Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/551

 1920 DUTCH MISSIONS TO ENGLAND IN 1689 643 When the Dutch missions were in England in 1689 they were at first not instructed to raise any commercial questions. Nicolaas Witsen, however, the Amsterdammer, intended from the time when their mission began to see what could be done for the Dutch merchants. He wrote to the burgomasters in February that he would do everything he could for the merchants, and had, in fact, already on his own responsibility brought up something of the kind with William, who had answered graciously, but had said he doubted whether the English could easily be induced to do the Dutch any favours or to give up any possessions they had held since past times, and had advised postponing the whole matter until the press of business in London should be diminished.^ Three months later he has made no headway, but the merchants of Amsterdam have sent over one of their number expressly for the purpose of taking advantage of the negotiations to get some favourable conditions for commerce and navigation to the British Isles and possessions. This man, whose name is not to be found in the records of the Amsterdam municipality and whose mission may therefore be supposed to have been purely unofficial, had frequently written and spoken to Witsen. Witsen, however, feared that without instructions from the states general, and in the unfavourable state of English opinion, little could be done. He had thrown out to Lord Nottingham the suggestion that the English should treat the Dutch as they themselves were treated in Holland, with a free right to import all kinds of goods, of which many were now excluded by various enactments. Nottingham was much averse from this.^ Witsen took, however, the energetic step of persuading Schimmelpennink, the senior member of the embassy, to make a proposal to the English com- missioners, and these agreed to a revision of the commercial treaty.^ After this, the states general at last took a step forward. The * directeurs van den Levantschen handel ', a body seated at Amsterdam, had drawn their attention to the matter, in a letter of which, unhappily, neither the original nor any copy is now to be found, but which was passed on to the ambassadors in England. They accordingly explained to William the complaints of the Dutch against the navigation acts of 1651 and 1660, and the silk duties of 1660 and 1685. They asked for the repeal of these, but they gathered from the drift of William's answer that he thought it useless to go on with the matter.* Either now or at some other time, William even laughed at the proposal.^ One ' Letter to burgomasters, 22 February. ■' Ibid. 18 June. ^ On 10/20 June {ibid. 11/21 f:"une). de zyde' of 1660 and 1685 (ambassador's secret dispatch 28 June/8 July; cf. Witsen to burgomasters, 5/15 July). ' Scheltema, M^-ngelwerk, m. ii. 154 ; Sirtema de Grovestins, vi. 163.
 * The dispatch has, by a slip, the navigation act of 1651 and the ' belastinge op