prelude to the second Dutch war we find
a repetition of a process which had been adopted somewhat earlier.
That was the permanent conquest of trans-oceanic territory. Until
the seventeenth century had well begun, naval, or combined naval
and military, operations against the distant possessions of an
enemy had been practically restricted to raiding or plundering
attacks on commercial centres. The Portuguese territory in South
America having come under Spanish dominion in consequence of the
annexation of Portugal to Spain, the Dutch--as the power of the
latter country declined--attempted to reduce part of that territory
into permanent possession. This improvement on the practice of
Drake and others was soon seen to be a game at which more than
one could play. An expedition sent by Cromwell to the West Indies
seized the Spanish island of Jamaica, which has remained in the
hands of its conquerors to this day. In 1664 an English force
occupied the Dutch North American settlements on the Hudson. Though
the dispossessed rulers were not quite in a position to throw stones
at sinners, this was rather a raid than an operation of recognised
warfare, because it preceded the formal outbreak of hostilities.
The conquered territory remained in English hands for more than
a century, and thus testified to the efficacy of a sea-power
which Europe had scarcely begun to recognise. Neither the second
nor the third Dutch war can be counted amongst the occurrences to
which Englishmen may look back with unalloyed satisfaction; but
they, unquestionably, disclosed some interesting manifestations
of sea-power. Much indignation has been expressed concerning the
corruption and inefficiency of the English Government of the
day, and its failure to take proper measures for keeping up the
navy as it should have been kept up. Some, perhaps a good deal, of
this indignation was deserved; but it would have been nearly as
well deserved by every other government of the day. Even in those
homes of political virtue where the administrative machinery was
worked by or in the interest of speculating capitalists and
privileged companies, the accumulating evidence of late years
has proved that everything was not considered to be, and as a
matter of fact was not, exactly as it ought to have been. Charles
II and his brother, the Duke of York, have been held up to obloquy
because they thought that the coast of England could be defended
against a naval enemy better b