the English ports.[1] In addition, the navigation act had been passed and carried into execution,[a] by which it was enacted that no goods, the produce of Africa, Asia, and America, should be imported into this country in ships which were not the property of England or its colonies; and that no produce or manufacture of any part of Europe should be imported, unless in ships the property of England or of the country of which such merchandise was the proper growth or manufacture.[2] Hitherto the Dutch had been the common carriers of Europe; by this act, the offspring of St. John’s resentment, one great and lucrative branch of their commercial prosperity was lopped off, and the first, but fruitless demand of the ambassadors was that, if not repealed, it should at least be suspended during the negotiation.

The Dutch merchants had solicited permission to indemnify themselves by reprisals; but the States ordered a numerous fleet to be equipped, and announced to all the neighbouring powers that their object was, not to make war, but to afford protection to their commerce.  By the council of state, the communication was received as a menace; the English ships of war were ordered to exact in the narrow seas the same honour to the flag of the commonwealth as had been formerly paid to that of the king; and the

[Footnote 1:  It seems probable that the letters of marque were granted not against the Dutch, but the French, as had been done for some time, and that the Dutch vessels were detained under pretence of their having French property on board.  Suivant les pretextes de reprisailles contre les Francois et autres.—­Dumont, vi. ii. 32.]

[Footnote 2:  An exception was made in favour of commodities from the Levant seas, the West Indies, and the ports of Spain and Portugal, which might be imported from the usual places of trading, though they were not the growth of the said places.  The penalty was the forfeiture of the ship and cargo, one moiety to the commonwealth, the other to the informer.—­New Parl.  Hist. iii. 1374.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1651.  Oct. 9.]

ambassadors were reminded of the claim of indemnification for the losses sustained by the English in the East Indies, of a free trade from Middleburgh to Antwerp, and of the tenth herring which was due from the Dutch fishermen for the permission to exercise their trade in the British seas.

While the conferences were yet pending, Commodore Young met[a] a fleet of Dutch merchantmen under convoy in the Channel; and, after a sharp action, compelled the men-of-war to salute the English flag.  A few days later[b] the celebrated Van Tromp appeared with two-and-forty sail in the Downs.  He had been instructed to keep at a proper distance from the English coast, neither to provoke nor to shun hostility, and to salute or not according to his own discretion; but on no account to yield to the newly-claimed right of search.[1] To Bourne, the English, commander, he