Thrice in the lifetime of one generation the two nations had contended, with equal courage and with various fortune, for the sovereignty of the German Ocean.

The tyranny of James, as it had reconciled Tories to Whigs and Churchmen to Nonconformists, had also reconciled the English to the Dutch.

While our ancestors were looking to the Hague for deliverance, the massacre of Amboyna and the great humiliation of Chatham had seemed to be forgotten.

But since the Revolution the old feeling had revived.
Though England and Holland were now closely bound together by treaty, they were as far as ever from being bound together by affection.

Once, just after the battle of Beachy Head, our countrymen had seemed disposed to be just; but a violent reaction speedily followed.