Religious and political differences between the Anglican royalists in England and the Calvinist republicans that ruled the Netherlands also hampered peace.

[4] Charles was influenced by his brother James and Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington as he sought a popular and lucrative foreign war at sea to bolster his authority as king.

They arrived at Gravesend Bay on Long Island on August 27 and enlisted the support of militias from the English towns there as they moved west to Breuckelen.

[7] Having arrived at Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, Nichols sent director-general Peter Stuyvesant a letter offering lenient terms of surrender.

The following day being Sunday the transfer did not take place until September 8 when the Dutch forces marched down Beaver Street and embarked on board the Gideon bound for Holland, and Nicolls assumed the position of deputy-governor.

On September 10, Johannes de Decker sailed north to Fort Orange to warn them the English were coming and to rally opposition.

Around the same time that Nicholls sent Cartwright north to Fort Orange, he dispatched Sir Robert Carr, a relative of the Earl of Arlington, south to the territory the Dutch had previously seized from Sweden.

He then proceeded further south and plundered Pieter Corneliszoon Plockhoy's Mennonite settlement near present day Lewes, Delaware.

He visited New Amstel, renamed it New Castle, and appointed a new commander, but was unable to compel Carr to give up any of his spoils, and returned to New York without him.