rejoicing of the people. In March of the following year, upon the
death of Cardinal Mazarin, Louis XIV. assembled his ministers and said
to them: "I have summoned you to tell you that it has pleased me
hitherto to permit my affairs to be governed by the late cardinal; I
shall in future be my own prime minister. I direct that no decree be
sealed except by my orders, and I order the secretaries of State and
the superintendent of the finances to sign nothing without my
command." The personal government thus assumed was maintained, in fact
as well as in name, for over half a century.

Within one twelvemonth then are seen, setting forward upon a new stage
of national life, after a period of confusion more or less prolonged,
the two States which, amid whatever inequalities, have had the first
places in the sea history of modern Europe and America, indeed, of the
world at large. Sea history, however, is but one factor in that
general advance and decay of nations which is called their history and
if sight be lost of the other factors to which it is so closely
related, a distorted view, either exaggerated or the reverse, of its
importance will be formed. It is with the belief that that importance
is vastly underrated, if not practically lost sight of, by people
unconnected with the sea, and particularly by the people of the United
States in our own day, that this study has been undertaken.

The date taken, 1660, followed closely another which marked a great
settlement of European affairs, setting the seal of treaty upon the
results of a general war, known to history as the Thirty Years' War.
This other date was that of the Treaty of Westphalia, or Munster, in
1648. In this the independence of the Dutch United Provinces, long
before practically assured, was formally acknowledged by Spain; and it
being followed in 1659 by the Treaty of the Pyrenees between France