was in the power of the
latter to stop at once by abandoning the contest. Holland, on the
other hand, being safe from invasion by land, showed little desire for
anything more than to escape with as little external loss as possible,
through the assistance of the allied navies. The object of these two
minor parties may therefore be said to have been the cessation of the
war; whereas the principals hoped from its continuance certain changed
conditions, which constituted their objects.

With Great Britain also the object of the war was very simple. Having
been led into a lamentable altercation with her most promising
colonies, the quarrel had gone on step by step till she was threatened
with their loss. To maintain forcible control when willing adhesion
had departed, she had taken up arms against them, and her object in so
doing was to prevent a break in those foreign possessions with which,
in the eyes of that generation, her greatness was indissolubly
connected. The appearance of France and Spain as active supporters of
the colonists' cause made no change in England's objects, whatever
change of objective her military plans may, or should, have undergone.
The danger of losing the continental colonies was vastly increased by
these accessions to the ranks of her enemies, which brought with them
also a threat of loss, soon to be realized in part, of other valuable
foreign possessions. England, in short, as regards the objects of the
war, was strictly on the defensive; she feared losing much, and at
best only hoped to keep what she had. By forcing Holland into war,
however, she obtained a military advantage; for, without increasing
the strength of her opponents, several important but ill-defended
military and commercial positions were thereby laid open to her arms.

The views and objects of France and Spain were more complex. The moral
incentives of hereditary enmity and desire of revenge for the recent
past doubtless weighed strongly, as in France did also the sympathy
of the _salons_ and philosophers with the colonists' struggle for
freedom; but powerfully as sentimental considerations affect the
action of nations, only the tangible means by which it is expected to
gratify them admit of statement and measurement. France might wish to
regain her North American possessions; but the then living generation
of colonists had too keen personal recollection of the old contests to
acquiesce in any such wishes as to Canada. The str