either upon England's sea power and honor. While England's policy thus
steadily aimed at widening and strengthening the bases of her sway
upon the ocean, the other governments of Europe seemed blind to the
dangers to be feared from her sea growth. The miseries resulting from
the overweening power of Spain in days long gone by seemed to be
forgotten; forgotten also the more recent lesson of the bloody and
costly wars provoked by the ambition and exaggerated power of Louis
XIV. Under the eyes of the statesmen of Europe there was steadily and
visibly being built up a third overwhelming power, destined to be used
as selfishly, as aggressively, though not as cruelly, and much more
successfully than any that had preceded it. Thus was the power of the
sea, whose workings, because more silent than the clash of arms, are
less often noted, though lying clearly enough on the surface. It can
scarcely be denied that England's uncontrolled dominion of the seas,
during almost the whole period chosen for our subject, was by long
odds the chief among the military factors that determined the final
issue. (1) So far, however, was this influence from being foreseen
after Utrecht, that France for twelve years, moved by personal
exigencies of her rulers, sided with England against Spain and when
Fleuri came unto power in 1726, though thus policy was reversed, the
navy of France received no attention, and the only blow at England was
the establishment of a Bourbon prince, a natural enemy to her, upon
the throne of the two Sicilies in 1736. When war broke out with Spain
in 1739, the navy of England was in numbers more than equal to the
combined navies of Spain and France; and during the quarter of a
century of nearly uninterrupted war that followed, this numerical
disproportion increased. In these wars England, at first
instinctively, afterward with conscious purpose under a government
that recognized her opportunity and the possibilities of her great sea
power, rapidly built up that mighty colonial empire whose foundations