Cromwell, a despot in everything but name, was keenly alive to all that concerned England's honor and strength, and did not stop at barren salutes to promote them.

Hardly yet possessed of power, the English navy sprang rapidly into a new life and vigor under his stern rule.

England's rights, or reparation for her wrongs, were demanded by her fleets throughout the world,--in the Baltic, in the Mediterranean, against the Barbary States, in the West Indies; and under him the conquest of Jamaica began that extension of her empire, by force of arms, which has gone on to our own days.

Nor were equally strong peaceful measures for the growth of English trade and shipping forgotten.

Cromwell's celebrated Navigation Act declared that all imports into England or her colonies must be conveyed exclusively in vessels belonging to England herself, or to the country in which the products carried were grown or manufactured.