A reply to /u/NikKerk

Short answer: the Dutch were not in the mood to fight abroad following a personal union with England under William III Orange, and the Portuguese were too weak and intimidated.

Netherlands

I wrote on the Glorious Revolution and what happened following the deaths of the joint monarchs William and Mary.

Following the success of the Glorious Revolution, it seemed for some time that both the Dutch and English had a common goal, namely to contain France. It was still within living memory that the Dutch had their worst year ever, the rampjaar of 1672.

What ended up happening though, is that Dutch money and troops were spent at very high rate, for wars fought elsewhere. It had to maintain a strong army (expensive!) to contain France everywhere. The agreement that England focus on her navy while the Dutch focus on land was not taken easily by the Dutch, leading to a small scale naval tug of war between the two erstwhile allies under a common ruler.

So over time, both the English parliament and the Dutch estates-general strengthened their leverage relative to their erstwhile ruler William III. It is said the only thing that saved William's position in the Netherlands was the burning hatred of the estates-general toward Louis XIV of France, so they had to agree to any request for escalation in support and funding against France.

What happens after William's demise in 1702 is that the arrangement had weakened the Dutch navy as it had to be limited to 60% the paper strength of the British navy, and in any joint operation they would be under an British commander. Over time, shipping costs for English ships reduced while those for Dutch ships increased comparatively speaking. Dutch merchants, sensing an opportunity elsewhere, started to set up their operations in London, away from Amsterdam. It is telling that the death of William III set off the second stadtholderless era in the Dutch republic due to political disagreements, and this in turn led to a downturn in Dutch prestige and power. All this led to a significant Dutch disadvantage in the fourth and final Anglo-Dutch war of 1780.

William III had succeeded in his strategic goal of bringing the English and Dutch on the same side, but to keep the idea functional he had to make the Dutch estates-general give concessions that led to long-term weakness. In the context of Queen Anne's war, it limited Dutch naval powers to supporting the English in nearby waters, such as their joint invasion of Gibraltar.

Portugal

The 1660s wasn't kind to Portugal. A mentally unstable King Alfonso VI came to the throne as the second Braganza king following the restoration of Portugal. While he saw victories in continental Europe that secured Portuguese independence, it marked losses overseas. In the 1680s his brother Peter, in collusion with Alfonso's wife, took over the throne after acting as regent for many years. He took Portugal on the opposite orbit of England and the Netherlands, that is he allied with the French Louis XIV and his faction in Spain. Part of this was France's promise to support Portugal's naval interests against the Dutch, who had fought the Portuguese in the Indian ocean and SE Asia.

However, a brilliant show-of-force was arranged by the English whereby they sailed a fleet to parade right off the coast of Lisbon, showing that France's promise was meaningless. Portugal was intimidated and they switched sides, or more precisely they took themselves away from a treaty of alliance with France.