features of ship design, the classification of ships, the armament
of ships, and the handling of fleets, were to remain without
essential alteration until the date of Navarino. Even the tactical
methods, except where improved on occasions by individual genius,
altered little. The great thing was to bring the whole broadside
force to bear on an enemy. Whether this was to be impartially
distributed throughout the hostile line or concentrated on one
part of it depended on the character of particular admirals.
It would have been strange if a period so long and so rich in
incidents had afforded no materials for forming a judgment on
the real significance of sea-power. The text, so to speak, chosen
by Mahan is that, notwithstanding the changes wrought in naval
_matériel_ during the last half-century, we can find in the history
of the past instructive illustrations of the general principles
of maritime war. These illustrations will prove of value not
only 'in those wider operations which embrace a whole theatre of
war,' but also, if rightly applied, 'in the tactical use of the
ships and weapons' of our own day. By a remarkable coincidence
the same doctrine was being preached at the same time and quite
independently by the late Vice-Admiral Philip Colomb in his work
on 'Naval Warfare.' As a prelude to the second Dutch war we find
a repetition of a process which had been adopted somewhat earlier.
That was the permanent conquest of trans-oceanic territory. Until
the seventeenth century had well begun, naval, or combined naval
and military, operations against the distant possessions of an
enemy had been practically restricted to raiding or plundering
attacks on commercial centres. The Portuguese territory in South
America having come under Spanish dominion in consequence of the
annexation of Portugal to Spain, the Dutch--as the power of the
latter country declined--attempted to reduce part of that territory