ance had but forty-five ships-of-the-line
to England's ninety. This difference foreshadowed the results which
followed a quarter of a century of war.

During the same period Walpole, relying upon Fleuri's co-operation,
resolutely set his face against open war between England and Spain.
The difficulties caused by the threatening and exasperating action of
the latter country, and of such allies as she from time to time could
raise, were met, and for a while successfully met, by naval
demonstrations,--reminders of that sea power which one nation after
another had felt and yielded to. In 1725, the Spanish king and the
emperor agreed to sink their long-standing feud, and signed a treaty
at Vienna, in which there was a secret clause providing that the
emperor would support the claim of Spain to Gibraltar and Port Mahon,
by arms if necessary. Russia also showed a disposition to join this
confederacy. A counter-alliance was formed between England, France,
and Prussia; and English fleets were sent, one to the Baltic to awe
the czarina, another to the coast of Spain to check that government
and protect Gibraltar, and a third to Porto Bello, on the Spanish
Main, to blockade the fleet of galleons there assembled, and by
cutting off the supplies remind the Spanish king at once of his
dependence upon the specie of America, and of England's control of the
highway by which it reached him. Walpole's aversion to war was marked
by giving the admiral at Porto Bello the strictest orders not to
fight, only to blockade; the consequence of which, through the long
delay of the squadron upon the sickly coast, was a mortality among
the crews that shocked the nation, and led, among other causes, to the
minister's overthrow many years later. Between three and four thousand
officers and men, including Admiral Hosier himself, died there.
Walpole's aim, however, was reached; though Spain made a foolish
attack by land upon Gibraltar, the presence of the English fleet
assured its supplies and provisions and averted the formal outbreak of
war. The emperor withdrew from the alliance, and under English
pressure also revoked the charter of an East India company which he
had authorized in the Austrian Netherlands, and which took its name
from the port of Ostend. English merchants demanded the removal of
this competitor, and also of a similar rival established in Denmark;
both which concessions the English ministry, backed by Holland,
obtained. So long as co