Their men-of-war in the Mediterranean were always victualled short, and their convoys were so weak and ill-provided that for one ship that we lost, they lost five, which begat a general notion that we were the safer carriers, which certainly had a good effect.

Hence it was that our trade rather increased than diminished in this war." From that time Holland ceased to have a great sea power, and rapidly lost the leading position among the nations which that power had built up.

It is only just to say that no policy could have saved from decline this small, though determined, nation, in face of the persistent enmity of Louis XIV.

The friendship of France, insuring peace on her landward frontier, would have enabled her, at least for a longer time, to dispute with England the dominion of the seas; and as allies the navies of the two continental States might have checked the growth of the enormous sea power which has just been considered.

Sea peace between England and Holland was only possible by the virtual subjection of one or the other, for both aimed at the same object.
Between France and Holland it was otherwise; and the fall of Holland proceeded, not necessarily from her inferior size and numbers, but from faulty policy on the part of the two governments.