by anyone who knew how to wield it.  Having tasted the sweets of intercourse with the Indies, whether in the occupation of Portugal or of Spain, both English and Dutch were desirous of getting a larger share of them.  English maritime commerce had increased and needed naval protection.  If England was to maintain the international position to which, as no one denied, she was entitled, that commerce must be permitted to expand.  The minds of men in western Europe, moreover, were set upon obtaining for their country territories in the New World, the amenities of which were now known.  From the reign of James I the Dutch had shown great jealousy of English maritime enterprise.  Where it was possible, as in the East Indian Archipelago, they had destroyed it.  Their naval resources were great enough to let them hold English shipping at their mercy, unless a vigorous effort were made to protect it.  The Dutch conducted the carrying trade of a great part of the world, and the monopoly of this they were resolved to keep, while the English were resolved to share in it.  The exclusion of the English from every trade-route, except such as ran by their own coast or crossed the Narrow Seas, seemed a by no means impossible contingency.  There seemed also to be but one way of preventing it, viz. by war.  The supposed unfriendliness of the Dutch, or at least of an important party amongst them, to the regicide Government in England helped to force the conflict.  The Navigation Act of 1651 was passed and regarded as a covert declaration of hostilities.  So the first Dutch war began.  It established our claim to compete for the position of a great maritime commercial power.

The rise of the sea-power of the Dutch, and the magnitude which it attained in a short time and in the most adverse circumstances, have no parallel in history.  The case of Athens was different, because the Athenian power had not so much been unconsciously developed out of a great maritime trade, as based on a military marine deliberately and persistently fostered during many years.  Thirlwall believes that it was Solon who ’laid the foundations of the Attic navy,’[39] a century before Salamis.  The great achievement of Themistocles was to convince his fellow-citizens that their navy ought to be increased.  Perhaps the nearest parallel with the power of the Dutch was presented by that of Rhodes, which rested largely on a carrying trade.  The Rhodian undertakings, however, were by comparison small and restricted in extent.  Motley declares of the Seven United Provinces that they ’commanded the ocean,’[40] and that it would be difficult to exaggerate the naval power of the young Commonwealth.  Even in the days of Spain’s greatness English seamen positively declined to admit that she was stronger than England on the sea; and the story of the Armada justified their view.  Our first two Dutch wars were, therefore, contests between the two foremost naval states of the world for what was primarily a maritime object.