his
company also after a few years of struggling life. In the
Mediterranean, the Utrecht settlement was disturbed by the emperor of
Austria, England's natural ally in the then existing state of European
politics. Backed by England, he, having already Naples, claimed also
Sicily in exchange for Sardinia. Spain resisted; and her navy, just
beginning to revive under a vigorous minister, Alberoni, was crushed
and annihilated by the English fleet off Cape Passaro in 1718; while
the following year a French army, at the bidding of England, crossed
the Pyrenees and completed the work by destroying the Spanish
dock-yards. Thus England, in addition to Gibraltar and Mahon in her
own hands, saw Naples and Sicily in those of a friend, while an enemy
was struck down. In Spanish America, the limited privileges to English
trade, wrung from the necessities of Spain, were abused by an
extensive and scarcely disguised smuggling system; and when the
exasperated Spanish government gave way to excesses in the mode of
suppression, both the minister who counselled peace and the opposition
which urged war defended their opinions by alleging the effects of
either upon England's sea power and honor. While England's policy thus
steadily aimed at widening and strengthening the bases of her sway
upon the ocean, the other governments of Europe seemed blind to the
dangers to be feared from her sea growth. The miseries resulting from
the overweening power of Spain in days long gone by seemed to be
forgotten; forgotten also the more recent lesson of the bloody and
costly wars provoked by the ambition and exaggerated power of Louis
XIV. Under the eyes of the statesmen of Europe there was steadily and
visibly being built up a third overwhelming power, destined to be used
as selfishly, as aggressively, though not as cruelly, and much more
successfully than any that had preceded it. This was the power of the
sea, whose workings, because more silent than the clash of arms, are
less often noted, though lying clearly enough on the surface. It can
scarcely be denied that England's uncontrolled dominion of the seas,
during almost the whole period chosen for our subject, was by long
odds the chief among the military factors that determined the final
issue.[8] So far, however, was this influence from being foreseen
after Utrecht, that France for twelve years, moved by personal
exigencies of her rulers, sided with England against Spain; and when
Fleuri came into po