That extensive monarchy is exhausted at heart, her resources lie at a great distance, and whatever power commands the sea, may command the wealth and commerce of Spain.

The dominions from which she draws her resources, lying at an immense distance from the capital and from one another, make it more necessary for her than for any other State to temporize, until she can inspire with activity all parts of her enormous but disjointed empire."[111] It would be untrue to say that England is exhausted at heart; but her dependence upon the outside world is such as to give a certain suggestiveness to the phrase.
This analogy of positions was not overlooked by England.

From that time forward up to our own day, the possessions won for her by her sea power have combined with that sea power itself to control her policy.
The road to India--in the days of Clive a distant and perilous voyage on which she had not a stopping-place of her own--was reinforced as opportunity offered by the acquisition of St.Helena, of the Cape of Good Hope, of the Mauritius.

When steam made the Red Sea and Mediterranean route practicable, she acquired Aden, and yet later has established herself at Socotra.

Malta had already fallen into her hands during the wars of the French Revolution, and her commanding position, as the corner-stone upon which the coalitions against Napoleon rested, enabled her to claim it at the Peace of 1815.