalist outpost in 1651. However Blake really rose to fame in and after the Anglo Dutch War when his Sailing and Fighting Instructions revolutionised sailing tactics, and led to Yexley claiming his successes have ‘never been excelled, even by Nelson’. Nelson himself also wrote ‘I do not reckon myself equal to Blake’.

For more information on Blake and to get an idea of the importance of Blake, I would recommend using the search bar on the MarineLives website. Due to the deviations in spelling throughout the MarineLives records one should search for ‘Generall Blake’ or ‘Generall Blacke’. Blake is regularly mentioned throughout the documents, however often just in passing, the frequent references to the ‘ffleete of Generall Blake’ or ‘Generall Blakes ffleete’ (such as in HCA 13/70 f.577r) demonstrate the enormous influence of Blake.

The First Anglo-Dutch War raged from 1652 until 1654, entirely at sea.
The war broke out due to the Dutch near monopoly over trade with the America’s, due to their free trade which allowed for much more competitive prices than the British system.

On top of this the Dutch were outraged at Cromwell’s Regicide, whilst the British accused the Dutch of benefiting from the Civil War. A final straw was drawn when a Dutch ship failed to dip its flag to Blake’s ship, as was enforced between the two nations by law - and an offended Blake opened fire.

Due to Dutch absolute naval supremacy in 16th Century peacetime, they had greatly reduced their fleet, which left them though extremely wealthy, defenceless to the British fleet. The British on the other hand had been growing and improving their fleet through the early seventeenth century, this situation led to one Dutch diplomat writing ‘The British are about to attack a mountain of gold, we are about to attack a mountain of iron’.

Throughout 1652 there were a number of attacks against Dutch convoys, and this string of defeats led to the British over confidently sending a large portion of their fleet to the Mediterranean, enabling the Dutch to defeat the British at the Battle of Dungeness.

With the Mediterranean fleet also quickly destroyed the Dutch had full control of the Channel.However the war proved unsustainable for the Dutch, partly because they had made impressment illegal (and therefore sailors extremely high wages), which meant that after the 1653 Battle of Portland the British were able to once more occupy the channel, and eventually push the Dutch back to their own ports, and even forts after the Battle of Gabbard. This last battle led to a blockade of Dutch ports, and the Dutch Republic’s economic collapse and nationwide starvation. When Blake’s Dutch counterpart, Tromp, was killed at Scheveningen, the Dutch morale slump led to peace talks between the nations.

Although Cromwell initially had a number of unreasonable demands (from the Dutch prospective), including an establishment of an Anglo Dutch alliance against Spain*, he eventually gave in due to his distress at two Protestant nations fighting. This led to Catholic Spain enjoyed a temporary monopoly on trading with the America’s. The war ended in a British victory in 1654, and with the Dutch building 60 new ships, and putting forth an Act of legislation making it illegal to sell off any naval vessels, should they be left defenceless again – thereby all but guaranteeing a second Anglo Dutch War.

Bibliography

Yexley, Lionel Our Fighting Sea Men. London: Stanley Paul & Co., c.1911, p. 22. 
Nicolas, Nicholas The Dispatches and Letters of Vice Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson . London: H. Colburn, 1845. 
Jones, J. R. The Anglo Dutch Wars of the Seventeenth Century . London: Routledge, 2013. 
Levy, J. and S. Ali ‘Evolution of Anglo-Dutch Rivalry’.In: Diehl, Paul Francis The Dynamics of Enduring Rivalries. Illinois: University of Illinois, 1998, pp. 29-53. 
Dixon, William Robert Blake. London: Chapman and Hall, 1852, p. 186.