The Refitting of Admiral Blake's Fleet at Leigh, during the First Dutch War


The First Anglo-Dutch War was one of the first conflicts to have been conducted entirely at sea. The Dutch were responding to the Navigation Acts passed by the English Parliament which prevented foreign ships from carrying goods between English and colonial ports. During the English Civil War, foreign and particularly Dutch ships had stepped in to provide the means of trade and transportation whilst the Royalists and Parliamentarians fought each other. With a victorious Parliament, Cromwell tried to put an end to this usurpation of merchant activity.


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by Stephen Luscombe