The king’s public conversion never took place.  No hint was given of any such impending event.  Parliament met on the 24th of October 1670, and after hearing a good deal about the Triple Alliance and voting large sums of money, was prorogued in April 1671, and did not meet again till February 1673.

To pick a quarrel with the Dutch was never difficult.  Marvell tells us how it was done.  “A sorry yacht, but bearing the English Jack, in August 1671 sails into the midst of the Dutch fleet, singles out the Admiral, shooting twice as they call it, sharp upon him.  Which must sure have appeared as ridiculous and unnatural as for a lark to dare the hobby.”  The Dutch admiral asking “Why,” was told “because he and his whole fleet had failed to strike sail to his small craft.”  The Dutch commander then “civilly excused it as a matter of the first instance, and in which he could have no instruction, therefore proper to be referred to their masters, and so they parted.  The yacht having thus acquitted itself, returned fraught with the quarrel she was sent for."[187:1] Surinam was a perpetual casus belli.  Some offence against the law of nations was always happening there.  A third matter, very full of gunpowder, was made great use of by the promoters of the war already agreed upon.  A picture had been hung at Dort representing De Witt sailing up the Medway very much in the manner described in Marvell’s poem.  Medals also had been struck and distributed in commemoration of the same event.  War was declared against Holland by England and France in March 1672.  The Declaration of War was preceded by the Declaration of Indulgence, whereby, wrote Marvell, “all the penal laws against Papists for which former Parliaments had given so many supplies, and against Nonconformists for which this Parliament had paid more largely, were at one instant suspended in order to defraud the nation of all that religion which they had so dearly purchased, and for which they ought at least, the bargain being broke, to have been reimbursed."[187:2]

The unconstitutional suspension of bad laws put lovers of freedom in a predicament.  Marvell was what he calls a “composure,” that is a “comprehension,” man.  In the Growth of Popery he sorrowfully admits that it is the gravest reproach of human wisdom that no man seems able or willing to find out the due temper of Government in divine matters.

“Insomuch that it is no great adventure to say, that the world was better ordered under the ancient monarchies and commonwealths, that the number of virtuous men was then greater, and that the Christians found fairer quarter under those than among themselves, nor hath there any advantage accrued unto mankind from that most perfect and practical model of humane society, except the speculation of a better way to future happiness, concerning which the very guides disagree, and of those few that follow, it will suffer no man to pass without paying