A soldier-and-sailor rough-and-tumble followed,
sabres and cutlasses slashing like mad, and some of the horsemen being
dragged off their saddles by well-handled boat-hooks.

La Hogue was not a glorious victory, like Trafalgar, because the odds
were nine to four in favour of the Dutch and British. But it was one
of the great decisive battles of the world, because, from that time on,
the British Isles, though often threatened, were never again in really
serious danger of invasion.

CHAPTER XIV

THE SECOND WAR AGAINST LOUIS XIV

(1702-1713)

King Charles II of Spain, having no children, made a will leaving his
throne to Philip V, a grandson of Louis XIV, whose wife was sister to
Charles. Louis declared that "the Pyrenees had ceased to exist"; by
which boast he meant that he would govern the Spanish Empire through
his grandson, turn the Mediterranean into "a French lake," and work his
will against British sea-power, both mercantile and naval.

The war that followed was mostly fought on land; and the great British
hero of it was the famous Duke of Marlborough, who was a soldier, not a
sailor. But the facts that England, as usual, could not be invaded,
and that her armies, also as usual, fought victoriously on the
continent of Europe, prove how well British sea-power worked: closing
the sea to enemies, opening it for friends, moving armies to the best
bases on the coast, and keeping them supplied with all they needed at
the front--men, munitions, clothing, food, and everything else.

The great naval feat of this war was the daring attack Rooke made on
Gibraltar in 1704 with the help of some very gallant Dutch. Landing
all the Marines ("Soldier and Sailor too") on the narrow neck of ground
joining the famous Rock of Gibraltar to the mainland of Spain, and
ranging all his broadsides against the batteries on the seaward front,
Rooke soon beat the Spaniards from their guns and forced them to
surrender a place which, if properly defended, should have kept out a
fleet ten times as strong. No sooner had Gibraltar fallen than a
French fleet came to win it back. But, after a fierce battle off
Malaga, with over fifty ships a side, the French gave up the idea; and
from that day to this Gibraltar has been British.

British sea-power won many advantages by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.
France and Spain agreed that one king should never rule both countries.
The British kept Gibraltar and Minorca, which together made