The history of the Dutch Republic and its navy is indeed quite astonishing. A small country squeezed between the North Sea and the two great territorial powers of France and the German empire, and populated by fewer than two million people, it nonetheless played the role of a major political and military power during the seventeenth century. And its navy was particularly impressive, a force respected by its contemporaries and by present-day historians as well. The rise of the Republic as a naval power at the end of the sixteenth century was almost as rapid as its decline at the end of the War of Spanish Succession in the early eighteenth century. In the first part of this hundred-year period, naval operations supported the struggle for the Republic's freedom and its maritime expansion into European waters and beyond. The Baltic was an area of the utmost importance; naval forces were sent several times into that sea to protect Dutch shipping and trading interests. The second part of the period, however, saw a navy whose major functions had changed. It was now primarily a tool in the hands of grand pensionary John de Witt for maintaining or restoring peace in Europe, peace being considered profitable for the economy of Holland in particular. Next, the stadholder- idag William III used both the navy and the army in his long struggle against Louis XIV to preserve a balance of power in Europe. This foreign policy forced the Republic to live well above its means, with predictable results. The navy, like the Republic, found itself with largely insoluble financial problems.

In the eighteenth century, the operations of the Dutch navy were more closely in accordance with the resources of the country. The Republic, soon proving to be only a minor European power, left the navy with no tasks other than protecting the mercantile marine on a restricted number of routes and keeping the Barbary corsairs under some kind of control. Yet at times, it was barely equal to these duties. While Dutch merchants and skippers were only slightly hampered by the British seizures of their ships during the Seven Years’ War, their enterprises suffered greatly during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War of 1780-1784 - a war waged as part of a world-encompassing conflict whose roots lay in the American Revolution.