--_Alfred, Lord Tennyson_.
PART II
THE DUTCH WAR
CHAPTER XI
THE FIRST DUTCH WAR
(1623-1653)
The Dutch Wars, which lasted off and on for fifty years (1623-1673),
were caused by rivalry in oversea trade. In the sixteenth century the
Dutch and English had joined forces against the Portuguese, who had
tried to keep them out of the East Indies altogether. But when once
the Portuguese were beaten the allies fell out among themselves, the
Dutch got the upper hand, and, in 1623, killed off the English traders
at Amboyna, one of the Moluccas. War did not come for many years. But
there was always some fighting in the Far South East; and Amboyna was
never forgotten.
The final step toward war was taken when the British Parliament passed
the famous Navigation Act of 1651. By this Act nothing could be
brought into England except in English ships or in ships belonging to
the country from which the goods came. As the Dutch were then doing
half the oversea freight work of Europe, and as they had also been
making the most of what oversea freighting England had lost during her
Civil War, the Act hit them very hard.
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