Page 97 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

78 The Isthmus and Sea Power.

France, " and discerned the beginning of that
great struggle for supremacy" which was
fought out under Louis XIV. But to do so
would have been only to repeat, by anticipa-
tion, the fatal error of that great monarch, which
forever forfeited for France the control of the
seas, in which the surest prosperity of nations
is to be found ; a mistake, also, far more ruin-
ous to the island kingdom than it was to her
continental rival, bitter though the fruits thereof
have been to the latter. Hallam, with clearer
insight, says: "When Cromwell declared against
Spain, and attacked her West Indian posses-
sions, there was little pretence, certainly, of jus-
tice, but not by any means, as I conceive, the
impolicy sometimes charged against him. So
auspicious was his star, that the very failure of
that expedition obtained a more advantageous
possession for England than all the triumphs of
her former kings." Most true ; but because
his star was despatched in the right direction to
look for fortune, — by sea, not by land.
The great aim of the Protector was checked
by his untimely death, which perhaps also defi-
nitely frustrated a fulfilment, in the actual pos-
session of the Isthmus, that in his strong hands