Note 91 — Chapter IV · THE PURITAN MOVEMENT (continued 2)

The Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon, 1827 ed., vol. ii, p. 235: “The merchants took much delight to enlarge themselves upon this argument [i.e., the advantages of war], and shortly after to discourse ‘of the infinite benefit that would accrue from a barefaced war against the Dutch, how easily they might be subdued and the trade carried by the English.’” According to Clarendon, who despised the merchants and hated the whole business, it was almost a classical example of a commercial war, carefully stage-managed in all its details, from the directorship which the Royal African Company gave to the Duke of York down to the inevitable “incident” with which hostilities began.