ions made to Portugal by France in South America were
mainly to the advantage of England, which had obtained the control of
Portuguese trade by the treaty of 1703. The North American colonies
ceded were valuable, not merely nor chiefly as military stations, but
commercially; and treaties of commerce on favorable terms were made
both with France and Spain. A minister of the day, defending the
treaty in Parliament, said: "The advantages from this peace appear in
the addition made to our wealth; in the great quantities of bullion
lately coined in our mint; by the vast increase in our shipping
employed since the peace, in the fisheries, and in merchandise; and by
the remarkable growth of the customs upon imports, and of our
manufactures, and the growth of our country upon export;" in a word,
by the impetus to trade in all its branches.

While England thus came out from the war in good running condition,
and fairly placed in that position of maritime supremacy which she has
so long maintained, her old rival in trade and fighting was left
hopelessly behind. As the result of the war Holland obtained nothing
at sea,--no colony, no station. The commercial treaty with France
placed her on the same terms as England, but she received no
concessions giving her a footing in Spanish America like that obtained
by her ally. Indeed, some years before the peace, while the coalition
was still maintaining Carlos, a treaty was made with the latter by the
British minister, unknown to the Dutch, practically giving the British
monopoly of Spanish trade in America; sharing it only with Spaniards,
which was pretty much the same as not sharing it at all. This treaty
accidentally became known, and made a great impression on the Dutch;
but England was then so necessary to the coalition that she ran no
risk of being left out by its other members. The gain which Holland
made by land was that of military occupation only, of certain
fortified places in the Austrian Netherlands, known to history as the
"barrier towns;" nothing was added by them to her revenue, population,
or resources; nothing to that national strength which must underlie
military institutions. Holland had forsaken, perhaps unavoidably, the
path by which she had advanced to wealth and to leadership among
nations. The exigencies of her continental position had led to the
neglect of her navy, which in those days of war and privateering
involved a loss of carrying-trade and commerce: and al