H.L.A. DUNTHORNE -- Ph.D.  – Professor at University of Swansea

Dear Jonathan (if I may be informal),
 
I think there is something in your theory, especially on the English (British for the 1780 war) side.   The Brits were really the addressors in all four of these wars and in every case it's arguable that a particular faction or factions were pushing for war.   The best recent accounts are J.R. Jones, The Anglo-Dutch Wars of the Seventeenth Century (London: Longman, 1996)
Robert Brenner, Merchants and revolution: commercial change, political conflict and London's overseas traders 1550-1653 (Cambridge, 1993) - good on the origins of the Navigation Act, leading to the First Dutch War
Gijs Rommelse, The Second Anglo-Dutch War 1665-67 (Hilversum, 2006)
H.M. Scott,'Sir Joseph Yorke, Dutch politics and the origins of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War', Historical Journal 31 (1988); an updated version of this article is in B. Moore and H. van Nierop, eds., Colonial empires compared: Britain and the Netherlands 1750-1850 (2002).
 
These four items should give you plenty of material with which to test your theory.  
 
Good luck and best wishes,
 
Hugh Dunthorne

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