with that view placed the war-vessels of the State at the disposal
of captains who were ready to undertake a corsair warfare on
their own account.'[41] In much later times this method has had
many and respectable defenders. Mahan's works are, in a sense, a
formal warning to his fellow-citizens not to adopt it. In France,
within the last years of the nineteenth century, it found, and
appears still to find, adherents enough to form a school. The
reappearance of belief in demonstrated impossibilities is a
recognised incident in human history; but it is usually confined
to the emotional or the vulgar. It is serious and filled with
menaces of disaster when it is held by men thought fit to administer
the affairs of a nation or advise concerning its defence. The
third Dutch war may not have settled directly the position of
England in the maritime world; but it helped to place that country
above all other maritime states,--in the position, in fact, which
Great Britain, the United Kingdom, the British Empire, whichever
name may be given it, has retained up to the present. It also
manifested in a very striking form the efficacy of sea-power.
The United Provinces, though attacked by two of the greatest
monarchies in the world, France and England, were not destroyed.
Indeed, they preserved much of their political importance in
the State system of Europe. The Republic 'owed this astonishing
result partly to the skill of one or two men, but mainly to its
sea-power.' The effort, however, had undermined its strength
and helped forward its decline.

[Footnote 41: Mommsen, ii. p. 52.]

The war which was ended by the Peace of Ryswick in 1697 presents
two features of exceptional interest: one was the havoc wrought on