ngth, as well as deprived of its ablest commanders. When king of
England, William still kept his position as stadtholder, and with it
his general European policy. He found in England the sea power he
needed, and used the resources of Holland for the land war. This Dutch
prince consented that in the allied fleets, in councils of war, the
Dutch admirals should sit below the junior English captain; and Dutch
interests at sea were sacrificed as readily as Dutch pride to the
demands of England. When William died, his policy was still followed
by the government which succeeded him. Its aims were wholly centred
upon the land, and at the Peace of Utrecht, which closed a series of
wars extending over forty years, Holland, having established no sea
claim, gained nothing in the way of sea resources, of colonial
extension, or of commerce.

Of the last of these wars an English historian says: "The economy of
the Dutch greatly hurt their reputation and their trade. Their
men-of-war in the Mediterranean were always victualled short, and
their convoys were so weak and ill-provided that for one ship that we
lost, they lost five, which begat a general notion that we were the
safer carriers, which certainly had a good effect. Hence it was that
our trade rather increased than diminished in this war."

From that time Holland ceased to have a great sea power, and rapidly
lost the leading position among the nations which that power had built
up. It is only just to say that no policy could have saved from
decline this small, though determined, nation, in face of the
persistent enmity of Louis XIV. The friendship of France, insuring
peace on her landward frontier, would have enabled her, at least for a
longer time, to dispute with England the dominion of the seas; and as
allies the navies of the two continental States might have checked the
growth of the enormous sea power which has just been considered. Sea
peace between England and Holland was only possible by the virtual
subjection of one or the other, for both aimed at the same object.
Between France and Holland it was otherwise; and the fall of Holland
proceeded, not necessarily from her inferior size and numbers, but
from faulty policy on the part of the two governments. It does not
concern us to decide which was the more to blame.

France, admirably situated for the possession of sea power, received a
definite policy for the guidance of her government from two great
rulers, Henry IV.