d and directed; the spirit necessary to give it form and final
effective expression was found again in Holland, in William of Orange.
Time, however, was needed to mature the work. "No one yet armed
himself; but every one talked, wrote, agitated, from Stockholm to
Madrid.... The war of the pen preceded by many years the war of the
sword; incessant appeals were made to European opinion by
indefatigable publicists; under all forms was diffused the terror of
the New Universal Monarchy," which was seeking to take the place once
filled by the House of Austria. It was known that Louis sought to make
himself or his son emperor of Germany. But complications of different
kinds, private interests, lack of money, all combined to delay action.
The United Provinces, despite William's wishes, were yet unwilling to
act again as banker for a coalition, and the emperor was so threatened
on his eastern frontier by the rebel Hungarians and the Turks that he
dared not risk a western war.

Meanwhile the armed navy of France was daily growing in strength and
efficiency under Colbert's care, and acquiring the habit of war by
attacks upon the Barbary pirates and their ports. During the same
years the navies both of England and of Holland were declining in
numbers and efficiency. It has already been said that in 1688, when
William needed Dutch ships for his expedition to England, it was
objected that the navy was in a far different condition from 1672,
"being incalculably decreased in strength and deprived of its most
able commanders." In England, the decline of discipline had been
followed by an economical policy as to material, gradually lessening
the numbers and injuring the condition of the fleet; and after the
little flare-up and expected war with France in 1678, the king gave
the care of the navy to a new body of men, concerning whom an English
naval historian says: "This new administration lasted five years, and
if it had continued five years longer would in all probability have
remedied even the numerous and mighty evils it had introduced, by
wearing out the whole royal navy, and so leaving no room for future
mistakes. However, a just sense of this induced the king, in 1684, to
resume the management of the fleet into his own hands, restoring most
of the old officers; but before any great progress in the work of
restoration could be made, his Majesty died,"[66]--in 1685. The change
of sovereigns was of vast importance, not merely to the E