In June 1650 Strickland was recalled and received the thanks of Parliament, but the following year after the death of William II of Orange (which to the stricter English Puritans looked like God's judgement against him for his protection of the Stuarts), he was again sent to the Netherlands, accompanying Oliver St John in his famous and unsuccessful embassy. They proposed a close alliance against the Catholic world and ideally a merger of the two commonwealths into a single state, offering to restrain the English commercial-interest party, which saw the Dutch as their greatest opponents. However, neither the regents nor the Dutch populace had the least enthusiasm for a Protestant crusade, and Strickland and St John were unable to overcome their hostility. They returned home with no arguments to restrain unfettered commercial competition with the Dutch, and relations quickly deteriorated into the First Anglo-Dutch War.