more civility and friendship than he had received from any other foreign
power, the Louvestein or aristocratic faction, which at this time ruled
the commonwealth, had fallen into close union with France; and could
that party be subdued, he might hope that his nephew, the young prince
of Orange, would be reinstated in the authority possessed by his
ancestors, and would bring the states to a dependence under England. His
narrow revenues made it still requisite for him to study the humors
of his people, which now ran violently towards war; and it has been
suspected, though the suspicion was not justified by the event, that
the hopes of diverting some of the supplies to his private use were not
overlooked by this necessitous monarch.

The duke of York, more active and enterprising, pushed more eagerly the
war with Holland. He desired an opportunity of distinguishing himself:
he loved to cultivate commerce: he was at the head of a new African
company, whose trade was extremely checked by the settlements of the
Dutch: and perhaps the religious prejudices by which that prince was
always so much governed, began, even so early, to instil into him
an antipathy against a Protestant commonwealth, the bulwark of the
reformation. Clarendon and Southampton, observing that the nation was
not supported by any foreign alliance, were averse to hostilities; but
their credit was now on the decline.

By these concurring motives, the court and parliament were both of them
inclined to a Dutch war. The parliament was prorogued without voting
supplies: but as they had been induced, without any open application
from the crown, to pass that vote above mentioned against the Dutch
encroachments, it was reasonably considered as sufficient sanction for
the rigorous measures which were resolved on.

Downing, the English minister at the Hague, a man of an insolent,
impetuous temper, presented a memorial to the states, containing a list
of those depredations of which the English complained. It is remarkable,
that all the pretended depreciations preceded the year 1662, when a
treaty of league and alliance had been renewed with the Dutch; and these
complaints were then thought either so ill grounded or so frivolous,
that they had not been mentioned in the treaty. Two ships alone, the
Bonaventure and the Good Hope, had been claimed by the English; and it
was agreed that the claim should be prosecuted by the ordinary course
of justice. The states had con