h its
islands of Sardinia and Sicily; and hence in its youth and still
existing financial weakness it is seen to put forth such vigorous and
intelligent efforts to create a military navy. It has even been argued
that, with a navy decidedly superior to her enemy's, Italy could
better base her power upon her islands than upon her mainland; for the
insecurity of the lines of communication in the peninsula, already
pointed out, would most seriously embarrass an invading army
surrounded by a hostile people and threatened from the sea.

The Irish Sea, separating the British Islands, rather resembles an
estuary than an actual division; but history has shown the danger
from it to the United Kingdom. In the days of Louis XIV., when the
French navy nearly equalled the combined English and Dutch, the
gravest complications existed in Ireland, which passed almost wholly
under the control of the natives and the French. Nevertheless, the
Irish Sea was rather a danger to the English--a weak point in their
communications--than an advantage to the French. The latter did not
venture their ships-of-the-line in its narrow waters, and expeditions
intending to land were directed upon the ocean ports in the south and
west. At the supreme moment the great French fleet was sent upon the
south coast of England, where it decisively defeated the allies, and
at the same time twenty-five frigates were sent to St. George's
Channel, against the English communications. In the midst of a
hostile people, the English army in Ireland was seriously imperilled,
but was saved by the battle of the Boyne and the flight of James II.
This movement against the enemy's communications was strictly
strategic, and would be just as dangerous to England now as in 1690.

Spain, in the same century, afforded an impressive lesson of the
weakness caused by such separation when the parts are not knit
together by a strong sea power. She then still retained, as remnants
of her past greatness, the Netherlands (now Belgium), Sicily, and
other Italian possessions, not to speak of her vast colonies in the
New World. Yet so low had the Spanish sea power fallen, that a
well-informed and sober-minded Hollander of the day could claim that
"in Spain all the coast is navigated by a few Dutch ships; and since
the peace of 1648 their ships and seamen are so few that they have
publicly begun to hire our ships to sail to the Indies, whereas they
were formerly careful to exclude all foreign