 The major monopolistic English trading companies had suffered from a loss of trade on the 1650s, which they attributed to illegal contraband trading and Dutch competition.They wished the government to exclude the Dutch from trading with British colonies, and force those colonies to trade only with the licensed English trading companies.The Dutch, whose maritime trade was substantially that of an intermediary, rejected the policies of Mercantilism in favour of the "mare liberum" where it was in their interest to do so, while enforcing a strict monopoly in the Dutch Indies, and attempted to expand it to their other settlements.