able that it would become supreme in Europe.1 There were other dangers to the trade of Britain and the existence of the United Provinces; but the ultimate aim of the Grand Alliance was expressed in this brief and comprehensive form.2

When the bursting of some great storm is imminent, the eyes of men search out the spot where its first blow is to be dealt the spot where it may be seen by the merely curious, and may be averted or mitigated by those more closely interested. In this instance the spot was small, but the gathering of the forces pointed to it with indubitable distinctness; it was the small town of Nymeguen, on the eastern frontier of the United Provinces, generally, for brevity's sake, called Holland.

The possession of Nymeguen came of the craving of watery Holland to have one foot on the firm ground. Nature had made the rest of the country a morass of sedge, sand, and mud. People who were prepared to buy freedom at any price fled to the inhospitable shelter of these wilds; and as the people who loved freedom were also industrious and frugal, the wilderness began to smile under their industry, and after centuries became the richest soil in Europe. It was not only thus an object of cupidity to robber Powers, but it was traversed by roads and canals, available to those who had possession. And this availability was not merely from place to place in Holland, but through Holland towards France on the

1 "Qu'enfin les François et les Espagnols, étant ainsi unis deviendroiens en peu de tems si formidables qu'ils pourroiens aisément soumettre toute l'Europe à leur obéirs et empire."

2 See it in French, 'Actes mémoires et autres pièces authentiques concernant la paix d'Utrecht,' i. 1 et seq. In Latin, Dumont, viii. 91.

one hand, and Germany on the other. This, if it was a cause of danger to Holland, was also a source of strength if adroitly managed; and hence it was that the small group of republics had so much to say along with the great Powers in all disturbances and readjustments of the map of Europe.

Thus Holland was a desirable acquisition for France to make; and in the political school of King Louis and his worshippers, it was in the hands of a very odious people, a kingless people, living in civilisation and acquiring wealth-a practical outrage on the divine right of sovereigns. There must be some source of quarrel more palpable than this spirit to justify the annexation of Holland, and such a source was ready at hand. The Dutch were rebels against the sovereignty that now by divine right belonged to the grandson of King Louis. It is true that half a century had passed since the independence of the Provinces had been confirmed by all Europe in the peace of Westphalia. But rebellion and sacrilege remain the same in character, however successful the wicked perpetrators may have been for a time: the hour of retribution had come at last.

Within its wall the town of Nymeguen, with its winding steep streets, stands much as it did when the eyes of Europe were upon it. Outside, its mighty fortifications have been crumbling into unsightly hillocks of sand and turf, save where portions of them have been made available in the construction of railway lines and harbour works. The great river Waal-carrying with it the larger portion of the Rhine to the sea-washes the town; but though the Waal is the natural boundary of this part of Holland,

Nymeguen has its back to the river, and stands outside facing the enemy with its fortresses. This position gave Nymeguen the mastery of all the branches of the Rhine. The only other branch lying between Holland and Germany turns off a few miles eastward, and is naturally under the protection of Nymeguen, which was thus the entrance-gate not only to Holland, but to the German bank of the Rhine. The events of later wars give accumulated proof of the momentous significance of such local conditions. In the words of the statesmen of the time, the critical nature of the situation was expressed in the words, "Nymeguen on the Rhine boundary." Those who were not hearty in the cause spoke of the narrow selfishness of the Dutch in driving Europe into war for so small a matter. Holland, too, was fundamentally strong. Like some amphibious animals, she could get under water for a time; her pastures had been flooded in the hour of imminent peril, and the resource might be sought again. But the drenching would be a dire loss both of possessions and people. Was it fair that Germany should be saved by this sacrifice? Would Britain stand by and see, in stolid indifference, so pitiful a calamity to a friend and neighbour? But there were considerations that sharply touched a powerful party in England with something more palpable than the prospective predominance of France upsetting the balance of the European Powers. It was at the time when theories of the vast contributions made to the wealth of the world by monopolies and exclusive trading privileges were at their climax. The more amply a community was furnished with this source of wealth the richer it became. But it was not in

the nature of the commodity that two communities could partake in its wealth-producing resources. The gain of one was ever measured by the loss to the other. If any State became rich, some other State had become so much the poorer to provide the fund whence the riches of its neighbour had been increased. It is true that there were treaties of commerce by which some nation admitted another as "a favoured nation" to certain assigned trading privileges. But these admittances were distinct pecuniary sacrifices to the exigencies of politics. No nation conceded them willingly, and the man who spoke of them as advantages to both parties would have been counted a maniac. It was simply the policy of imparting a share in the precious privilege to a friend, lest, becoming an enemy, he might seize the whole. If the London capitalist could not well see it to be his duty to sacrifice some of his money to stop the house of Bourbon in its march to universal empire, his tenderest susceptibilities were touched when he was told how that universality of dominion included the exclusive command over the trade of the world. The process had already begun by which England was to be excluded from this and that market. In the first place, the Spanish market was lost; and Portugal had agreed by treaty to share in the policy of Spain under her Bourbon king. The command of the entrance to the MediterraneanGibraltar-secured the trade of all that seaboard, by guarding Sicily, Naples, and the other Italian possessions of the Austrian kings of Spain, for the Bourbons. It was more alarming than even all this that the Indies-the Spanish American colonies, with all their

boundless prospects of enlarging inhabitancy and commerce-were to be closed to the trading vessels of England. The Spanish Netherlands were lost to English enterprise. The blight was to work its way through Holland, and might pass into Germany and Scandinavia. The great trading interests of England had been roused into a paroxysm of fear and wrath by the Scots projects of an Indian and African company, with a settlement at Darien; but what was the puny competition of this poor relation when measured with the vast combination of forces that now threatened to crush out of life the trade of England?

Nymeguen was the entrance-gate to Holland, and all that could be reached by passing through Holland. When the fortifications outside, commanding all the approaches available to an enemy, were fully equipped and manned, the gate was closed. But there was no garrison in the fortresses, and they were so divested of equipment that there was said not to be a gun mounted on the vast works. In the spirit of economy it appeared that the Dutch Government had trusted to the Barrier Forts as a sufficient protection. But when these forts, with a suddenness more like the wave of a Prospero's wand than even the most rapid operations of diplomacy or war, passed from the hands of protectors into the hands of enemies, the gate was open. All now depended on adroitness and nimbleness in attack or rescue when both parties had shaken free of the trammels of the expiring peace.

As the armies assembled on both sides were hovering on the frontier territories between the Maas and