Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/553

 1920 DUTCH MISSIONS TO ENGLAND IN 1689 545 been due to patents of monopoly. Now the pensionary Heinsius had formerly been pensionary of Delft, and he was still living in the town when Gerard Putmans, burgomaster of Delft, wrote to him about this matter. Putmans had come over to England on the business, as had also one van Beest, who had done no good, but the matter seemed hopeless whilst king and parliament were so busily occupied.^ Heinsius does not seem to have used any influence with William. The extraordinary ambassadors only got from him the answer that he had not looked into the matter and did not think it timely to discuss it.'^ Witsen, at the request of the porcelain and the earthenware makers' guild of Amsterdam, separately approached the king with no more suc- cess.^ If the English were obstinate about Delft china, they were not likely to give way about woollens, their favourite article of protection, nor about other textiles. Early in the negotiations Witsen had thought it possible to make some agreement about these. ' You are aware ', he wrote to the other burgomasters of Amsterdam, ' that the importing of black cloth is forbidden in this country, as is the importing from here of red cloth to our country. A mutual freedom might be arranged.' * Nothing seems to have come of this. On one more small point the Dutch tried and failed to get a concession, the harbour dues in English ports. Their ships were charged at a higher rate than the English, and, in spite of memorials and, apparently, of promises from William, they could get no reduction. Sporadic complaints about ' light-money ' and * anchor-money ' went on throughout the war and after the peace. ^ Bad as the opportunity was in 1689 for the Dutch to readjust their commerce to the state of war by obtaining a remission of the burdens imposed by their chief remaining peaceful rival, the rest of the war did not provide a better. On both sides, but especially in England, the protective tariffs were progressively strengthened. A link between these commercial questions and the primary business of war is supplied by the treaty for prohibiting com- merce with France. Ever since the times of Leicester, whenever the Dutch and the English had fought as allies, the question of trading with the enemy had caused difficulties between them, the English tending generally to ask for greater severity and the Dutch to indulge greater laxity in dealing with it. They were now both definitely at war with France, each state dealing with 1 Putmans to Heinsius 25 March 1689 (Heinsius Papers, I a). ^ vSecr. dispatch of 2/12 August ; cf. Res, Stat. Oen,, 26 JuIy/5 August. 5 Memorial of 29 June/9 July 1689 (the copy in State Papers, Foreign, Holland 220, is undated). See also Witsen to Heinsius, 2 August ; extraordinary ambassadors 16/26 July, memorial of 7 October ; Witsen to Heinsius, 30 September. VOL. XXXV. — NO. CXL. N n
 * To burgomasters, 9/19. 13/23 August.
 * To burgomasters, 5 April.