Their antagonism arose
over rival claims to sovereignty in the Narrow Seas, which the herring
fisheries had made as valuable as gold mines, and out of competition
for the world's carrying trade and for commerce in the East Indies. The
last-named source of irritation had led to a "massacre" of Englishmen
at Amboyna in 1623, after which the English abandoned the East Indian
islands to the Dutch East India Company, concentrating their attention
upon India, where the acquisition of settlements at Calcutta, Madras,
and Bombay laid the foundations of the three great Presidencies of the
British Empire in India.
A fatal blow was struck at the Dutch carrying trade by the Navigation
Acts of 1650-1651, which provided that all goods imported into England
or any of its colonies must be brought either in English ships or in
those of the producing country. The Dutch contested these Acts in a
stubborn naval war. The great Admirals, Van Tromp and Blake, were not
unevenly matched; but the Dutch failed to carry their point. The
principle of the Navigation Acts was reaffirmed, with some
modifications, after the Restoration, which made no difference to
England's commercial and colonial policy. A second Dutch war
accordingly broke out in 1664, and this time the Dutch, besides failing
in their original design, lost the New Netherland colony they had
established in North America. Portions of it became New York, so named
after the future James II, who was Duke of York and Lord High Admiral,
and other parts were colonized as Pennsylvania by the Quaker, William
Penn.
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