In 1652 the Commonwealth was at war with the United Provinces.  Trade jealousy made the war what politicians call “inevitable.”  This jealousy of the Dutch dates back to Elizabeth, and to the first stirring in the womb of time of the British navy.  This may be readily perceived if we read Dr. John Dee’s “Petty Navy Royal,” 1577, and “A Politic Plat (plan) for the Honour of the Prince,” 1580, and, somewhat later in date, “England’s Way to Win Wealth,” 1614.[56:1]

These short tracts make two things quite plain—­first, the desire to get our share of the foreign fishing trade, then wholly in the hands of the Dutch; and second, the recognition that England was a sea-empire, dependent for its existence upon a great navy manned by the seafaring inhabitants of our coasts.

The enormous fishing trade done in our own waters by the Dutch, the splendid fleet of fishing craft with twenty thousand handy sailors on board, ready by every 1st of June to sail out of the Maas, the Texel, and the Vlie, to catch herring in the North Sea, excited admiration, envy, and almost despair.

“O, slothful England and careless countrymen! look but on these fellows that we call the plump Hollanders!  Behold their diligence in fishing and our most careless negligence!  Six hundred of these fisherships and more be great Busses, some six score tons, most of them be a hundred tons, and the rest three score tons and fifty tons; the biggest of them having four and twenty men, some twenty men, and some eighteen or sixteen men apiece.  So there cannot be in this fleet of People no less than twenty thousand sailors....  No king upon the earth did ever see such a fleet of his own subjects at any time, and yet this fleet is there and then yearly to be seen.  A most worthy sight it were, if they were my own countrymen, yet have I taken pleasure in being amongst them, to behold the neatness of their ships and fishermen, how every man knoweth his own place, and all labouring merrily together.[57:1]

“Now, in our sum of fishermen, let us see what vent have we for our fish in other countries, and what commodities and corn is brought into this Kingdom?  And what ships are set in work by them whereby mariners are best employed.  Not one.  It is pitiful! ...  This last year at Yarmouth there were three hundred idle men that could get nothing to do, living very poor for lack of employment, which most gladly would have gone to sea in Pinks if there had been any for them to go in....  And this last year the Hollanders did lade 12 sail of Holland ships with red herrings at Yarmouth for Civita Vecchia, Leghorn and Genoa and Marseilles and Toulon.  Most of these being laden by the English merchants.  So that if this be suffered the English owners of ships shall have but small employment for them."[57:2]

Nor was the other aspect of the case lost sight of.  How can a great navy necessary for our sea-empire be manned otherwise than by a race of brave sea-faring men, accustomed from their infancy to handle boats?