First Dutch War

First Anglo-Dutch War
Part of the Anglo-Dutch Wars
The Battle of Scheveningen, 10 August 1653 by Jan Abrahamsz Beerstraaten, painted c. 1654, depicts the final battle of the First Anglo-Dutch War.
Date 1652–1654 Location English Channel, North Sea, Italy Result Commonwealth victory; Treaty of Westminster
Belligerents
Dutch Republic	Commonwealth of England
Commanders and leaders
Maarten Tromp Michiel de Ruyter Witte de With Johan van Galen	Robert Blake George Ayscue Henry Appleton George Monck
Strength
About 300 ships	About 300 ships
Casualties and losses
About 3,000 killed 33 warships sunk 18 warships captured	About 2,500 killed 10 warships sunk 7 warships captured

The First Anglo-Dutch War (Dutch: Eerste Engels-Nederlandse oorlog) (1652–54) was a conflict fought entirely at sea between the navies of the Commonwealth of England and the United Provinces of the Netherlands. Caused by disputes over trade, the war began with English attacks on Dutch merchant shipping, but expanded to vast fleet actions. Ultimately, it resulted in the English Navy gaining control of the seas around England, and forced the Dutch to accept an English monopoly on trade with England and her colonies. It was the first of the Anglo-Dutch Wars.

In the 16th century, England and the Netherlands had been close allies against the ambitions of the Habsburgs. They cooperated in fighting the Spanish Armada. England supported the Dutch in the Eighty Years' War by sending money and troops. There was a permanent English representative in the Dutch government to ensure coordination of the joint war effort. The separate peace in 1604 between England and Spain strained this relationship. The weakening of Spanish power at the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648 also meant that many colonial possessions of the Portuguese and some of the Spanish empire and their mineral resources were effectively up for grabs. The ensuing rush for empire brought the former allies into conflict. Also the Dutch, having made peace with Spain, quickly replaced the English as dominant traders with the Iberian peninsula, adding to an English resentment about Dutch trade that had steadily grown since 1590.

By the middle of the 17th century the Dutch had built by far the largest mercantile fleet in Europe, with more ships than all the other states combined, and their economy, based mainly on maritime commerce, gave them a dominant position in European trade, especially in the North Sea and Baltic. Furthermore, they had conquered most of Portugal's territories and trading posts in the East Indies and Brazil, giving them control over the enormously profitable trade in spices. They were even gaining significant influence over England's trade with her as yet small North American colonies.

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