European race was to rule in India, and led to a British occupation
of Havannah in one hemisphere and of Manila in the other. In
the same war we learned how, by a feeble use of sea-power, a
valuable possession like Minorca may be lost. At the same time
our maritime trade and the general prosperity of the kingdom
increased enormously. The result of the conflict made plain to
all the paramount importance of having in the principal posts
in the Government men capable of understanding what war is and
how it ought to be conducted.

[Footnote 42: Mahan, _Inf._on_Hist._ p. 280.]

This lesson, as the sequel demonstrated, had not been learned
when Great Britain became involved in a war with the insurgent
colonies in North America. Mahan's comment is striking: 'The
magnificence of sea-power and its value had perhaps been more
clearly shown by the uncontrolled sway and consequent exaltation
of one belligerent; but the lesson thus given, if more striking,
is less vividly interesting than the spectacle of that sea-power
meeting a foe worthy of its steel, and excited to exertion by a
strife which endangered not only its most valuable colonies, but
even its own shores.'[43] We were, in fact, drawing too largely
on the _prestige_ acquired during the Seven Years' war; and we
were governed by men who did not understand the first principles
of naval warfare, and would not listen to those who did. They
quite ignored the teaching of the then comparatively recent wars
which has been alluded to already--that we should look upon the
enemy's coast as our frontier. A century and a half earlier the
Dutchman Grotius had written--