CROMWELL'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE COMPANY 259 throughout he had the interest not of the Company, but of the nation, in mind As he set himself, while still a cavalry colonel, to form an army of victory at home, so he resolved, as head of the Commonwealth, to create a marine which should give England predom- inance abroad. The Navigation Act of 1651 served as his New Model for winning the supremacy of the seas. The East India Company, its charters, and its rivals, were merely instruments for carrying out this great design. Yet if Cromwell long stood aloof from the Company in its domestic distresses, he lost no time in dealing with its foreign enemies. In 1650 it petitioned " the Supreme Authority of this Nation, the High Court of the Parliament of England,' ' for help against Holland. After a list of Dutch injuries, involving an alleged loss of two millions sterling during the past twenty years, it declared that it had repeatedly laid its wrongs before the king and Council, and had prayed in vain " that satisfaction should be demanded from the States-Gen- eral.' ' Parliament received the petition with favour, and on the same day voted that it be referred for con- sideration by the Council of State. But Cromwell had Scotland on his hands, and he intended, if a Dutch war must come, to wage it on wider issues. So next year, 1651, the Company twice brought its Dutch grievances before the Council of State, and again in January, 1652. Cromwell was now ready, and the wrongs of the East India Company furnished one of {he causes of the war with Holland declared in the following summer. Next
