e in what was to follow. The first of
these was her wealth, the second that aristocratic constitution of her
polity which was now definitely established, and which, for nearly a
century and a half, was to make her strength unique in its quality among
all the elements of European competition.

As to the first of these--the _Wealth_ of England--it is a matter of such
importance to the comprehension of all the eighteenth century and most of
the nineteenth that it should merit a far longer analysis and affirmation
than can be devoted to it in these few lines. It must be enough for our
purpose to say that Great Britain, from about 1680 onwards, was not only
wealthier (in proportion to her population) than the powers with whom she
had to deal as enemies or allies, but was also proceeding to increase that
wealth at a rate far exceeding that of her rivals. Again, what was
perhaps, for the purposes of war, the chief point of all, England held
that wealth in a mobile, fluid form, which could at once be translated
into munitions, the wages of mercenaries, or the hire of transports,
within the shortest time, and at almost any point in Western and Northern
Europe.

Essentially commercial, already possessed of a solid line of enterprises
beyond the seas, having defeated and passed the Dutch in the race for
mercantile supremacy, England could afford or withhold at her choice the
most valuable and rapid form of support--money.

How true this was, even those in Europe who had not appreciated the
changed conditions of Great Britain immediately perceived when the
determination of Parliament, at the end of 1701, to support the alliance
against Louis XIV., took the form of voting 40,000 men, all of whom would
be immediately supplied and paid with English money.

True, of the 40,000 not half were British; but (save for the excellent
quality of the British troops), the point was more or less indifferent.
The important thing was that England was able to provide and to maintain
this immense accretion to the coalition against France, and to use it
where she would. We shall see later how this power turned the fate of the
war.

If I have insisted so strongly upon the financial factor, it is both
because that factor is misappreciated in most purely military histories,
and also because, in the changed circumstances of our own time, it is not
easy for the reader to take for granted, as did his ancestors, the
overwhelming superiority which Englan