alth in commerce, if commerce had been permitted."

John Fiske, too, in the second volume of his "Historical Essays," dwells
upon the causes of the enormous development of piracy in the seventeenth
century. Speaking of the struggle of the Netherlands and England against
the greatest military power of the world, he said that the former had to
rely largely and the latter almost exclusively, upon naval operations,
and continued:

"Dutch ships on the Indian Ocean and English ships off the American
coasts effectually cut the Spaniard's sinews of war. Now in that
age ocean navigation was still in its infancy, and the work of
creating great and permanent navies was only beginning. Government
was glad to have individuals join in the work of building and
equipping ships of war, and it was accordingly natural that
individuals should expect to reimburse themselves for the heavy
risk and expense by taking a share in the spoils of victory. In
this way privateering came into existence and it played a much more
extensive part in maritime warfare than it now does. The navy was
but incompletely nationalized. Into expeditions that were strictly
military in purpose there entered some of the elements of a
commercial speculation, and as we read them with our modern ideas
we detect the smack of buccaneering."

England in dealing leniently with these buccaneers sailing under her
flag, argued that since the gold and silver carried from America to
Spain in Spanish ships was used to defray the expenses of a war which
threatened her, English mariners were justified in capturing these
vessels and seizing such treasures. But there is little doubt that by
this interpretation the doors were opened wide to all sorts of trickery
and outrage, carried on regardless whether the countries under whose
flags both captors and captured sailed were at the time at war or at
peace. Thus the naval and commercial restrictions, which Spain imposed
upon other countries, proved at the end a boomerang, which did
irreparable loss to Spain itself.

For the long war with England had greatly weakened Spanish power and
when the peace of 1604 was concluded, the once so powerful country was
visibly entering upon its downward path. Philip II, called the Great,
had left a son, Philip III, who had neither the personality nor the
ability to continue his famous father's policy of imperialism. Before
long it