the
Portuguese.

On the other hand, Louis obtained from Charles II. the cession of
Dunkirk on the Channel, which had been seized and used by Cromwell.
This surrender was made for money, and was inexcusable from the
maritime point of view. Dunkirk was for the English a bridge-head into
France. To France it became a haven for privateers, the bane of
England's commerce in the Channel and the North Sea. As the French sea
power waned, England in treaty after treaty exacted the dismantling of
the works of Dunkirk, which it may be said in passing was the home
port of the celebrated Jean Bart and other great French privateersmen.

Meanwhile the greatest and wisest of Louis' ministers, Colbert, was
diligently building up that system of administration, which, by
increasing and solidly basing the wealth of the State, should bring a
surer greatness and prosperity than the king's more showy enterprises.
With those details that concern the internal development of the
kingdom this history has no concern, beyond the incidental mention
that production, both agricultural and manufacturing, received his
careful attention; but upon the sea a policy of skilful aggression
upon the shipping and commerce of the Dutch and English quickly began,
and was instantly resented. Great trading companies were formed,
directing French enterprise to the Baltic, to the Levant, to the East
and West Indies; customs regulations were amended to encourage French
manufactures, and to allow goods to be stored in bond in the great
ports, by which means it was hoped to make France take Holland's place
as the great warehouse for Europe, a function for which her
geographical position eminently fitted her; while tonnage duties on
foreign shipping, direct premiums on home-built ships, and careful,
rigorous colonial decrees giving French vessels the monopoly of trade
to and from the colonies, combined to encourage the growth of her
mercantile marine. England retaliated at once; the Dutch, more
seriously threatened because their carrying-trade was greater and
their home resources smaller, only remonstrated for a time; but after
three years they also made reprisals. Colbert, relying on the great
superiority of France as an actual, and still more as a possible
producer, feared not to move steadily on the grasping path marked out;
which, in building up a great merchant shipping, would lay the broad
base for the military shipping, which was being yet more rapidly
forced