CROMWELL AND MAZARIN 227 French squadron bearing aid to Dunkirk, and so had enabled a Spanish army to capture that fortress. up his With the Dutch War concluded, the Protector had to make mind. For him, with his military record and his sense of a mission, there could be no standing still. Holding himself accountable for the use of the power which had been placed in his hands, he conceived that he must employ it for the advancement of England and of the Protestant interest, which in his eyes were identical. The only doubt was of the direction in which to strike. War against either France or Spain could be made to yield a Flemish conquest upon which to base an intervention in the affairs of Europe at large. War with France had also the attraction of enabling him to assist the Huguenots. But his secret agents soon convinced him that there was little basis for such an aim. The Fronde was not, as he had been tempted to believe, a war of religion, and there was hardly anything in common between English Puritanism and the opponents of Cardinal Mazarin. On the other hand, the actions of Spain in the West, viewed through English eyes, called out for vengeance. The conquest in time of peace of Tortuga (1635) and of the Puritan colony of Providence (1641) seemed unprovoked aggressions to one who honestly could not comprehend that Spain had regarded their establishment as an aggression. Several minor transactions had a similar bearing; and Philip IV would not hear of liberty of worship for Englishmen in his ports. So, after some months of negotiation with either Power, Cromwell decided in the autumn of 1654, not for regular war with Spain, but for a great reprisal raid in the Caribbean, the seizure of some important colony which, if the thing promised well, might grow into a conquest of Spanish America. The opening stage, he calculated, need not commit him to war in Europe, where he might still for some time postpone his choice of a foe. Mazarin had already swallowed the intervention at Dunkirk which had lost him that stronghold, and when in October 1654 news came that an English force had captured the French forts in Acadia, Cromwell declined to restore them and incurred no declaration of war from the cardinal. It seemed reasonable, therefore, that he should expect Spain to put up with similar treatment; but in that, as the event was to show, he miscalculated. Thus the "Western Design" went forward, a feint in the major game of European diplomacy, but one planned to yield in itself solid results across the ocean. The plans were faulty, for Cromwell listened to advisers who were too optimistic, and he badly under-estimated the difficulty of the task. He was probably influenced by the statements of Thomas Gage, the author of The English American, a book which had a great vogue at the time. In it the writer described, from personal observation, the feebleness and moral corruption of the 1 See Gage, T., The English American or a New Survey of the West Indies, ed. A. P. Newton, Introduction. Spanish colonial population, the rottenness of their defences, and the discontent of the natives under their sway. Gage was right so far as he went, but he did not tell the whole truth. For experience had already shown that the true defence of the Spanish colonies against English aggression lay not in men and guns, but in climate and pestilence. Of Cromwell's error it may be said that, believing the Spanish Empire to be a sham, "a Colossus stuffed with clouts", he sent out a sham expedition to conquer it. He had no desire to lose in the West Indies the men who supported his authority at home. He planned therefore that the troops sent from England should number only 3000, and that their force should be doubled by recruits picked up in Barbados and the Leeward Islands. Actually the English part of the force did not exceed 2500 men, and those of poor quality. Few were trained soldiers, and the majority were civilians hastily impressed. This so-called army was hurriedly embarked at the close of 1654 without having once mustered in its entirety. As Gardiner has remarked, "It had not been by gathering a mob and styling it an army that Oliver had beaten down his enemies at Marston Moor and Naseby". The explanation lies in his under-estimate of the difficulty of the service and in the prevailing theory of emigration, which held that it was unwise to settle good men out of England. For in Cromwell's mind the conquest was to be merely incidental to the exploitation of the territories acquired, and the troops were to settle down in them as the first colonists. The warships were much better manned, and it was their seamen who did most of the real work that was accomplished. By the end of March 1655 the expedition had visited Barbados and the Leeward Islands and had enlisted about 3000 colonists, men who were even more dissolute and ineffective than those who had come from England. The Protector's orders to Robert Venables and William Penn, respectively the land and sea commanders, were vague. They might begin by taking Porto Rico or Hispaniola and thence extend the movement to the other Spanish islands, or they might disembark on the Spanish Main and capture Cartagena and the adjoining coasts, or they might occupy an island and then try for Cartagena. He left it all to them and their fellow-commissioners to decide on the spot: "The design in general is to gain an interest in that part of the West Indies in the possession of the Spaniard, for the effecting whereof we shall not tie you up to a method by any particular instructions".1 The orders were such as Cromwell himself would have preferred to receive, but they threw too much upon the shoulders of Venables, whose character was rather that of a subordinate than of a leader. It is unnecessary to enter into the details of what followed. The story of the landing in Hispaniola and the disgrace at San Domingo is well known. By the beginning of May all was over in that quarter. 1 Brit. Mus., Add. MSS, 11410, f. 41, printed in full in Watts, A. P., Histoire des colonies anglaises aux Antilles, 1649–1660, pp. 466-9. THE WAR WITH SPAIN 229 The expedition then seized Jamaica, which could muster no more than 500 fighting men. All the English force was now needed for the work of colonisation: and since it was more demoralised than ever, there could be no thought of any further undertaking. Penn and Venables, notwithstanding their duty to remain and develop their conquest, returned to England, and Cromwell sent them to the Tower for deserting their posts.1 The "Western Design" had not yielded a tithe of its expected fruits. In Europe it produced results upon which the Protector had not calculated. He seems to have been convinced that as France and Spain were at war with each other they would both put up with any amount of hard usage rather than quarrel with him. While, therefore, Venables was on his way to the West, Blake was sent with a fleet into the Mediterranean to strengthen English interests there, to retaliate upon French commerce for past injuries, and to show in general that English sea power was as formidable there as in home waters.2 Blake fulfilled his mission in such a way as to frustrate a French design for the conquest of Naples, and then with great impartiality sailed out of the Straits of Gibraltar to cruise for the homeward-bound Spanish Plate fleet. Meanwhile Mazarin, as devoid of temper as he was full of craft, persistently turned the cheek to the smiter and offered alliance; but Cromwell held off for a long time rather than subscribe to any agreement which would bind him to connive at the oppression of the Huguenots. Spain acted with more dignity but less worldly wisdom. Philip IV, on receiving in the late summer the news of the attack on Hispaniola, held that that in itself constituted a declaration of war. After a brief delay he recalled his ambassador and detained English merchants and property in Spain; and the Protector was left to make the best of a situation of his own producing. There can be no doubt that Mazarin had made the better choice, humiliating as it was, for England really was the holder of the balance, as the events of the next four years were to show. In October 1655 England and France signed a treaty ending the maritime hostilities which had been waged since 1649. Next year they made an alliance for the conquest of the Spanish Netherlands. The new combination achieved little in 1657, but in 1658 carried all before it, routing Spaniards and Royalists at the battle of the Dunes, capturing Dunkirk, and then making a triumphant invasion of the Spanish provinces which was stayed only by the vanquished suing for peace. At the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), England secured Dunkirk, and France part of the Netherlands, and the age of Louis XIV, the age of Spanish debility and French ascendancy, began. Meanwhile at sea Blake had destroyed a treasure-fleet at Santa Cruz, but English commerce had suffered severely from the Ostend and Dunkirk 1 See Gardiner, vol. I, chap. xiv; Watts, op. cit., Appendices; Firth, C. H., Narrative of Gen. Venables (Camden Soc.). * See Corbett, J. S., England in the Mediterranean, vol. 1, chap. xvi. privateers, so that the Spanish War proved far more costly in the end than the Anglo-Dutch contest. To complete the review of the external policy of the Puritans it is necessary to say something of Portugal. In an earlier chapter of this volume1 reference was made to Anglo-Portuguese hostilities arising out of the English claim to trade in West Africa in the early part of Elizabeth's reign. Since 1576 there had been considerable English trade on the Guinea coast with the sanction of successive Governments, a complete disregard of the Portuguese monopoly in the East Indies, and a regular English traffic with the parts of Brazil occupied by Portugal. These matters were unregulated by any treaty until 1642, when John IV, leading the Portuguese revolt against Spanish domination, had been glad to seek the friendship of Charles I. The Anglo-Portuguese agreement of that year recognised English rights in West Africa, allowed a limited English trade in the Portuguese stations in India, and provided for a meeting of commissioners to define the extent of the English Brazil trade. A further clause permitted Portuguese merchants to hire English shipping for their own African commerce.2 John IV's alliance with the Stuarts impelled him to afford shelter to Prince Rupert in 1650, and led to a substantive maritime war in that year between Portugal and the Commonwealth. Blake soon convinced the Portuguese of the unwisdom of their attitude, and negotiations for friendship with England began in 1652. They were still incomplete when the Protectorate succeeded the Commonwealth, and it was left for Cromwell to bring them to an issue in 1654. By the treaty of that year Portugal made great concessions. Compensation was to be paid for the losses of English merchants in 1650; Englishmen in Portugal were to be free from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, not only on board their ships, but in their houses on shore; customs duties were limited to agreed rates, not to be augmented; English ships were to trade freely in Portuguese Africa and India, and with Brazil under certain restrictions; and Portuguese merchants might hire English ships but not those of any other nation. In effect the treaty constituted England the heir to the dying Portuguese Empire and dealt to the ambitions of the Dutch a blow which they were then in no condition to resent. English merchants and shipowners acquired the same footing in the Portuguese colonial trade as the Dutch had acquired in that of England during the Civil War; and, unlike their rivals, the English were never ousted from their gains. The case with which Cromwell secured this predominance undoubtedly inspired him to make similar demands on Spain. 1 Vide supra, chapter п, рр. 41-7. 2 The text is in Rymer, T., Foedera, orig. edn. xx, 523-7. 3 Shillington and Chapman, The Commercial Relations of England and Portugal, pp. 199– 204; for the text of the treaty see Dumont, Corps universel diplomatique, vi, 82-5. The imperial policy of the Protectorate with regard to foreign Powers has necessarily taken precedence of its policy towards the English colonies themselves, but that branch of the subject has now to be considered. Three new colonies were temporarily or permanently acquired during the Interregnum, and of these the first was Surinam. In 1651 Lord Willoughby, then the royalist governor and part-proprietor of Barbados, sent a small expedition to Guiana, the scene of so many English attempts during the early Stuart period. His emissaries reported well of the prospects on the Surinam River, and Willoughby then despatched about a hundred Barbadians to begin a plantation, with an eye to the development of a new proprietorship for himself. The colony took root and prospered. Willoughby himself paid it a visit on his eviction from Barbados in 1652, and then sailed for England to obtain the recognition of his rights. The Commonwealth, however, objecting both to royalism and to proprietorships, had no ear for his petition, and appointed a certain Captain Richard Holdip to govern Surinam. Holdip went to the colony, but is recorded some time afterwards as having deserted it. He cannot have stayed longer than the summer of 1654, for he sailed with Venables's expedition at the close of that year. At the beginning of the Protectorate, Willoughby sought a grant of the proprietorship from Cromwell, but after some negotiations the plan broke down; although in 1657 the Protector offered to let him go to Surinam to enjoy his private property there. Willoughby was not content with this, and preferred to remain at home and engage in royalist conspiracies. So, in and out of the Tower, but never very harshly treated, he continued until the Restoration. Meanwhile Cromwell appointed no governor and did nothing positive to regulate the affairs of the colony, which pursued an autonomous career until 1660. Its planters were chiefly Royalists from Barbados, together with a number of Jews driven successively from Brazil by the Portuguese and from Cayenne by the French. Surinam developed a thriving sugar industry, and since it avoided giving scandal by its royalism and was moreover a settlement of great potential value, the Protector was quite content to let it alone. It evolved a constitution of its own, the planters annually electing an Assembly, and that body a governor, the latter having also the assistance of a council of his own nomination. The second of the new acquisitions was the fruit of the informal war with France. Early in 1654 Major Robert Sedgwick had been sent to New England to organise an attack upon the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. The Dutch peace nipped this scheme in the bud, and Sedgwick turned his energies in another direction. His commission empowered him to make reprisals on the French for their attacks upon English shipping, and with assistance from New England he captured the fortified posts controlling the French colony of Acadia. Cromwell, despite his later alliance with Mazarin, did not restore the conquest, |