But they did not want to fight.
They had troubles of their own at home. They also had a land frontier
to defend. And they wanted to keep their rich sea freight business
without having to fight for it. But the British were bent on war.
They remembered Amboyna. They did not see why the Dutch should keep
other shippers out of the East Indies. And it angered them to see the
Dutch grow rich on British trade taken away while the British were busy
with a war.
When things are in such a state the guns almost go off by themselves.
Captain Young, with three ships, met three Dutch men-of-war in the
Channel and fired at the first that refused to salute according to the
Custom of the Sea. Then the great British admiral, Blake, fired at the
great Dutch admiral, van Tromp, for the same reason. A hot fight
followed in each case; but without a victory for either side. At
Dungeness, however, van Tromp with eighty ships beat Blake with forty,
and swept the Channel throughout the winter of 1652-3. But in
February, when the fleets were about equal, the British got the better
of him in the Straits of Dover, after a running fight of three days.
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