Kingdoms and Estates_ (first printed in 1612), "that he that commands
the sea is at great liberty and may take as much and as little of the
war as he will." Cromwell, though not the creator of our navy, was its
strongest inspiration until Nelson, and no feature of his great
administration so excited Marvell's patriotic admiration as the
Lord-Protector's sleepless energy in securing and maintaining the
command of the sea.

In Marvell's poem, first published as a broadsheet in 1655, entitled
_The First Anniversary of the Government under His Highness the
Lord-Protector_, he describes foreign princes soundly rating their
ambassadors for having misinformed them as to the energies of the new
Commonwealth:--

"'Is this,' saith one, 'the nation that we read
Spent with both wars, under a Captain dead!
Yet rig a navy while we dress us late
And ere we dine rase and rebuild a state?
What oaken forests, and what golden mines,
What mints of men--what union of designs!
...
Needs must we all their tributaries be
Whose navies hold the sluices of the sea!
_The ocean is the fountain of command_,
But that once took, we captives are on land;
And those that have the waters for their share
Can quickly leave us neither earth nor air.'"

Marvell's aversion to the Dutch was first displayed in the rough lines
called _The Character of Holland_, published in 1653 during the first