Page 96 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

The Isthmus and Sea Power.
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far the particular fortunate issue was of the
nature of an accident; but this fact serves only
to illustrate more emphatically that, when a
general line of policy, whether military or politi-
cal, is correctly chosen upon sound principles,
incidental misfortunes or disappointments do
not frustrate the conception. The sagacious,
far-seeing motive, which prompted Cromwell's
movement against the West Indian posses-
sions of Spain, was to contest the latter's claim
to the monopoly of that wealthy region ; and he
looked upon British extension in the islands
as simply a stepping-stone to control upon the
adjacent continent. It is a singular commen-
tary upon the blindness of historians to the true
secret of Great Britain's rise among the nations,
and of the eminent position she so long has
held, that writers so far removed from each
other in time and characteristics as Hume and
the late J. R. Green should detect in this far-
reaching effort of the Protector, only the dulled
vision of " a conservative and unspeculative
temper misled by the strength of religious
enthusiasm." " A statesman of wise political
genius," according to them, would have fast-
ened his eyes rather upon the growing power of