determined to keep it to themselves. The Dutch East India
Company was a powerful body, and largely dictated the maritime
policy of the country. We have thus come to an interesting point
in the historical consideration of sea-power. The Elizabethan
conflict with Spain had practically settled the question whether
or not the expanding nations were to be allowed to extend their
activities to territories in the New World. The first two Dutch
wars were to settle the question whether or not the ocean trade
of the world was to be open to any people qualified to engage
in it. We can see how largely these were maritime questions,
how much depended on the solution found for them, and how plain
it was that they must be settled by naval means.

[Footnote 39: _Hist._Greece_, ii. p. 52.]

[Footnote 40: _United_Netherlands_, ii. p. 132.]

Mahan's great survey of sea-power opens in 1660, midway between
the first and second Dutch wars. 'The sailing-ship era, with its
distinctive features,' he tells us, 'had fairly begun.' The art
of war by sea, in its more important details, had been settled
by the first war. From the beginning of the second the general
features of ship design, the classification of ships, the armament
of ships, and the handling of fleets, were to remain without
essential alteration until the date of Navarino. Even the tactical
methods, except where improved on occasions by individual genius,
altered little. The great thing was to bring the whole broadside
force to bear on an enemy. Whether this was to be impartially
distributed throughout the hostile line or concentrated on one
part of it depended on the character of particular admirals.
It would have been strange if a period so long and so rich in
incidents had afforded no materials for forming a judgment on
the real significance of sea-power. The text, so to speak, chosen
by Mahan is that, notwithstanding the changes wrought in naval
_materiel_ during the last half-century, we can find in the history
of the past instructive illustrations of the general principles
of maritime war. These illustrations will prove of value not
only 'in those wider operations which embrace a whole theatre of
war,' but also, if rightly applied, 'in the tactical use of the
ships and weapons' of our own day. By a remarkable coincidence
the same doctrine was being preached at the same time and quite
independently by the late Vice-Admiral Philip Colomb in his work
on 'Naval Warfare.' As a