The identity of the cause of the first and of the second war will be discerned by anyone who compares what has been said about the circumstances leading to the former, with Monk’s remark as to the latter.  He said that the English wanted a larger share of the trade enjoyed by the Dutch.  It was quite in accordance with the spirit of the age that the Dutch should try to prevent, by force, this want from being satisfied.  Anything like free and open competition was repugnant to the general feeling.  The high road to both individual wealth and national prosperity was believed to lie in securing a monopoly.  Merchants or manufacturers who called for the abolition of monopolies granted to particular courtiers and favourites had not the smallest intention, on gaining their object, of throwing open to the enterprise of all what had been monopolised.  It was to be kept for the exclusive benefit of some privileged or chartered company.  It was the same in greater affairs.  As Mahan says, ’To secure to one’s own people a disproportionate share of the benefits of sea commerce every effort was made to exclude others, either by the peaceful legislative methods of monopoly or prohibitory regulations, or, when these failed, by direct violence.’  The apparent wealth of Spain was believed to be due to the rigorous manner in which foreigners were excluded from trading with the Spanish over-sea territories.  The skill and enterprise of the Dutch having enabled them to force themselves into this trade, they were determined to keep it to themselves.  The Dutch East India Company was a powerful body, and largely dictated the maritime policy of the country.  We have thus come to an interesting point in the historical consideration of sea-power.  The Elizabethan conflict with Spain had practically settled the question whether or not the expanding nations were to be allowed to extend their activities to territories in the New World.  The first two Dutch wars were to settle the question whether or not the ocean trade of the world was to be open to any people qualified to engage in it.  We can see how largely these were maritime questions, how much depended on the solution found for them, and how plain it was that they must be settled by naval means.

[Footnote 39:  Hist.Greece_, ii. p. 52.]

[Footnote 40:  UnitedNetherlands_, ii. p. 132.]

Mahan’s great survey of sea-power opens in 1660, midway between the first and second Dutch wars.  ’The sailing-ship era, with its distinctive features,’ he tells us, ‘had fairly begun.’  The art of war by sea, in its more important details, had been settled by the first war.  From the beginning of the second the general features of ship design, the classification of ships, the armament of ships, and the handling of fleets, were to remain without essential alteration until the date of Navarino.  Even the tactical methods, except where improved on occasions by individual genius, altered little.