t. At the same time
our maritime trade and the general prosperity of the kingdom
increased enormously. The result of the conflict made plain to
all the paramount importance of having in the principal posts
in the Government men capable of understanding what war is and
how it ought to be conducted.

[Footnote 42: Mahan, _Inf._on_Hist._ p. 280.]

This lesson, as the sequel demonstrated, had not been learned
when Great Britain became involved in a war with the insurgent
colonies in North America. Mahan's comment is striking: 'The
magnificence of sea-power and its value had perhaps been more
clearly shown by the uncontrolled sway and consequent exaltation
of one belligerent; but the lesson thus given, if more striking,
is less vividly interesting than the spectacle of that sea-power
meeting a foe worthy of its steel, and excited to exertion by a
strife which endangered not only its most valuable colonies, but
even its own shores.'[43] We were, in fact, drawing too largely
on the _prestige_ acquired during the Seven Years' war; and we
were governed by men who did not understand the first principles
of naval warfare, and would not listen to those who did. They
quite ignored the teaching of the then comparatively recent wars
which has been alluded to already--that we should look upon the
enemy's coast as our frontier. A century and a half earlier the
Dutchman Grotius had written--

Quae meta Britannis
Litora sunt aliis.

[Footnote 43: _Influence_on_Hist._ p. 338.]

Though ordinary prudence would have suggested ample preparation,
British ministers allowed their country to remain unprepared.
Instead of concentrating their efforts on the main objective,
they frittered away force in attempts to relieve two beleaguered
garrisons under the pretext of yielding to popular pressure, which
is the official term for acting on the advice of irresponsible
and uninstructed busybodies. 'Depuis le debut de la crise,' says
Captain Chevalier, 'les ministres de la Grande Bretagne s'etaient
montres inferieurs a leur tache.' An impressive result of this was
the repeated appearance of powerful and indeed numerically superior
hostile fleets in the English Channel. The war--notwithstanding
that, perhaps because, land operations constituted an important
part of it, and in the end settled the issue--was essentially
oceanic. Captain Mahan says it was 'purely maritime.' It may
be true that, whatever the belligerent result, the political
resu