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.