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Home Foreign Policy, 1649-1688, and the Beginnings of Greater Britain, 1603-1688 1603-1688; Part 2 |
1603-1688; Part 2Meanwhile, during the course of the war, Cromwell had become Protector (December, 1653). One great aim, of course of Cromwell's foreign policy was to prevent the restoration of the Stuarts by foreign aid. His other two aims were to maintain and to extend, first, the Protestant religion, and then English commerce. Here Cromwell showed that intense religious feeling, combined with practical common sense, which has been noticed already. Cromwell at first pursued a policy of peace, and sought alliance with the Protestant powers. In April, 1654, the Dutch war came to an end. The Dutch agreed to salute our flag in British seas and to expel Royalists from their country, whilst they tacitly acquiesced in the Navigation Act. Treaties of alliance followed with Denmark, Sweden, and Portugal, which gave England important commercial concessions.Cromwell's energy soon found a fresh opportunity for action. The Thirty Years' War had ended in Germany in 1648, but war still lingered on between Spain and France. Each of these powers was anxious to secure his support. But Cromwell's terms were high. He proposed to Spain that Englishmen should have liberty for the exercise of their religion in the Spanish dominions, and freedom of trade with the Spanish West Indies. "This is to ask for my master's two eyes", was the reply of the astonished Spanish ambassador. Then Cromwell determined upon a colonial war with Spain. An expedition was sent to capture Hispaniola in the Spanish West Indies (I655, Such an expedition would not necessarily in those days involve a formal war between England and Spain in Europe). But the attack upon that island was a disastrous failure. Jamaica, however, was captured, and Cromwell proceeded to colonize it with characteristic vigour. The expedition to the West Indies by no means exhausted Cromwell's activity in 1655. Blake was sent to the Mediterranean on a cruise; he made a fine attack on Tunis, whose Bey had refused to give up some English prisoners, but the voyage is chiefly interesting as marking the beginning of England's activity in the Mediterranean Sea. In the same year some horrible atrocities committed by the Duke of Savoy, with the connivance of the French, on the Protestants who lived in the Vaudois valleys in Savoy, aroused angry protests from Cromwell (See Milton's celebrated Sonnet on "The Late Massacre in Piedmont"). The French king, therefore, anxious to secure Cromwell's alliance, put pressure upon the duke to stop the massacres, and Cromwell was regarded throughout Europe as the saviour of the Protestants. |
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