which particularly touches our subject, without at
the same time losing sight of the relation of the one part to the
whole. Such a loss, however, is fatal to the end in view, which is
not a mere chronicle of naval events, nor even a tactical or strategic
discussion of certain naval problems divorced from their surroundings
of cause and effect in general history, but an appreciation of the
effect of sea power upon the general result of the war and upon the
prosperity of nations. It will conduce to clearness, however, to point
out again that the aim of William III. was not to dispute the claim of
Philip V. to the throne,--a matter of comparative indifference to the
sea powers,--but to seize, to the benefit of their commerce and
colonial empire, such portions of the Spanish American possessions as
he could, and at the same time to impose such conditions upon the new
monarchy as would at least prevent any loss, to English and Dutch
commerce, of the privileges they had had under the Austrian line. Such
a policy would not direct the main effort of the sea nations upon the
Spanish peninsula, but upon America; and the allied fleets might not
have entered the Straits. Sicily and Naples were to go, not to
England, but to Austria. Subsequent causes led to an entire change in
this general plan. A new candidate, a son of the Emperor of Germany,
was set up in 1703 by the coalition under the name of Carlos III., and
the peninsula became the scene of a doubtful and bloody war, keeping
the Anglo-Dutch fleets hovering round the coasts; with the result, as
regards the sea powers, that nothing of decisive importance was done
in Spanish America, but that England issued from the strife with
Gibraltar and Port Mahon in her hands, to be thenceforth a
Mediterranean power. At the same time that Carlos III. was proclaimed,
a treaty was negotiated with Portugal, known as the Methuen Treaty,
which gave England the practical monopoly of Portuguese trade, and
sent the gold of Brazil by way of Lisbon to London,--an advantage so
great that it aided materially in keeping up the war on the continent
as well as in maintaining the navy. At the same time the efficiency of
the latter so increased that the losses by French cruisers, though
still heavy, were at no time unendurable.

When the war broke out, in pursuance of the original policy, Sir
George Rooke, with a fleet of fifty ships-of-the-line and transports
carrying fourteen thousand troops, was sent a