He died a week later at Syracuse, and with him passed away the last hope of resistance on the sea.

A month later the Spanish and Dutch fleets were attacked at anchor at Palermo, and many of them destroyed; while a division sent from Holland to reinforce the Mediterranean fleet was met by a French squadron in the Straits of Gibraltar and forced to take refuge in Cadiz.
The Sicilian enterprise continued to be only a diversion, and the slight importance attached to it shows clearly how entirely Louis XIV.
was bent on the continental war.

How differently would the value of Sicily have impressed him, had his eyes been fixed on Egypt and extension by sea.

As the years passed, the temper of the English people became more and more excited against France; the trade rivalries with Holland seemed to fall into the shade, and it became likely that England, which had entered the war as the ally of Louis, would, before it closed, take up arms against him.

In addition to other causes of jealousy she saw the French navy increased to a number superior to her own.