Wilson, C. H., Profit and Power: A Study of England and the Dutch Wars (1957), 169p.
This short study, written by a young scholar who went on to become a major
contributor to English economic history and the history of early modern European
expansion, provides a handy introduction to the causes and strategy of three naval wars
fought between the Dutch and the English during the seventeenth century, 1652-54,
1665-67, and 1672-74. There was a fourth war in 1780-84, which is not discussed. Even
the 1672 war is not treated in detail because it was very much a personal decision of
Charles II to support Louis XIV’s invasion of the Dutch Republic because Charles
needed money and the French King was willing to pay him for his support. Wilson
argues, as its title suggests, that from the perspective of England, the chief causes of the
seventeenth century Anglo-Dutch wars were fought for both profit and power.
The book is largely based on secondary sources and its scholarly value lies in its
relativity brief but clearly written account of a classic mercantilist conflict between two
naval powers. Wilson’s book was heavily influenced by Britain’s experience during the
first half of the twentieth century when its strategy was largely determined by its need to
protect its trade routes from an overbearing European power. He explains that in the
seventeenth century England’s economic wellbeing was seriously threatened by Dutch
economic competition in areas such as shipping, textiles, fishing, and trade with Europe
and the new world-wide markets. The Dutch and the English were competitors on three
continents during the period. He makes it clear, however, that the specific outbreak of
war in 1652 was a result of disputes about the right of search on the high seas. In his
discussion of the second war, he concentrates on the period 1660-1667 and emphasizes
the importance of political factors and, in particular, the fomenting of anti-Dutch opinion
by the English Ambassador to the Dutch Republic, Sir George Downing.
In his account of the wars themselves, Wilson concentrates on the strategic factors
rather than the actual fighting. England could best use her naval power to harass the large
Dutch shipping fleets that were vital to its worldwide trade. This left the Dutch with the
choice of using convoys, which harmed the efficiency of its trade, or by striking directly
at English naval power. The English assumed that during the 1660s the latter would not
be a major threat since they had achieved a victory over the Dutch battle fleet in their first
naval war using their larger ships of the line. However, the English attempt to blockade
Dutch shipping failed and between 1665 and 1667 the Dutch scored major victories
against the English home fleet, including their successful assault upon Chatham in the
Medway, which included the burning of English capital ships and the capture of the
English flagship, the Royal Charles.
Wilson’s clear exposition of mercantilist writing of the period is an excellent
introduction to the complexity of mercantilist thought. He points out that England’s
Thomas Mun’s England's Treasure by Foreign Trade (1664) and the Dutch work by
Pieter de la Court, Het interest van Holland (1662) demonstrate that England and the
Dutch Republic articulated very different interpretations of mercantilism and strategies
for pursuit of profit and power. Given the extend and importance of their trade in Europe,
Dutch republicans pursued a basically pacific outlook in Europe, while it tempted the
English to break Dutch pre-eminence in trade by force and protective legislation, such as
the English Navigation Acts, which attempted to reserve all English trade and fishing for
English ships. As a reviewer noted, these fundamentally different strategies pursued by
the two most advanced economies in Europe, who were both neighbors and rival naval
powers, it might be necessary to explain why there were only three naval wars during the
period, and why they were not fought more tenaciously. In total there were only six or
seven large-scale battles fought during their seventeenth century wars. Part of the reason
may be, as Wilson explains, that the Dutch had little to gain for fighting a war with
England, since it was situated directly across from its trade routes. Moreover, England’s
financial and political situation was never sufficient to engage in sustained and serious
naval conflicts with the Dutch during the period. England’s support, from 1670 to 1672,
of Louis XIV’s invasion of the Low Countries was half-hearted and soon produced a
backlash in England, since French hegemony across the North Sea would present Britain
with a much larger rival across their trade routes to Europe. Ironically, the story of the
Dutch Republic’s huge and successful amphibious invasion of England in 1688, and
William of Orange and Mary’s assumption’s of the British crown, is rarely labeled as one
of the Anglo-Dutch Wars in British historiography.