exclusively associate it; France had
had such a navy in 1688, and it shrivelled away like a leaf in the
fire. Neither was it in a prosperous commerce alone; a few years after
the date at which we have arrived, the commerce of France took on fair
proportions, but the first blast of war swept it off the seas as the
navy of Cromwell had once swept that of Holland. It was in the union
of the two, carefully fostered, that England made the gain of sea
power over and beyond all other States; and this gain is distinctly
associated with and dates from the War of the Spanish Succession.
Before that war England was one of the sea powers; after it she was
_the_ sea power, without any second. This power also she held alone,
unshared by friend and unchecked by foe. She alone was rich, and in
her control of the sea and her extensive shipping had the sources of
wealth so much in her hands that there was no present danger of a
rival on the ocean. Thus her gain of sea power and wealth was not only
great but solid, being wholly in her own hands; while the gains of the
other States were not merely inferior in degree, but weaker in kind,
in that they depended more or less upon the good will of other
peoples.

Is it meant, it may be asked, to attribute to sea power alone the
greatness or wealth of any State? Certainly not. The due use and
control of the sea is but one link in the chain of exchange by which
wealth accumulates; but it is the central link, which lays under
contribution other nations for the benefit of the one holding it, and
which, history seems to assert, most surely of all gathers to itself
riches. In England, this control and use of the sea seems to arise
naturally, from the concurrence of many circumstances; the years
immediately preceding the War of the Spanish Succession had, moreover,
furthered the advance of her prosperity by a series of fiscal
measures, which Macaulay speaks of as "the deep and solid foundation
on which was to rise the most gigantic fabric of commercial prosperity
which the world had ever seen." It may be questioned, however, whether
the genius of the people, inclined to and developed by trade, did not
make easier the taking of such measures; whether their adoption did
not at least partially spring from, as well as add to, the sea power
of the nation. However that may be, there is seen, on the opposite
side of the Channel, a nation which started ahead of England in the
race,--a nation peculiarly well