noticed]. In these different spots the cruisers were always in a
position to intercept or hinder the movements of transports
laden with troops, and of the numerous convoys carrying supplies
of all kinds. In these seas, in the centre of the commercial and
political world, there is always work for cruisers.
Notwithstanding the difficulties they met, owing to the absence
of large friendly fleets, they served advantageously the cause
of the two peoples [French and Spanish]. These cruisers, in the
face of the Anglo-Dutch power, needed good luck, boldness, and
skill. These three conditions were not lacking to our seamen;
but then, what chiefs and what captains they had!"[39]

The English historian, on the other hand, while admitting how severely
the people and commerce of England suffered from the cruisers,
bitterly reflecting at times upon the administration, yet refers over
and over again to the increasing prosperity of the whole country, and
especially of its commercial part. In the preceding war, on the
contrary, from 1689 to 1697, when France sent great fleets to sea and
disputed the supremacy of the ocean, how different the result! The
same English writer says of that time:--

"With respect to our trade it is certain that we suffered
infinitely more, not merely than the French, for that was to be
expected from the greater number of our merchant-ships, but than
we ever did in any former war.... This proceeded in great
measure from the vigilance of the French, who carried on the war
in a piratical way. It is out of all doubt that, taking all
together, our traffic suffered excessively; our merchants were
many of them ruined."[40]

Macaulay says of this period: "During many months of 1693 the English
trade with the Mediterranean had been interrupted almost entirely.
There was no chance that a merchantman from London or Amsterdam would,
if unprotected, reach the Pillars of Hercules without being boarded by
a French privateer; and the protection of armed vessels was not easily
obtained." Why? Because the vessels of England's navy were occupied
watching the French navy, and this diversion of them from the cruisers
and privateers constituted the support which a commerce-destroying war
must have. A French historian, speaking of the same period in England
(1696), says: "The state of the finances was deplorable; money was
scarce, maritime insurance thirty