Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon Part 7

Above all, the coffers of Spain were in no condition to meet a heavy payment. At best, there would have been tedious delay, during which the heavy expenditure on the maintenance of Dunkirk would have continued to fall on the English Treasury. To part with the sea-port to the United Provinces might have secured a better price than from either of the Crowns; but it would have been a signal of war to both of these, and the United Provinces themselves might have found it a costly and embarra.s.sing possession.

It was with France, therefore, that the haggling had to be done, and it was prosecuted with all the eagerness of the auction mart. Such transactions can never be very dignified. The cession of an important sea- port must necessarily be galling to national pride, and an injury to national _prestige_; and in this case was the more damaging from the tenure of Dunkirk being the token of Cromwell's proud supremacy abroad.

The chaffering went on through all the usual stages of alternate bluff and concession on both sides. The final settlement secured for Charles a payment of some two hundred thousand pounds. In the reckoning of the day that was held to be a considerable sum. It possessed the merit, no inconsiderable one in the mind of the King, of being at least free from any of the embarra.s.sments of a Parliamentary grant. Apart from the actual money paid, the Treasury was relieved of an expenditure of about one hundred and twenty thousand pounds annually. Of all such vantage posts abroad, Dunkirk was perhaps the least useful, and the most risky to hold.

Trifling as was the price obtained according to our reckoning, it was nevertheless of importance in the actual state of the exchequer. But the nation invariably shows itself sensitive to the loss of honour implied in such a cession, and is glad to have a victim on which to wreak its irritation. It was on Clarendon that its unreasoning vengeance fell, and at a later day the blame for an arrangement which he did not initiate, and which at first he earnestly opposed, aggravated his growing unpopularity.

Once more he had had to content himself, not with the policy he most approved, but with that which suited best the exigencies of the time; and he had to bear the blame for action to which he unwillingly consented. It is the hardest lot for the statesman, because it is that which his enemies impute as a crime, and for which his friends can only offer an apology.

Whatever the injury to national dignity, the transaction not only gave substantial pecuniary relief, but it seemed to promise, for the time, a secure foreign alliance. The irritation on the side of France was allayed, and Louis abandoned that tone of offence against Clarendon, which he had repeatedly used to his amba.s.sador, and which showed that he regarded the policy of the Chancellor as the most serious menace to his power. The cordiality between England and France was perhaps insecure, but it was cemented by their common interest in maintaining the independence of Portugal, and that, again, offered good prospects to the trading interest of England.

But, at home, Clarendon found his influence threatened by increasing virulence of intrigue, and by new scandals and dissensions at Court. To the world at large he was still the all-powerful Minister. Only a few months before, Dryden had poured out a poetical tribute, from that mint of flattery of which his expenditure was so lavish, and had told Clarendon that he and the King bounded the horizon of the universe to their country, and had compared his wise counsels to the rich perfumes of the East. Even Louis XIV. did not think it below his dignity to solicit the Chancellor's favour, and to be jealous of his power. But Clarendon was not blind to the influences that were undermining that power. Hitherto he and Southampton had managed Parliamentary affairs through a small knot of members of tried fidelity and experience. Such management called for wary and cautious treatment, if jealousy was not to be aroused amongst the Parliamentary ranks. The idea of government by an organized party in Parliament was as yet unknown to our political practice, and would not have met with any favour from Clarendon. To him a Minister was the servant of the King, and in no way the nominee of any Party. None the less the germs of the new system, all undiscerned by himself or his contemporaries, were developing during his Ministry. We have already seen the knot of courtiers who were held together chiefly by a common--although not clearly avowed--jealousy of the Chancellor. Ashley, Buckingham, Bristol, and Lauderdale, were the chief members of that confederacy; and they soon found means to introduce new instruments to help in working the Parliamentary machine. The most notable of these were Sir William Coventry, the son of Clarendon's old friend, Lord Chancellor Coventry, and Sir Henry Bennet, who is better known to history by the name of the Earl of Arlington, which was the t.i.tle conferred upon him in 1672. [Footnote: He was created Baron Arlington in 1664.] The influence of these two in Parliament, as the accredited agents of the Court, began with the session of 1663, which opened on February 18th, and closed on July 27th. For William Coventry, Clarendon had a deep- rooted dislike, which was increased rather than lessened by Clarendon's respect for his father, and his good-will to his brother, Henry Coventry.

[Footnote: Henry Coventry was the elder brother of Sir William. He had more than once been useful in emba.s.sies to Sweden, where he seems to have acquired some of the convivial habits of that country. Without his brother's wit, dexterity, or eloquence, he seems to have joined more than his frankness to a bl.u.s.tering manner.] William Coventry's was one of those "unconversable" natures which moved Clarendon's aversion. A sullen temper, a censorious habit, and a pride that led him to belittle all in which he was not chief agent, were precisely the traits of character which Clarendon distrusted and disliked. He admits Coventry's abilities, and gives him credit for being exempt from the degrading coa.r.s.eness which was typical of the Court. His portrait is painted for us in a few sentences with all the consummate skill of the historian of the Rebellion.

"He was a sullen, ill-natured, proud man, whose ambition had no limits, nor could be contained within any. His parts were very good, if he had not thought them better than any other man's; and he had diligence and industry, which men of good parts are too often without.... He was without those vices which were too much in request, and which make men most unfit for business and the trust that cannot be separated from it."

Clarendon's genius for character-drawing never suffers him to paint even the portraits of his enemies all in black. [Footnote: Clarendon's prejudice against Coventry, however, in spite of the admission of his ability, was abnormally strong, and we shall find reason later to doubt whether Clarendon did not in this case allow personal resentment to blind him to some of Coventry's merits.] Such was his conception of the man who now became Secretary to the Duke of York, and an active centre of intrigue.

Sir Henry Bennet was a foeman of another kind. It was during the period of exile that he had managed to ingratiate himself with Charles, and their subsequent intimacy was coloured by the scenes which they had once shared together. Bennet was the natural product of an exiled Court, forced to have recourse to s.h.i.+fts of no dignified kind, and breathing an atmosphere of cynicism and distrust. He knew nothing of, and cared, if possible, still less for, the Const.i.tution or the laws of England. He was one of those who cultivated the friends.h.i.+p of Spain, with whose leading statesmen he had close relations, and who saw in that friends.h.i.+p a balance to the Portuguese alliance and the policy which Clarendon was believed to pursue.

He had no Parliamentary talents, and entered Parliament for the first time during the session of 1663, But he was a pledged and trusted member of the little Court cabal, which was now determined to organize a party in Parliament to oppose the Chancellor's power. It became a part of their scheme to find a place for Bennet where he could exercise a distinct influence upon administration. The preliminary arrangements for this were made without the Chancellor's knowledge. That stout and faithful servant of the King, and sure friend of the Chancellor, Sir Edward Nicholas, was now feeling the weight of years. His ample experience and tried fidelity weighed for nothing in the minds of the Court clique, who desired his place for Bennet. The King was easily persuaded to adopt the view that the Chancellor found, in two old and weak secretaries, conveniently subservient tools. Tempting terms were proposed to Nicholas. Suggestions were skilfully thrown out that he should quit his employment, receiving the ample provision of 10,000 in lieu of it, and also some notable token of the grat.i.tude and respect of the King. It was only natural that the old man--whose memories of public service carried him back to the days when he had been amongst the followers of the Duke of Buckingham at the time of his a.s.sa.s.sination, nearly forty years before--should accept the proposal readily. How it seemed to Clarendon is best seen in his own words. "It cost the King, in present money and land on lease, very little less than twenty thousand pounds, to bring in a servant whom very few cared for, in place of an old servant whom everybody loved." [Footnote: _Life_, ii.

228.] The little faction who were intent upon their selfish plans for ousting the Chancellor recked very little of lavish expenditure. The same move that made the secretarys.h.i.+p of Nicholas vacant for Bennet, left Bennet's place of Privy Purse available for another of the new favourites and conspirators--Sir Charles Berkeley. [Footnote: Soon after created Earl of Falmouth.] Amongst the crowd of discredited and dishonest intriguers none was more vile or contemptible than he. In earlier days his character was too notorious to be tolerated even by Charles; but there were tricks and services, to which Berkeley made no scruple of stooping, and which served to secure, first the tolerance, and then the friends.h.i.+p, of the King. These changes in the official world were all menaces to Clarendon's power.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR EDWARD NICHOLAS. (_From the original by Sir Peter Lely, in the National Portrait Gallery._)]

It was one of the ironies of fate that the baser influences, now gaining new power at Court, created or stimulated discontent, the brunt of which fell on Clarendon, against whose authority these influences were chiefly directed. The moral sense of the nation was being gradually provoked. That sense is regulated by no great judgment, and often moves under violent prejudice; but it slowly yet surely shapes itself on sound foundations.

The reaction against Puritanism had carried the nation far in the direction of tolerance even of lax morality; but the scandals of the Court had already begun to outrage the nation's sense of decency; and when outraged decency is combined with increased pressure of taxation and decreasing prosperity, the united force becomes a menacing threat. It was a comparative trifle that the King's alleged b.a.s.t.a.r.d [Footnote: He was born in 1646, and the King's age at the time justified doubts, which the lady's lavish favours did not diminish.] by the notorious Lucy Waters, was now formally introduced at Court under the name of Crofts; was married to the heiress of the Earl of Buccleuch, and was speedily created Duke of Monmouth. Such relations.h.i.+ps had before been tacitly recognized but not explicitly avowed; now for the first time the patent of n.o.bility declared the youth to be the natural son of the King. Vice laid aside that homage of hypocrisy which it had before paid to virtue. It was an innovation which Clarendon firmly opposed. "It would have," he told the King quite plainly, "an ill sound in England with all his people, who thought that these unlawful acts ought to be concealed, and not published and justified." [Footnote: _Life_, ii. 255.] Precedents from France and Spain would not pa.s.s current in England; and even if these precedents were admitted, they would hardly parallel the enn.o.bling of the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a notorious courtezan, born when the King was scarcely sixteen years of age, and whose parentage was, to say the least, doubtful.

By themselves such domestic scandals may perhaps count for little. But when they are accompanied by growing discontent, resting upon solid grounds, the aggregate of irritation becomes considerable. Our foreign commerce was seriously crippled, and our manufactures found no outlet. The home markets were interfered with by foreign goods imported during the recent years of unsettlement in exaggerated quant.i.ties. The large advances made by the bankers to meet taxes heavily in arrear produced a scarcity of money, and this again led to a serious fall in rents. There was hardly a cla.s.s in the nation which was not suffering by the prevailing insecurity; and these sufferings were aggravated by increasing taxation, by declining national credit, and by the fears of insurrection, and of renewed civil war, caused by the decaying reverence for the Crown. No one recognized more clearly than Clarendon, or detested more cordially, the scandals that tarnished the restored monarchy; to no one did they bring a fuller crop of crushed hopes, and baffled efforts. Fortune's cynical injustice was never more clearly shown.

To some of the clique of Clarendon's enemies it seemed as if the time had come to strike a decisive blow. Stories of his impending fall were rife.

Pepys, repeating the gossip of the day, and the t.i.ttle-tattle of the back stairs, tells us how "they have cast my Lord Chancellor on his back past ever getting up again." [Footnote: Pepys, May 15th, 1663.] Bristol was the first who determined to take overt action against the Chancellor. His first effort was a singularly inept one, and involved one of the confederates much more than Clarendon. Bristol had hopes, it would appear, of arranging for himself a body of "undertakers" in the House of Commons, who were to take upon themselves the management of measures desired by the Crown. He had offered to Charles the services of Sir Richard Temple, who, he a.s.serted, would, if trusted, undertake that the King's business would be effected, and revenue settled. Coventry, whose special functions were thus threatened, reported the words, as those which had been used to the King "by a person of quality," to the House, which thus saw its independence flagrantly a.s.sailed; and on the pet.i.tion of the House, the King disclosed the name of the Earl of Bristol as his informant. Bristol craved to be heard by the House in his own defence; and addressed them in that tone of theatrical vanity and rhodomontade in which he was apt to indulge. The whole transaction is a little obscure, and its objects seem inconclusive. The world was already accustomed to these outbursts of Bristol's self-advertising folly.

But his next step was more direct and more audacious. It was no less than the impeachment of the Lord Chancellor. He consulted the King, who endeavoured to dissuade him, but to whose dissuasions Bristol's insolent reply was, that if he were not supported, "he would raise such disorders that all England should feel them, and the King himself should not be without a large share in them." [Footnote: _Burnet_, i. 339.] The interview was evidently a stormy one, and Bristol did not scruple to threaten his King in language for which he had afterwards to offer the most abject apology.

The charges which Bristol, in spite of these warnings, formulated against Clarendon in the House of Lords, were flimsy and fanciful even for his contriving. Clarendon, it was alleged, had arrogated to himself a superior direction in all his Majesty's affairs. He had abused the trust by insinuating that the King was inclined to popery; [Footnote: These charges from one who, on grounds of conscience that were more than suspected, had joined the Roman Catholic Church, are worthy of Bristol's audacious inconsistency.] he had alleged that the King had removed Nicholas, a zealous Protestant, in order to bring in Bennet, a concealed Papist; he had solicited from the Pope a Cardinal's hat for Lord Aubigny as the price of suspension of the Penal Laws against Catholics; he had been responsible for irregularities in the King's marriage; he had uttered scandals against the King's course of life; he had given out that the King intended to legitimize the Duke of Monmouth; had persuaded the King to withdraw the garrisons from Scotland; had advised the sale of Dunkirk; had told the King that the House of Lords was "weak and inconsiderable," and the House of Commons "weak and heady;" and he had enriched himself and his followers by illegitimate means.

It is difficult to understand how even the blind vanity and over-weening self-importance of Bristol could have persuaded him that this string of absurdities could injure the Chancellor, or obtain credence even from his most prejudiced foes. There was not a single item that could involve a charge of treason even if true, and some of the allegations imputed to Clarendon opinions and aims to which he was notoriously opposed. It was evident that Bristol had been inspired only by an insane desire to charge against Clarendon anything which seemed likely to attach some unpopularity to his name.

At Clarendon's desire the charges laid against him were referred to the judges, who unanimously reported that the accusations had been irregularly made, and that, even if they were admitted to be true, they involved no treason. The King sent a message to the Lords, to inform them that some of the facts alleged were, to his own certain knowledge, untrue. Never were charges more recklessly brought, and never did a weapon, forged against an enemy, towards whom Bristol nursed an almost insane jealousy, turn with more deadly effect upon its contriver. A warrant was issued for Bristol's arrest, and he escaped any more drastic punishment only by absconding. But the episode closed for the time Bristol's career; and for a season it seemed to confirm and re-establish the supremacy of Clarendon. One of his foes at least had been worsted in the attempt to cast him on his back. But harder troubles than those raised by Bristol's ill-aimed attack still awaited him.

CHAPTER XXI

THE DUTCH WAR

Bristol had shot his bolt prematurely, and was foiled in his attack upon Clarendon. For the moment the Chancellor's authority seemed to be consolidated by the very machinations of his enemies. But the rancour of the intriguers was none the less vigorous, and it required all his courage and steadfastness to maintain the load of public care that hung upon him while he saw his influence undermined by secret slander. He knew well that the King was listening to those who spared no effort to excite his jealousy of Clarendon's control; that the easy humour which prompted Charles to avoid a rupture was no trustworthy s.h.i.+eld against the effects of his growing irritation. He saw that the Court was sinking deeper in the mire of licentiousness and corruption, and was daily rousing against it more emphatically the anger and contempt of the nation, and making his own task of consolidation more hopeless. The anxieties and hards.h.i.+ps of long years of civil war, of exile, and of poverty, were telling sorely upon his own health, and much of his work had to be carried on from a sick-bed, and under the strain of painful illness. Ambition had never played a great part in his life; and even gratified ambition would have been ill-paid by high place and sounding t.i.tles, when these were accompanied by baffled hopes, and by the sight of his ideals fading into unreality. But his difficulties were now to be increased, as he saw the nation gradually drifting into war, under the promptings of a selfish and reckless faction, who exploited national jealousies for their own purposes, and, mistaking a spirit of boastful bl.u.s.ter for courage and determination, sought to supply the place of deliberate preparation by thoughtless provocations. And all the while he knew perfectly well that, if disaster ensued, his enemies would lay the blame on him.

Between England and the Dutch Republic, the causes of irritation had been rapidly acc.u.mulating. The centre of the commerce of the world had now s.h.i.+fted to North-Western Europe, and the growing commercial interests of the day were a sure and increasing source of international jealousy. The rivalry between England and Holland had begun before the Civil War, and during that war Holland had found in England's distractions a splendid opportunity for stealing a march on her most powerful rival. In her colonial enterprise she had easily outstript Spain and Portugal, and more than held her own with England. Her trade was the largest of the world.

Her fleet was admirably equipped, and the great traditions of her naval commanders were worthily maintained since the death of Van Tromp, by De Ruyter. If her marvellous prosperity carried within itself the seeds of decay, these were not as yet apparent; and however dangerous were her internal dissensions, they were for the time neutralized by the cunning and the capacity of De Witt. No Power had better reason to recognize the imperial force of Cromwell, and none was more keenly conscious of the contrast between his master will, and the vacillating and distracted counsels that now prevailed at the Court of England. Clarendon saw the position as well as they. He knew how poor was the bulwark supplied by the noisy loyalty of the Restoration, and how imperatively necessary it was to consolidate authority at home before launching upon a foreign war. We have already spoken of Cromwell's Navigation Act, forbidding any imports into England except those carried in English s.h.i.+ps, or in s.h.i.+ps belonging to the country of origin, and of the deadly wound which that Act had inflicted upon the Dutch carrying trade. The Act had, as we have seen, been renewed by the Parliament of 1661; but it remained to be seen whether England could maintain by force of arms the supremacy which such legislation a.s.sumed. If this was to be done, it could be only by careful preparation, by establis.h.i.+ng a sound financial system, and by presenting a united front. All these essentials were ignored by the recklessness of Clarendon's enemies, and his efforts to secure them were baffled by the profusion, the waywardness, and the petty irritation of the King.

The Dutch could offer no direct opposition to the Navigation Laws; but in colonial affairs they had ample opportunity for inflicting injury upon England, and they were not slow to avail themselves of it. A tariff war between the two countries had already begun. The woollen manufacturers of England were threatened by the high import duties imposed by the Dutch upon English goods; and England endeavoured to meet these by prohibiting the export of wool. Each Parliamentary session saw new import duties imposed upon foreign goods imported into England, and in many cases their importation was absolutely prohibited. The rivalry in the fis.h.i.+ng trade led to conflicts which were carried almost to the point of war, and the fis.h.i.+ng fleets from the Dutch and English ports both reckoned, as an ordinary experience, on having to defend themselves by armed force. But it was on the West coast of Africa, and in the East Indies, that the two Powers came into most serious collision, and there the bitterness of rivalry was increased by a long catalogue of wrongs suffered on both sides. The estrangement was intensified when the chief colonial rival of Holland seemed likely to become, by the marriage treaty, the ally of England, and when Portugal threatened, in the confidence of that alliance, to prosecute her schemes of vengeance for the aggressions of the Dutch. It became of the first importance for the Dutch to patch up some sort of treaty with Portugal before the English alliance should be cemented, and this was the object of the statesmen of the United Provinces. To counteract this seemed to some to be the soundest policy for England.

The negotiations at the Hague were carried on by Sir George Downing, who without being a leading statesman, or wielding any considerable authority in England, yet managed to exert no little influence upon the course of affairs at a very critical juncture. His career had been a strange one. He was of obscure birth, but had managed to ingratiate himself with the Protector, and was employed in various capacities--ranging, it would appear, from chaplain to scout-master--in the Scottish army. In 1656, he appeared in Cromwell's Parliament, as member for Haddington, and secured for himself a plurality of offices, which combined a tellers.h.i.+p of the Exchequer, with the captaincy of a troop of horse. The time was favourable for the adventurer whose advance was delayed by no scruples of conscience, and no deficiency of self-a.s.surance; and Downing increased his importance by a marriage with the sister of Howard, first Earl of Carlisle. We next find him resident at the Hague, as Cromwell's representative, and exerting himself, with obtrusive zeal, in urging the exclusion from Dutch territory of the exiled King and his Court. But Downing was one of those who readily, and with no troublesome qualms of conscience or of honour, accommodate themselves to changes of political circ.u.mstances. He was astute enough to foresee the coming Restoration, and easily secured the confidence and grat.i.tude of Charles by betraying the secrets of those whose agent he was. He rendered a useful service in betraying to Charles's advisers the double-dealing of Sir Richard Willis, the Royalist who stooped to be spy for Cromwell, and compounded with his conscience by taking care that his betrayals should be accompanied by warnings which enabled those whose movements he betrayed, to provide for their own safety. Downing carefully copied the manoeuvres he exposed, and was dexterous enough to arrange that he should continue, by an easy transference of allegiance, to act at the Hague for Charles, in the same capacity as he had acted for Cromwell, He had gained experience which was eminently useful; and he was soon ready to show the same relentless skill in tracing the hiding places of fugitive rebels, as he had lately shown in hara.s.sing the exiled Royalists. He was a man of unquestionable ability, of dauntless audacity, and restless activity; but he moved the hatred and contempt alike of Royalist and rebel, for his arrogance, his brazen insolence, and his cynical lack of conscience. Clarendon had now to use him as agent in a series of complicated diplomatic transactions. To his perspicacity, promptness, and determination, the Chancellor might trust.

But again and again, in his correspondence, Clarendon has to urge caution, to rebuke Downing's arrogance, and to expostulate with him for an att.i.tude deliberately provocative, and neglectful of the plainest instructions inculcating prudence and reserve. Clarendon was to have his instinctive dislike of the man aggravated by many future provocations in other fields.

At this time, he found him the most dangerous of agents in a negotiation of the utmost delicacy--one impatient of control, impetuous in temper, reckless by his greed of self-glorification, and too intent upon achieving a diplomatic triumph, to pay any attention to the risks of premature hostilities. Downing was determined to prevent the concession of any substantial advantages to the Dutch by means of the Portuguese treaty, and did not hesitate to a.s.sert that any such concession would be treated by the King of England as a breach of the engagement between Portugal and himself. Clarendon was not prepared to a.s.sume such an att.i.tude. An open breach between Portugal and the United Provinces would undoubtedly have involved England in war.

"You must set all your wits on work to prevent this war, which will produce a thousand mischiefs, "wrote Clarendon to Downing; [Footnote: Letter of November 22nd, 1661.] "the Dutch will undergo their full share of them; nor can any good Dutchman desire that Portugal should be so distressed as to fall again into the hands of the Spaniards."

Clarendon, of course, was alive to the disadvantages of a grant by Portugal to the Dutch of privileges of trade equal to those possessed by England. But if Portugal agreed to indemnify England for any loss of exclusive privilege, then, in G.o.d's name, let them sign what treaty they pleased. Anything rather than be plunged in a war to which the resources of the nation were not equal, and which would inflict a far more crus.h.i.+ng blow upon those commercial interests in defence of which it would be waged, than could be involved in any unduly generous treaty concessions to a rival. The treaty was ratified, and for the moment the breach between the United Provinces and Portugal was avoided.

Other grounds of quarrel soon supervened. Charles had strongly espoused the interests of his sister's child, the young Prince of Orange, whose exclusion, through the instrumentality of De Witt, from the office of Stadtholder, which had been held by his father, was keenly resented by the English King. Downing was instructed to support the Prince's claim, and was ready, with his usual headstrong pugnacity, to make it an essential condition of any treaty that these should be conceded. "The Dutch would not hazard their trade," he wrote, "upon such a point." But he failed to notice that the point involved the influence of De Witt, the most powerful man in Holland. Once again Clarendon had to moderate the impetuosity of his representative: we could make no such stipulation. "Upon what grounds, I pray," wrote Clarendon to Downing, "can the King, in renewing a league with the States-General, demand that they should choose a general of his recommendation?" It would be time enough to intervene when we had established peace. Then, and then only, could we think of fighting against the intrigues of De Witt with any prospect of success.

Clarendon knew well that nothing would suit the plans of Louis XIV. so entirely as an internecine war between England and the Dutch. Nor was this the sole danger to be feared from engaging in hostilities. It was only by a peace with Holland, that the fear of new dissensions at home could be allayed.

"There is nothing," writes Clarendon to Downing, in August, 1661, "the seditious and discontented people here do so much fear as a peace with Holland, from the contrary to which they promise themselves infinite advantages." "If this peace can be handsomely made up, and speedily, great conveniences will arise from it; and we may, after two or three years'

settling at home, be in the better position to do what we find fit."

For the present, the aim of Clarendon's policy was to restore the position to what it had been under Cromwell. If the conditions essential for the free expansion of English trade were secured, the more distant quarrels between the different trading companies in the East Indies and Africa might be matter for subsequent argument, and the dynastic claims of the House of Orange might be postponed to a more convenient season. With these clear aims before him, it was not found impossible by Clarendon to arrange a treaty between England and the United Provinces, which was signed at Westminster, in September, 1662. Each was to aid the other against rebels, and neither was to harbour fugitive rebels from the other Power. The naval supremacy of England was to be acknowledged by the lowering of the flag by Dutch vessels. The island of Polerone in the Malay Archipelago--an old subject of contention--was to be restored by Holland. There was to be full freedom of trade between the two Powers. The quarrels of the independent trading companies of each Power in Africa and the East Indies were not to involve war, but were to form subject of arbitration, and equitable settlement after a due interval. No dispute was to be revived which dated earlier than 1654, and later claims which were still outstanding were to be settled by Commissioners appointed by the two Powers. This last article alone was soon found to involve grounds of dissension far-reaching enough to have broken up the peace, even had no other irritating causes supervened.

But all other causes of hostility were of comparatively small importance compared with the essential and insuperable rivalry in colonial trade. It was in these new and expanding markets that the question of European commercial supremacy must be fought out. The command of them was of absolutely vital importance in the inevitable struggle for existence between the two nations. They were chiefly in the hands of great and independent companies working under the protection of either Power. These companies were careless of international rights; zealous only to secure their own commercial monopoly, and certain of being backed up by all the resources of their own State. In England there were three of these great companies--the Turkey Company, the East India Company, and the Royal African Company. Each could rely upon powerful political support, and their ambitions were supported by the solid ma.s.s of England's commercial cla.s.s. Early in the session, which began in March, 1664, the grievances from which English commerce suffered under the overweening insolence and repeated aggressions of the Dutch, were laid before Parliament. Heavy losses were alleged to have been suffered, and the dangers of the total decay of the trade were forcibly foretold. Parliament was not slow to take the alarm. Both Houses concurred in the resolution--

"That the wrongs, dishonours, and indignities done to his Majesty by the subjects of the United Provinces, by invading of his rights in India, Africa, and elsewhere, and the damages, affronts, and injuries done by them to our merchants, are the greatest obstruction of our foreign trade;"

and they prayed that speedy and effectual means should be taken for obtaining redress, and for preventing such injuries in future. It was clear that the national temper had been thoroughly aroused, and would insist on a.s.serting itself. Clarendon's influence is seen in the moderation of Charles's reply. He approved their zeal and promised inquiry, but went no further than to undertake that his Minister should demand reparation, and take steps for the prevention of such wrongs in future.

The bellicose att.i.tude of Parliament had given much alarm to the Dutch.

"The resolution of the two Houses of Parliament," writes Downing to Clarendon, [Footnote: Letter of April 29th, 1664.] "is altogether beyond their expectation, and puts them to their wits' end." "Believe me," he goes on, "at the bottom of their hearts, they are sensible of the weight of a war with his Majesty."

The moderation of the King's reply served to allay the Dutchmen's fears of the imminence of war; but De Witt found it prudent to promise that he would do his utmost to meet the English demands. He expressed to Downing "with great appearing joy," his satisfaction with the King's reply; and said that "since his Majesty had so tenderly declared himself, he would upon that account condescend so much the more to give him satisfaction."

Downing doubtless thought that the demand went unduly far in the direction of moderation. But if he had any fears that pacific motives would prevail, he was soon to be undeceived. For the moment war seemed to be averted.

Louis XIV.--however he might wish to see the naval Powers exhaust themselves by mutual injuries--had no wish to see the outbreak of a war in which the Treaty rights of the Dutch warranted them in calling for his a.s.sistance, and he offered himself as a mediator. But both the disputants were drifting rapidly to the arbitrament of arms.

Downing had a powerful ally for his own warlike inclinations in the Duke of York. James was restless when deprived of opportunity of adding to his influence, and satisfying his chief ambition, by engaging in some warlike operation. He had already acquired some reputation, not without warrant, as a capable naval commander, and as a man of personal courage. He had little opportunity of political action in England, and a war with the Dutch not only promised vengeance for old grudges against the nation, but offered a good chance of winning new renown. He had other less creditable motives. He had taken an active part in the management of some of the great trading companies, and was deeply interested in various colonial enterprises. In March, 1664, James obtained a grant of Long Island on the American coast--a territory nominally belonging to the English, but now, in default of their colonizing it, occupied by the Dutch, who had built a town called New Amsterdam. With the help of two s.h.i.+ps of war, lent him by the Crown, the Duke organized an expedition to seize the island. The scanty Dutch colony could offer no effective resistance. Their town was ceded to the emissaries of the Duke, who changed its name to one destined to hold a large s.p.a.ce in the history of the world. New Amsterdam became New York, as the result of a buccaneering raid, carried out by some three hundred men, hired by the Duke of York to prosecute a private proprietorial claim.

The Duke was also Governor of the African Trading Company, and this again brought him into even more serious conflict with the Dutch. That company had established its operations upon the Guinea coast before the Civil War, and had carried on a successful trade, which had been grievously interrupted by the troubles at home. The Dutch had, meanwhile, established a rival factory, and prosecuted their trade with such success as seriously to cripple that of England. After the Restoration, the company was re- organized, and the Duke being persuaded to become Governor, a Royal Charter was easily obtained. Those who knew the region were convinced of its promise; and high profits were confidently expected by bartering English goods against the gold and the slaves, of which the supply was so rich. The gold was brought in sufficient quant.i.ties to give the name of "Guineas" to a new designation in the English coinage; and the slaves were easily disposed of at a high price to other plantations in various parts of the globe. The only inconvenience arose from the hindrance which the Dutch could offer to English trade, by means of their own superior trade organization, and the more suitable situation of their factory.

Once more the difficulty in the way of the Duke and his Company was settled by an armed raid. Exactly as in the case of New York, he "borrowed" two s.h.i.+ps of war from the King, and sent an expedition under the command of Sir Robert Holmes, which, by a flagrant violation of every international right, seized the Dutch fort. The balance of wrong was thus roughly reversed. By an act of unwarrantable violence the Duke of York had fixed upon his own nation the burden of maintaining what amounted to piratical aggression; and he had done it--as Clarendon is obliged to allow--"without any authority, and without a shadow of justice,"

[Footnote: Letter to Downing, October 28th, 1664.]--solely in satisfaction of his own private rights as a company promoter. Clarendon's diplomacy was, of a truth, conducted under untoward circ.u.mstances! Between the filibustering of his royal son-in-law, and the deliberate exasperation of his accredited representative at the Hague, peace had become well-nigh hopeless. Under such conditions negotiations became tangled beyond the possibility of repair. De Witt recognized that no reparation for the wrong done at Cape Verde would be secured except by armed force. But in carrying out this purpose he still endeavoured to avoid any declaration of war. De Ruyter and the English Admiral Lawson were now cruising in the Mediterranean, on a joint expedition, for suppression of piracy, and for releasing the captives of Tunis and Algiers. De Ruyter secretly separated himself from his English ally, sailed for Cape Verde, and there took vengeance for the English aggression on the trading operations of the Dutch. It was an open breach of the stipulation of the Treaty, which required that reparation for colonial wrongs should be sought by peaceable arbitration. Clarendon had recognized fully that such reparation was due, and had instructed Downing to offer it. The elusive tactics of De Witt, and the armed intervention of De Ruyter, frustrated Clarendon's efforts for a peaceful settlement.

Already Clarendon's p.r.o.nounced inclination for peace had earned for him the ill-will which the Duke of York's habitual sulkiness of temper was so apt to indulge. The King had given their due weight to the arguments of the Chancellor, and felt the danger which war would involve at once to his own authority at home, and to the position of England in Europe. This he had impressed upon his brother; and James rightly ascribed the King's backwardness to Clarendon, and found a convenient medium of remonstrance in his wife, whom he instructed to explain to her father the Duke's annoyance at finding him his chief opponent "in an affair upon which he knew his heart was so much set." [Footnote: _Life_, ii. 240.] It was characteristic of James that he should deal with a matter of vital interest to the kingdom, as if it was the fitting subject of petty personal pique. Anne undertook the duty, and begged her father no longer to oppose the Duke. Clarendon told her that she "did not enough understand the importance of that affair;" but he would speak to the Duke about it.

At their interview, James renewed his tone of personal annoyance, urged the expediency of the war, and above all complained that, as "he was engaged to pursue it," Clarendon should allow the world to see "how little credit he had with him."

Clarendon's reply was as dignified as it was candid. "He had no apprehension that any sober man in England, or his highness himself, should believe that he could fail in his duty to him, or that he would omit any opportunity to make it manifest, which he could never do without being a fool or a madman." But on the other hand he would never give advice, nor consent to anything, which his judgment and his conscience told him would be mischievous to the Crown and to the Kingdom, "though his royal highness, or the King himself, were inclined to it." From the first, the King, he told the Duke, had been "averse from any thought of this war;" but he did not deny that he had done all in his power to confirm the King in that opinion. A few too complacent friends, he told the Duke, might for the moment concur in his view; reflection would soon change their minds. "A few merchants, nor all the merchants in London, were not the city of London, which had had war enough, and could only become rich by peace." The hopes of a liberal grant from Parliament were delusions. He was old enough to remember what had been the fate of James I., who had been tempted "to enter into a war with Spain, upon promise of ample supplies; and yet when he was engaged in it, they gave him no more supply, so that at last the Crown was compelled to accept of a peace not very honourable;" and, Clarendon might have added, to begin that long struggle over supply which had led to the Rebellion.

Clarendon's plain speaking did not end here. The Duke plumed himself upon his military prowess, and was eager for the war because of the laurels which he believed it had in store for him. With a better appreciation of his son-in-law's abilities, Clarendon begged him to reflect "upon the want of able men to conduct the counsels upon which such a war must be carried on." For a time it had seemed as if the Duke were ready to listen to reason, and there had been less talk of war; but the recent aggressions on both sides had dispelled such hopes. De Ruyter had inflicted heavy injury on the English merchants on the African Coast. This was answered by an attack by Prince Rupert's fleet upon the Dutch merchantmen in the Channel.

War had virtually begun, in spite of all the Chancellor's counsels of prudence, and all his warnings of the imminent danger. Specious proposals for a settlement were now too late.

"Though I am very glad," wrote Clarendon to Downing, [Footnote: Letter of October 28th, 1664.] "to find any temperate and sober considerations, which dispose that people to peace, I wish they had entertained it sooner, for I scarce see time left for such a disquisition as is necessary. They have too insolently provoked the King to such an expense, that fighting is thought the better husbandry."