CHAPTER IV.
ENGLISH REVOLUTION .-- WAR OF THE LEAGUE OF AUGSBURG, 1688-1697 .-- SEA BATTLES OF BEACHY HEAD AND LA HOUGUE.
The Peace of Nimeguen was followed by a period of ten years in which no extensive war broke out.

They were, however, far from being years of political quiet.

Louis XIV.

was as intent upon pushing on his frontiers to the eastward in peace as in war, and grasped in quick succession fragments of territory which had not been given him by the peace.

Claiming this and that in virtue of ancient feudal ties; this and that other as implicitly surrendered by the treaty, because dependent upon something else that had been explicitly surrendered; purchasing at one time, using bare force in other cases, and backing up all the so-called peaceful methods of obtaining his asserted rights by the presence of armed power, he carried on this process of extension between 1679 and 1682.