“To break this monopoly was England’s object; and to raise his country to a position of leadership in the commercial world was one of the greatest ambitions of Cromwell.” (Andrew’s “Colonial Self Government,” p. 11; see also p. 15). In 1651, at the instance of Cromwell, Parliament passed the first Navigation Act, “for the increase of the shipping and the encouragement of the navigation of this [the English] nation.” In the light of later events, we in America are too apt to regard this act and its successors as designed to limit the trade of the colonies. As a matter of fact, a sufficient study of these acts, especially those of 1651 and 1660, will show that they were aimed directly at the Dutch who were at the time the maritime carriers both for England and for the other nations of Europe. The Navigation Acts. As a result of the first Navigation Act, England entered almost at once on the series of three wars, 1652-1654, 1665-1667, 1672-1674, which lasted just long enough to break the commercial supremacy of Holland. Every school boy knows that as a result of these wars England acquired the colony of New Netherlands, but few, even of his elders, realize that, “The Navigation Act, which remained substantially in force for nearly two hundred years is the great legislative monument of the Commonwealth, it was the first manifestation of the newly awakened consciousness of the community, the act which laid the foundation of the English commercial empire.” (Seeley’s “Growth of British Policy,” II, p. 25.) Throughout this period of rivalry between Holland and England, especially after 1660, often against the will of the people, the English government maintained a close alliance with the king of France, the bitterest enemy of the Dutch people. In the last years of the reign of James II, however, the tide of English feeling turned irresistibly against the French alliance. Though James still looked to his cousin, Louis XIV, for aid and comfort, the people of England would have no more of him, and for this reason, as well as for purely domestic reasons, James was in the end forced to flee from the country. Thenceforward, there was a complete change in the English foreign policy. The Dutch and English Against France.