r.' Also,[12]
he remarks of the war of the Spanish Succession that 'before
it England was one of the sea-powers, after it she was _the_
sea-power without any second.' In all these passages, as appears
from the use of the indefinite article, what is meant is a naval
power, or a state in possession of a strong navy. The other meaning
of the term forms the general subject of his writings above
enumerated. In his earlier works Mahan writes 'sea power' as
two words; but in a published letter of the 19th February 1897,
he joins them with a hyphen, and defends this formation of the
term and the sense in which he uses it. We may regard him as
the virtual inventor of the term in its more diffused meaning,
for--even if it had been employed by earlier writers in that
sense--it is he beyond all question who has given it general
currency. He has made it impossible for anyone to treat of sea-power
without frequent reference to his writings and conclusions.

[Footnote 2: _Hist._of_Greece_, v. p. 67, published in 1849, but
with preface dated 1848.]

[Footnote 3: _Expansion_of_England_, p. 89.]

[Footnote 4: _Influence_of_Sea-power_on_History_, published 1890;
_Influence_of_Sea-power_on_the_French_Revolution_and_Empire_,
2 vols. 1892; _Nelson:_the_Embodiment_of_the_Sea-power_of_Great_
_Britain_, 2 vols. 1897.]

[Footnote 5: _Griechische_Geschichte_. Berlin, 1889.]

[Footnote 6: _Ibid_. ii. p. 37.]

[Footnote 7: _Ibid_. ii. p. 91.]

[Footnote 8: Leipzig und Halle, 1743.]

[Footnote 9: _Influence_of_Sea-power_on_History_, p. 35.]

[Footnote 10: _Ibid_. p. 42.]

[Footnote 11: _Ibid_. p. 43.]

[Footnote 12: _Ibid_. p. 225.]

There is something more than mere literary interest in the fact that
the term in another language was used more than two thousand years
ago. Before Mahan no historian--not even one of those who specially
devoted themselves to the narration of naval occurrences--had
evinced a more correct appreciation of the general principles
of naval warfare than Thucydides. He alludes several times to
the importance of getting command of the sea. This country would
have been saved some disasters and been less often in peril had
British writers--taken as guides by the public--possessed the same
grasp of the true principles of defence as Thucydides exhibited.
One passage in his history is worth quoting. Brief as it is, it
shows that on the subject of sea-power he was a predecessor of
Mahan. In a speech in favour of pro