Relatively to her population and wealth, Massachusetts had large capacities for becoming a naval power--capacities which might have been vigorously developed if an alliance with the great naval powers of Continental Europe had been possible.

But Holland was now at peace with England; not to say that such an arrangement was out of the question for Massachusetts, while _the rest of New England was more or less inclined to the adverse interest_.

Unembarrassed by any foreign war, England was armed with that efficient navy which the Duke of York had organized, and which had lately distressed the rich and energetic Netherlanders; and the dwellings of two-thirds of the inhabitants of Massachusetts stood where they could be battered from the water.

They had a commerce which might be molested in every sea by English cruisers.

Neither befriended nor interfered with, they might have been able to defend themselves against the corsairs of Barbary in the resorts of their most gainful trade; but England had given them notice, that if they were stubborn that commerce would be dismissed from her protection, and in the circumstances such a notice threatened more than a mere abstinence from aid.