The Navigation Acts declared that all imports into England or her colonies, which had been gradually growing, must be conveyed exclusively in vessels be longing to England herself or to the country in which the products carried were grown or manufactured. This was a challenge to the Dutch, and war with Holland naturally followed. The contest for the supremacy of the sea lasted sixty years, and four phases are clearly marked.
(i) Britain fought against Holland alone.
(ii) Britain fought against Holland and France allied.
(iii) Britain, allied with France, fought Holland.
(iv) Britain, allied with Holland, fought France.
(i) The first stage lasted from 1652 till 1665. In the first war under the Commonwealth, Britain had, if any thing, slightly the better. In the second, under Charles, Britain was on the whole more successful; but her real strength was brought out only accidentally, for in the autumn of 1665, notwithstanding her naval successes, her fleets were not able to put to sea on account of the plague. Then the difference in the positions of Holland and Britain was clearly brought out, for Britain hired mercenaries with her accumulated energy to attack Holland on land.
(ii) This led to the second stage of the contest, for the Dutch at once sought French aid to hold the land frontier ; but this stage did not last long—only during 1666 and 1667—for though again Britain gained more advantage than did Holland, yet each saw that France was profiting by their trade losses ; a peace was patched up, and even an affiance was formed for a few years.
(iii) It was now that France, under Colbert, made another of her spasmodic attempts to become a sea power. Organized in the characteristic centralized French way, the production of home commodities, the building of ships, and the establishment of colonies, were so co-ordinated and stimulated that France bade fair to leap to the front as a sea-power ; but again his torical momentum and the geographical conditions had their effect. On the one hand, the people, accustomed to their own ways of living, could not at once take ad vantage of the governmental facilities, and on the other, the geographical conditions again tempted the govern ment to think of expansion beyond the eastern frontier, and to withdraw these facilities before they had produced much effect. Now on this land frontier, approached by the easiest way out of France to the north-east, lay the Netherlands and Holland. Spain was weak, the Nether
lands, which had remained Spanish, fell at once to France, and Holland was directly menaced. This seemed to suit British aims, especially as France, though her fleet had become of more importance, was not a commercial rival of Britain. Thus in 1672, after a period of strain during which England claimed more and more authority on the sea, England and France united de clared war on Holland. In the course of it Holland, largely because of subsidies paid from the profits of her commerce, was aided by allies who took off the pressure from her land frontiers, and was able, because of the strength of her fleet, to prevent direct invasion from the sea; but the need for those subsidies arose from the fact that Holland was small and open on the land side to a great centralized land-power, and on the sea her strength was evidently failing before that of the sea-power which had no land positions to defend, but could use her sub sidies for attack; for when Britain withdrew from the war in 1674, the supremacy of her flag was recognized from Finisterre to Norway. The advantage to Britain did not end there, for as a neutral during the remainder of the war, which lasted till 1678, the carrying trade of the Dutch was transferred to her ships, because they crossed the sea more securely than did those of Holland, which were still menaced by the French privateers.
France, too, by deliberately choosing to look landward rather than seaward, practically allowed Britain a free hand on the sea. Even as early as the days of James I. Britain had claimed and received the acknowledgment of supremacy over France at sea; but if the schemes of Colbert had been allowed to prosper, and the advice of Leibniz taken, the geographical advantages of position possessed by France would have allowed her to set up a sea empire that it would have been impossible for Holland to withstand and difficult for Britain to over come. If she had used her front on the Mediterranean, where there was now no sea-power, to dominate Egypt, she could have controlled a great part of the trade of India and the Levant; she would have been compelled to occupy stations on either side of Egypt, and would have become a sea-power more important than Holland, and, gradually taking the place of her weaker ally at home, would have strengthened her position there, and made herself at any rate a serious rival to Britain.