though Great Britain no doubt spent great sums of money not merely in
maintaining her navy but also in subsidising her allies, she could well
afford to do so because the prosperity of her over-sea trade, due to her
naval success, made her the richest country in Europe. The other nations
that were her allies might not unnaturally feel that they had toiled and
that Great Britain had gathered the increase. What is the explanation of
a co-operation of which in the long run it might seem that one partner
has had the principal benefit?

If two nations carry on a serious war on the same side, it may be
assumed that each of them is fighting for some cause which it holds to
be vital, and that some sort of common interest binds the allies
together. The most vital interest of any nation is its own independence,
and while that is in question it conceives of its struggle as one of
self-defence. The explanation of Great Britain's having had allies in
the past may therefore be that the independence of Great Britain was
threatened by the same danger which threatened the independence of other
Powers. This theory is made more probable by the fact that England's
great struggles--that of Queen Elizabeth against Spain, that of William
III. and Marlborough against Louis XIV., and of Pitt against
Napoleon--were, each one of them, against an adversary whose power was
so great as to overshadow the Continent and to threaten it with an
ascendency which, had it not been checked, might have developed into a
universal monarchy. It seems, therefore, that in the main England, in
defending her own interests, was consciously or unconsciously the
champion of the independence of nations against the predominance of any
one of their number. The effect of Great Britain's self-defence was to
facilitate the self-defence of other nations, and thus to preserve to
Europe its character of a community of independent States as opposed to
that which it might have acquired, if there had been no England, of a