place, the allied navies were of great direct military
value, though they fought no battles, when Louis XIV. decided in 1694
to make his war against Spain offensive. Spain, though so weak in
herself, was yet troublesome from her position in the rear of France;
and Louis finally concluded to force her to peace by carrying the war
into Catalonia, on the northeast coast. The movement of his armies was
seconded by his fleet under Tourville; and the reduction of that
difficult province went on rapidly until the approach of the allied
navies in largely superior force caused Tourville to retire to Toulon.
This saved Barcelona; and from that time until the two sea nations had
determined to make peace, they kept their fleets on the Spanish coast
and arrested the French advance. When, in 1697, William had become
disposed to peace and Spain refused it, Louis again invaded, the
allied fleet did not appear, and Barcelona fell. At the same time a
French naval expedition was successfully directed against Cartagena in
South America, and under the two blows, both of which depended upon
the control of the sea, Spain yielded.

The third military function of the allied navies was the protection of
their sea commerce; and herein, if history may be trusted, they
greatly failed. At no time has war against commerce been conducted on
a larger scale and with greater results than during this period; and
its operations were widest and most devastating at the very time that
the great French fleets were disappearing, in the years immediately
after La Hougue, apparently contradicting the assertion that such a
warfare must be based on powerful fleets or neighboring seaports. A
somewhat full discussion is due, inasmuch as the distress to commerce
wrought by the privateers was a large factor in bringing the sea
nations to wish for peace; just as the subsidies, which their
commerce enabled them to pay the continental armies, besides keeping
up their own, were the chief means by which the war was prolonged and
France brought to terms. The attack and defence of commerce is still a
living question.

In the first place it is to be observed that the decay of the French
fleet was gradual, and that the moral effect of its appearance in the
Channel, its victory at Beachy Head, and gallant conduct at La Hougue
remained for some time impressed on the minds of the allies. This
impression caused their ships to be kept together in fleets, instead
of scattering in