their secret treaty of Dover, to make a joint attack

upon the Dutch. It is a mistake to suppose, as is com- monly thought, that Charles II was induced to join France in 1672 merely by French bribes and his sym- pathy with Roman Catholicism. His alliance with France was undoubtedly aimed against civil and relig- ious liberty at home; but abroad one of its objects was to cut down the naval and commercial growth of Hol- land, with whom the English had many unsettled quar- rels both in America and in Asia. By a secret treaty projected between France, Eng- land, and Portugal in 1673, the three powers were to send a joint naval expedition against the Dutch pos- sessions in Asia, which were to be seized and divided among the allies. It is thus clear that there were strong and recurrent motives for hostility between the two nations, closely connected with Asiatic affairs. Even Sir William Temple, the negotiator of the Triple Alli- ance, discusses in one of his essays the question whether England would derive greater advantage than France from the ruin of Holland. Whether in that case it would be possible to bring over to England the Dutch trade and shipping, seemed doubtful to him; yet he feared that, unless England joined France against Hol- land, the two Continental states might combine against England. In 1671, accordingly, England did join France in a war which ended, so far as we were concerned, in 1674, when the Dutch agreed to salute the English flag in the narrow seas and to refer all commercial differences to