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IN THEE STATES SERVIS
of Parliament and poet, wrote
'Our seamen, whom no danger's shape could fright,
Unpaid, refuse to mount our ships for spite,
Or to their fellows swim on board the Dutch,
Which show the tempting metal in their clutch.' 10
Just after the Medway former prisoners of war returning from the Republic report
ed that 3,000 English and Scots were in the Dutch fleet, with more signing on
every day; because 'they have soe much encouragement there and soe little here'.11
If this figure was anywhere near accurate, then over 10% of Dutch naval crews
were British!
Was this an isolated case? Was it due to a temporary coincidence of financial fac
tors and the presence of a few prominent individuals with professional grievances
or ideological axes to grind? No instead, British personnel were present in the
Dutch navy throughout all the five wars in the period of study here: during the
Anglo-Dutch conflict of the first three and the Anglo-Dutch alliance against
France of the latter two.12 Foreign service was especially commonplace in the mer
chant sectors. Seamen's work made them intrinsically mobile: interaction was an
everyday occurrence in a sphere of common maritime culture and exchange the
sea was certainly more of a highway between nations in the early modern period
than a barrier - at the same time a conduit of transfer and a battleground for sur
vival and supremacy. European maritime labour was fully internationalised.13 One
aim of the English Navigation Acts (1651, 1660) was to control the level of for
eigners in the English merchant marine and stimulate the numbers of native sea
men. With more British seamen needed for the Royal Navy during wartime, for
eigners were found to be more necessary, for example, in the east coast coal trade
and on the Mediterranean routes. The Dutch case was more pronounced. C.R.
Boxer described Dutch success as a 'lodestar' - pulling in foreign migrant poor
looking for every kind of work. This was especially the case across the enormous
Dutch maritime sector; where traditionally Scandinavians and Germans were the
largest foreign groups throughout. Foreigners mainly Germans and Norwegians
comprised 57.5% of all maritime bridegrooms at Amsterdam, 1651-1665. 4%
of the total were English.14 English seamen could also be found on Rotterdam
ships in the Bordeaux wine trade, and when Dutch prizes were finally condemned
at Barbados in 1670, it was found that Scots had formed a large proportion of the
crews.15 In his study of Zeeland privateering, 1688-1697, J. Francke shows only a
microscopic British component (Scots) in the crews - albeit from a small sample
with the Southern Netherlands as the largest single foreign component at 4.6%,
followed by 3.6% German/Baltic (excluding Scandinavia).16 Nonetheless, when
the Dutch privateer The Flying Greyhound (22), was taken by Pembroke in 1666,
her commander was revealed to be 'one Ramsay, a Scotsman'.17 An English crew
man aboard a Dutch privateer lying off the coast of his birthplace caused comment
in 1672: 'one Pouncey', was a bigamous butcher's assistant from Dorset. Born at
Dorchester, he had previously worked for a Weymouth butcher; one wife lived in
London, the other in Holland.18
