The first Article of an Englishman's Political Creed must be, That he believeth in the Sea.… We are in an Island, confined to it by God Almighty, not as a Penalty but a Grace, and one of the greatest that can be given to Mankind. Happy Confinement, that hath made us Free, Rich, and Quiet.
George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, 1633-95.
PART III
THE FRENCH WAR
CHAPTER XIII
THE FIRST WAR AGAINST LOUIS XIV
(1689-1697)
In Chapter VI we saw how French and English once fought a Hundred Years War to decide the French possession of all the land of France, and how the French, having the greater army, won. Now, in these next seven chapters we shall learn how they fought another Hundred Years War to decide the command of the sea, and how the English, grown into a British Empire and having the greater navy, won in their turn. Both victories proved to be for the best. France and England both gained by the first war; because the natural way for France to grow was all over the land that is France now, while the natural way for England to grow was not on the continent of Europe but in the British Isles. The British Empire gained more than the French by the second war; but as France could never have held an oversea Empire without a supreme navy, and as she could never have a supreme navy while she had two land frontiers to defend with great armies, she really lost nothing she then could have kept. Besides, in the nineteenth century she won a great empire in northern Africa, where her Mediterranean sea-power keeps it safe. The British Empire, on the other hand, being based on world-wide sea-power, is rightly placed as it is. So neither French nor British are tempted to envy each other now; while their Hundred Years Peace, followed by their glorious Alliance in the Great War, should make them friends for ever.
The Franco-British wars which began in 1689 and ended on the field of Waterloo in 1815 are not called the Second Hundred Years War in books. But that is what they were in fact. The British Navy was the chief cause of British victory all through, and, as French and British always took opposite sides, we may also call the whole of these seven wars by the one name of "The French War," just as we have called the other wars against our chief opponents "The Spanish War" and "Dutch War"; and just as we might call "The Great War" by the name of "The German War."
Two more points must be well understood, or else we shall miss the real meaning of our imperial history and the supreme importance of the Royal Navy.
First, there have been four attempts made in modern times by Great Powers on the continent of Europe to seize the overlordship of the World; and each time the Royal Navy has been the central force that foiled the attack upon the freedom of mankind. These four attempts have been made about a century apart from one another. The Spanish attempt was made at the end of the sixteenth century. The first French attempt was made by Louis XIV at the end of the seventeenth. The second French attempt was made by Napoleon at the beginning of the nineteenth. The German attempt was made at the beginning of the twentieth. Though alike in the ambitions of their makers, these attempts were most unlike in the way the wars were carried on; for, while the Spaniards and Germans were monsters of cruelty, the French were foemen worthy of the noblest steel.