these conditions of government, and weak in numbers, the United
Provinces in 1660, with their vast wealth and external activities,
resembled a man kept up by stimulants. Factitious strength cannot
endure indefinitely; but it is wonderful to see this small State,
weaker by far in numbers than either England or France, endure the
onslaught of either singly, and for two years of both in alliance, not
only without being destroyed, but without losing her place in Europe.
She owed this astonishing result partly to the skill of one or two
men, but mainly to her sea power.

The conditions of England, with reference to her fitness to enter upon
the impending strife, differed from those of both Holland and France.
Although monarchical in government, and with much real power in the
king's hands, the latter was not able to direct the policy of the
kingdom wholly at his will, he had to reckon, as Louis had not, with
the temper and wishes of his people. What Louis gained for France, he
gained for himself; the glory of France was his glory.

Charles aimed first at his own advantage, then at that of England;
but, with the memory of the past ever before him, he was determined
above all not to incur his father's fate nor a repetition of his own
exile. Therefore, when danger became imminent, he gave way before the
feeling of the English nation. Charles himself hated Holland; he hated
it as a republic; he hated the existing government because opposed in
internal affairs to his connections, the House of Orange; and he hated
it yet more because in the days of his exile, the republic, as one of
the conditions of peace with Cromwell, had driven him from her
borders. He was drawn to France by the political sympathy of a
would-be absolute ruler, possibly by his Roman Catholic bias, and very
largely by the money paid him by Louis, which partially freed him from