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.Therefore,when danger became imminent, he gave way before the feeling of the English nation.Charles himself hatedHolland; he hated it as a republic; he hated the existing government because opposed in internal affairs to hisconnections, the House of Orange; and he hated it yet more because in the days of his exile, the republic, asone of the conditions of peace with Cromwell, had driven him from her borders.He was drawn to France bythe political sympathy of a would-be absolute ruler, possibly by his Roman Catholic bias, and very largely bythe money paid him by Louis, which partially freed him from the control of Parliament.In following thesetendencies of his own, Charles had to take account of certain decided wishes of his people.The English, of thesame race as the Dutch, and with similar conditions of situation, were declared rivals for the control of the seaCHAPTER II.STATE OF EUROPE IN 1660.SECOND ANGLO-DUTCH WAR, 1665-1667.SEA BATTLES47 The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783and of commerce and as the Dutch were now leading in the race, the English were the more eager and bitter.A special cause of grievance was found in the action of the Dutch East India Company, which damned themonopoly of trade in the East, and had obliged distant princes with whom it treated to close their States toforeign nations, who were thus excluded, not only from the Dutch colonies, but from all the territory of theIndies. Conscious of greater strength, the English also wished to control the action of Dutch politics, and inthe days of the English Republic had even sought to impose a union of the two governments.At the first,therefore, popular rivalry and enmity seconded the king's wishes; the more so as France had not for someyears been formidable on the continent.As soon, however, as the aggressive policy of Louis XIV.wasgenerally recognized, the English people, both nobles and commons, felt the great danger to be there, as acentury before it had been in Spain.The transfer of the Spanish Netherlands (Belgium) to France would tendtoward the subjection of Europe, and especially would be a blow to the sea power both of the Dutch andEnglish; for it was not to be supposed that Louis would allow the Scheldt and port of Antwerp to remainclosed, as they then were, under a treaty wrung by the Dutch from the weakness of Spain.The re-opening tocommerce of that great city would be a blow alike to Amsterdam and to London.With the revival of inheritedopposition to France the ties of kindred began to tell; the memory of past alliance against the tyranny of Spainwas recalled; and similarity of religious faith, still a powerful motive, drew the two together.At the same timethe great and systematic efforts of Colbert to build up the commerce and the navy of France excited thejealousy of both the sea powers; rivals themselves, they instinctively turned against a third party intrudingupon their domain.Charles was unable to resist the pressure of his people under all these motives; warsbetween England and Holland ceased, and were followed, after Charles's death, by close alliance.Although her commerce was less extensive, the navy of England in 1660 was superior to that of Holland,particularly in organization and efficiency.The stern, enthusiastic religious government of Cromwell,grounded on military strength, had made its mark both on the fleet and army.The names of several of thesuperior officers under the Protector, among which that of Monk stands foremost, appear in the narrative ofthe first of the Dutch wars under Charles.This superiority in tone and discipline gradually disappeared underthe corrupting influence of court favor in a licentious government; and Holland, which upon the whole wasworsted by England alone upon the sea in 1665, successfully resisted the combined navies of England andFrance in 1672.As regards the material of the three fleets, we are told that the French ships had greaterdisplacement than the English relatively to the weight of artillery and stores; hence they could keep, whenfully loaded, a greater height of battery.Their hulls also had better lines.These advantages would naturallyfollow from the thoughtful and systematic way in which the French navy at that the was restored from a stateof decay, and has a lesson of hope for us in the present analogous condition of our own navy.The Dutchships, from the character of their coast, were flatter-bottomed and of less draught, and thus were able, whenpressed, to find a refuge among the shoals; but they were in consequence less weatherly and generally oflighter scantling than those of either of the other nations.Thus as briefly as possible have been sketched the conditions, degree of power, and aims which shaped andcontrolled the policy of the four principal seaboard States of the day, Spain, France, England, and Holland.From the point of view of this history, these will come most prominently and most often into notice; but asother States exercised a powerful influence upon the course of events, and our aim is not merely naval historybut an appreciation of the effect of naval and commercial power upon the course of general history, it isnecessary to state shortly the condition of the rest of Europe.America had not yet begun to play a prominentpart in the pages of history or in the policies of cabinets.Germany was then divided into many small governments, with the one great empire of Austria
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