History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 155

From the beginning of the 18th century there was a general rise in England's
economic and commercial life which could only redound to the disadvantage of the
Dutch. Everywhere the Dutch merchant encountered the English merchant, and slowly
but surely saw him obtain the upper hand. A powerful navy, greater than that of any
other nation, protected English interests all over the world. Nevertheless, about 1740,
after the Treaty of Utrecht, Holland still ranked with England as a commercial power,
and for at least half a century longer Amsterdam was a world warehouse. Dutch
commerce, however, had passed its highest point, and soon we actually find English
architects and engineers called in to help in the building of a Dutch warship.
4. 2.
Though there were few naval battles between English and Low Dutch in the Middle
Ages, conflicts at sea were numerous enough, but consisted almost entirely of isolated
but persistent acts of piracy and privateering. Two naval battles with Flemings in the
Hundred Years War, however, deserve some mention. The English, under Sir Guy
Brian, met the Flemings under John Peterson at the Island of Bar off the coast of
Brittany, and gained a complete victory. Then in 1386 the Flemish captain, Pieter van
den Bossche, who had entered the English service, intercepted the Flemish fleet from
La Rochelle to Sluys, drove it into Cadzand and captured many ships. The English
remained at Sluys and burned Terneuzen and other places on the coast.
The next period of naval contact was during the Dutch struggle for independence
against Spain. The insurgents had a naval force, the Beggars of the Sea, and under
Alva's administration they made the North Sea insecure for the Spaniards, and
occasionally raided the sea-side villages, churches, and cloisters, selling their booty in
England, East Friesland, Bremen, and Hamburg. Spanish protests to England were
unavailing, for the English ports reaped too much profit out of the Beggars to drive
them away. When the Beggars were defeated by Admiral Boshuizen, their thinned
ranks were soon reinforced from England, and the raids and piracies began anew. A
fleet of fifty sail took Briel in 1572, and when Flushing opened its gates to the Beggars
in the same year, English companies helped to garrison it. Holland was greatly
alarmed at the Armada and collected craft to help England. Twenty ships were to be
placed under Cornelis Loncq as an adjunct to the English fleet at Dover, and after the
engagement at Gravelines the Dutch under Van der Does sank a few galleons which
had drifted on to the Flemish coast and compelled a few more to surrender. Later the
English and Dutch navies combined to attack Spain. There was a Dutch contingent of
18 ships under Van Duivenvoorde in the Cadiz Expedition of 1595, and one of 10
ships under the same admiral in the Islands' Voyage of 1598.
The second half of the 17th century was the period of the great trial of strength at sea
between the English and the Dutch, and three naval wars were fought out, all
characterized by the most desperate fighting and sharp fluctuations of fortune.
In the Civil War the Royalist fleet took shelter from the Parliamentarian fleet in the
harbours of the Maas and from there preyed on English commerce in the Channel; in
retaliation English warships began about 1650 to annoy Dutch merchantmen with
search of their cargo on the pretext of acting against Royalist piracy. A greater cause
of hostility, however, was the harbouring of Royalist refugees in Holland. It was
obvious that the English wanted war. Their fleet had been greatly improved under

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