第4章

State of Europe in 1660 1660年之欧洲形势

Second Anglo-Dutch War, 1665-1667.

Sea Battles of Lowestoft and of the Four Days.

The period at which our historical survey is to begin has been loosely stated as the middle of the seventeenth century. The year 1660 will now be taken as the definite date at which to open. In May of that year Charles II. was restored to the English throne amid the general rejoicing of the people. In March of the following year, upon the death of Cardinal Mazarin, Louis XIV. assembled his ministers and said to them:“I have summoned you to tell you that it has pleased me hitherto to permit my affairs to be governed by the late cardinal; I shall in future be my own prime minister. I direct that no decree be sealed except by my orders, and I order the secretaries of State and the superintendent of the finances to sign nothing without my command.”The personal government thus assumed was maintained, in fact as well as in name, for over half a century.

Within one twelvemonth then are seen, setting forward upon a new stage of national life, after a period of confusion more or less prolonged, the two States which, amid whatever inequalities, have had the first places in the sea history of modern Europe and America, indeed, of the world at large. Sea history, however, is but one factor in that general advance and decay of nations which is called their history; and if sight be lost of the other factors to which it is so closely related, a distorted view, either exaggerated or the reverse, of its importance will be formed. It is with the belief that that importance is vastly underrated, if not practically lost sight of, by people unconnected with the sea, and particularly by the people of the United States in our own day, that this study has been undertaken.

The date taken, 1660, followed closely another which marked a great settlement of European affairs, setting the seal of treaty upon the results of a general war, known to history as the Thirty Years’War. This other date was that of the Treaty of Westphalia, or Munster, in 1648. In this the independence of the Dutch United Provinces, long before practically assured, was formally acknowledged by Spain; and it being followed in 1659 by the Treaty of the Pyrenees between France and Spain, the two gave to Europe a state of general external peace, destined soon to be followed by a series of almost universal wars, which lasted as long as Louis XIV. lived, — wars which were to induce profound changes in the map of Europe; during which new States were to arise, others to decay, and all to undergo large modifications, either in extent of dominion or in political power. In these results maritime power, directly or indirectly, had a great share.

We must first look at the general condition of European States at the time from which the narrative starts. In the struggles, extending over nearly a century, whose end is marked by the Peace of Westphalia, the royal family known as the House of Austria had been the great overwhelming power which all others feared. During the long reign of the Emperor Charles V., who abdicated a century before, the head of that house had united in his own person the two crowns of Austria and Spain, which carried with them, among other possessions, the countries we now know as Holland and Belgium, together with a preponderating influence in Italy. After his abdication the two great monarchies of Austria and Spain were separated; but though ruled by different persons, they were still in the same family, and tended toward that unity of aim and sympathy which marked dynastic connections in that and the following century. To this bond of union was added that of a common religion. During the century before the Peace of Westphalia, the extension of family power, and the extension of the religion professed, were the two strongest motives of political action. This was the period of the great religious wars which arrayed nation against nation, principality against principality, and often, in the same nation, faction against faction. Religious persecution caused the revolt of the Protestant Dutch Provinces against Spain, which issued, after eighty years of more or less constant war, in the recognition of their independence. Religious discord, amounting to civil war at times, distracted France during the greater part of the same period, profoundly affecting not only her internal but her external policy. These were the days of St. Bartholomew, of the religious murder of Henry IV., of the siege of La Rochelle, of constant intriguing between Roman Catholic Spain and Roman Catholic Frenchmen. As the religious motive, acting in a sphere to which it did not naturally belong, and in which it had no rightful place, died away, the political necessities and interests of States began to have juster weight; not that they had been wholly lost sight of in the mean time, but the religious animosities had either blinded the eyes, or fettered the action, of statesmen. It was natural that in France, one of the greatest sufferers from religious passions, owing to the number and character of the Protestant minority, this reaction should first and most markedly be seen. Placed between Spain and the German States, among which Austria stood foremost without a rival, internal union and checks upon the power of the House of Austria were necessities of political existence. Happily, Providence raised up to her in close succession two great rulers, Henry IV. and Richelieu, — men in whom religion fell short of bigotry, and who, when forced to recognize it in the sphere of politics, did so as masters and not as slaves. Under them French statesmanship received a guidance, which Richelieu formulated as a tradition, and which moved on the following general lines, — (1) Internal union of the kingdom, appeasing or putting down religious strife and centralizing authority in the king; (2) Resistance to the power of the House of Austria, which actually and necessarily carried with it alliance with Protestant German States and with Holland; (3) Extension of the boundaries of France to the eastward, at the expense mainly of Spain, which then possessed not only the present Belgium, but other provinces long since incorporated with France; and (4) The creation and development of a great sea power, adding to the wealth of the kingdom, and intended specially to make head against France's hereditary enemy, England; for which end again the alliance with Holland was to be kept in view. Such were the broad outlines of policy laid down by statesmen in the front rank of genius for the guidance of that country whose people have, not without cause, claimed to be the most complete exponent of European civilization, foremost in the march of progress, combining political advance with individual development. This tradition, carried on by Mazarin, was received from him by Louis XIV.; it will be seen how far he was faithful to it, and what were the results to France of his action. Meanwhile it may be noted that of these four elements necessary to the greatness of France, sea power was one; and as the second and third were practically one in the means employed, it may be said that sea power was one of the two great means by which France's external greatness was to be maintained. England on the sea, Austria on the land, indicated the direction that French effort was to take.

As regards the condition of France in 1660, and her readiness to move onward in the road marked by Richelieu, it may be said that internal peace was secured, the power of the nobles wholly broken, religious discords at rest; the tolerant edict of Nantes was still in force, while the remaining Protestant discontent had been put down by the armed hand. All power was absolutely centred in the throne. In other respects, though the kingdom was at peace, the condition was less satisfactory. There was practically no navy; commerce, internal and external, was not prosperous; the finances were in disorder; the army small.

Spain, the nation before which all others had trembled less than a century before, was now long in decay and scarcely formidable; the central weakness had spread to all parts of the administration. In extent of territory, however, she was still great. The Spanish Netherlands still belonged to her; she held Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia; Gibraltar had not yet fallen into English hands; her vast possessions in America — with the exception of Jamaica, conquered by England a few years before — were still untouched. The condition of her sea power, both for peace and war, has been already alluded to. Many years before, Richelieu had contracted a temporary alliance with Spain, by virtue of which she placed forty ships at his disposal; but the bad condition of the vessels, for the most part ill armed and ill commanded, compelled their withdrawal. The navy of Spain was then in full decay, and its weakness did not escape the piercing eye of the cardinal. An encounter which took place between the Spanish and Dutch fleets in 1639 shows most plainly the state of degradation into which this once proud navy had fallen.

“Her navy at this time,”says the narrative quoted,“met one of those shocks, a succession of which during this war degraded her from her high station of mistress of the seas in both hemispheres, to a contemptible rank among maritime powers. The king was fitting out a powerful fleet to carry the war to the coasts of Sweden, and for its equipment had commanded a reinforcement of men and provisions to be sent from Dunkirk. A fleet accordingly set sail, but were attacked by Von Tromp, some captured, the remainder forced to retire within the harbor again. Soon after, Tromp seized three English [neutral] ships carrying 1070 Spanish soldiers from Cadiz to Dunkirk; he took the troops out, but let the ships go free. Leaving seventeen vessels to blockade Dunkirk, Tromp with the remaining twelve advanced to meet the enemy's fleet on its arrival. It was soon seen entering the Straits of Dover to the number of sixty-seven sail, and having two thousand troops. Being joined by De Witt with four more ships, Tromp with his small force made a resolute attack upon the enemy. The fight lasted till four P.M., when the Spanish admiral took refuge in the Downs. Tromp determined to engage if they should come out; but Oquendo with his powerful fleet, many of which carried from sixty to a hundred guns, suffered himself to be blockaded; and the English admiral told Tromp he was ordered to join the Spaniards if hostilities began. Tromp sent home for instructions, and the action of England only served to call out the vast maritime powers of the Dutch. Tromp was rapidly reinforced to ninety-six sail and twelve fire-ships, and ordered to attack. Leaving a detached squadron to observe the English, and to attack them if they helped the Spaniards, he began the fight embarrassed by a thick fog, under cover of which the Spaniards cut their cables to escape. Many running too close to shore went aground, and most of the remainder attempting to retreat were sunk, captured, or driven on the French coast. Never was victory more complete.”

When a navy submits to such a line of action, all tone and pride must have departed; but the navy only shared in the general decline which made Spain henceforward have an ever lessening weight in the policy of Europe.

“In the midst of the splendors of her court and language,”says Guizot,“the Spanish government felt itself weak, and sought to hide its weakness under its immobility. Philip IV. and his ministers, weary of striving only to be conquered, looked but for the security of peace, and only sought to put aside all questions which would call for efforts of which they felt themselves incapable. Divided and enervated, the house of Austria had even less ambition than power, and except when absolutely forced, a pompous inertia became the policy of the successors of Charles V.”

Such was the Spain of that day. That part of the Spanish dominions which was then known as the Low Countries, or the Roman Catholic Netherlands (our modern Belgium), was about to be a fruitful source of variance between France and her natural ally, the Dutch Republic. This State, whose political name was the United Provinces, had now reached the summit of its influence and power, — a power based, as has already been explained, wholly upon the sea, and upon the use of that element made by the great maritime and commercial genius of the Dutch people. A recent French author thus describes the commercial and colonial conditions, at the accession of Louis XIV., of this people, which beyond any other in modern times, save only England, has shown how the harvest of the sea can lift up to wealth and power a country intrinsically weak and without resources: -

“Holland had become the Phoenicia of modern times. Mistresses of the Scheldt, the United Provinces closed the outlets of Antwerp to the sea, and inherited the commercial power of that rich city, which an ambassador of Venice in the fifteenth century had compared to Venice herself. They received besides in their principal cities the workingmen of the Low Countries who fled from Spanish tyranny of conscience. The manufactures of clothes, linen stuffs, etc., which employed six hundred thousand souls, opened new sources of gain to a people previously content with the trade in cheese and fish. Fisheries alone had already enriched them. The herring fishery supported nearly one fifth of the population of Holland, producing three hundred thousand tons of salt-fish, and bringing in more than eight million francs annually.

“The naval and commercial power of the republic developed rapidly. The merchant fleet of Holland alone numbered 10,000 sail, 168,000 seamen, and supported 260,000 inhabitants. She had taken possession of the greater part of the European carrying-trade, and had added thereto, since the peace, all the carriage of merchandise between America and Spain, did the same service for the French ports, and maintained an importation traffic of thirty-six million francs. The north countries, Brandenburg, Denmark, Sweden, Muscovy, Poland, access to which was opened by the Baltic to the Provinces, were for them an inexhaustible market of exchange. They fed it by the produce they sold there, and by purchase of the products of the North, —wheat, timber, copper, hemp, and furs. The total value of merchandise yearly shipped in Dutch bottoms, in all seas, exceeded a thousand million francs. The Dutch had made themselves, to use a contemporary phrase, the wagoners of all seas.”

It was through its colonies that the republic had been able thus to develop its sea trade. It had the monopoly of all the products of the East. Produce and spices from Asia were by her brought to Europe of a yearly value of sixteen million francs. The powerful East India Company, founded in 1602, had built up in Asia an empire, with possessions taken from the Portuguese. Mistress in 1650 of the Cape of Good Hope, which guaranteed it a stopping-place for its ships, it reigned as a sovereign in Ceylon, and upon the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel. It had made Batavia its seat of government, and extended its traffic to China and Japan. Meanwhile the West India Company, of more rapid rise, but less durable, had manned eight hundred ships of war and trade. It had used them to seize the remnants of Portuguese power upon the shores of Guinea, as well as in Brazil.

The United Provinces had thus become the warehouse wherein were collected the products of all nations.

The colonies of the Dutch at this time were scattered throughout the eastern seas, in India, in Malacca, in Java, the Moluccas, and various parts of the vast archipelago lying to the northward of Australia. They had possessions on the west coast of Africa, and as yet the colony of New Amsterdam remained in their hands. In South America the Dutch West India Company had owned nearly three hundred leagues of coast from Bahia in Brazil northward; but much had recently escaped from their hands.

The United Provinces owed their consideration and power to their wealth and their fleets. The sea, which beats like an inveterate enemy against their shores, had been subdued and made a useful servant; the land was to prove their destruction. A long and fierce strife had been maintained with an enemy more cruel than the sea, — the Spanish kingdom; the successful ending, with its delusive promise of rest and peace, but sounded the knell of the Dutch Republic. So long as the power of Spain remained unimpaired, or at least great enough to keep up the terror that she had long inspired, it was to the interest of England and of France, both sufferers from Spanish menace and intrigue, that the United Provinces should be strong and independent. When Spain fell, — and repeated humiliations showed that her weakness was real and not seeming, — other motives took the place of fear. England coveted Holland's trade and sea dominion; France desired the Spanish Netherlands. The United Provinces had reason to oppose the latter as well as the former.

Under the combined assaults of the two rival nations, the intrinsic weakness of the United Provinces was soon to be felt and seen. Open to attack by the land, few in numbers, and with a government ill adapted to put forth the united strength of a people, above all unfitted to keep up adequate preparation for war, the decline of the republic and the nation was to be more striking and rapid than the rise. As yet, however, in 1660, no indications of the coming fall were remarked. The republic was still in the front rank of the great powers of Europe. If, in 1654, the war with England had shown a state of unreadiness wonderful in a navy that had so long humbled the pride of Spain on the seas, on the other hand the Provinces, in 1657, had effectually put a stop to the insults of France directed against her commerce; and a year later,“by their interference in the Baltic between Denmark and Sweden, they had hindered Sweden from establishing in the North a preponderance disastrous to them. They forced her to leave open the entrance to the Baltic, of which they remained masters, no other navy being able to dispute its control with them. The superiority of their fleet, the valor of their troops, the skill and firmness of their diplomacy, had caused the prestige of their government to be recognized. Weakened and humiliated by the last English war, they had replaced themselves in the rank of great powers. At this moment Charles II. was restored.”

The general character of the government has been before mentioned, and need here only be recalled. It was a loosely knit confederacy, administered by what may not inaccurately be called a commercial aristocracy, with all the political timidity of that class, which has so much to risk in war. The effect of these two factors, sectional jealousy and commercial spirit, upon the military navy was disastrous. It was not kept up properly in peace, there were necessarily rivalries in a fleet which was rather a maritime coalition than a united navy, and there was too little of a true military spirit among the officers. A more heroic people than the Dutch never existed; the annals of Dutch sea-fights give instances of desperate enterprise and endurance certainly not excelled, perhaps never equalled, elsewhere; but they also exhibit instances of defection and misconduct which show a lack of military spirit, due evidently to lack of professional pride and training. This professional training scarcely existed in any navy of that day, but its place was largely supplied in monarchical countries by the feeling of a military caste. It remains to be noted that the government, weak enough from the causes named, was yet weaker from the division of the people into two great factions bitterly hating each other. The one, which was the party of the merchants (burgomasters), and now in power, favored the confederate republic as described; the other desired a monarchical government under the House of Orange. The Republican party wished for a French alliance, if possible, and a strong navy; the Orange party favored England, to whose royal house the Prince of Orange was closely related, and a powerful army. Under these conditions of government, and weak in numbers, the United Provinces in 1660, with their vast wealth and external activities, resembled a man kept up by stimulants. Factitious strength cannot endure indefinitely; but it is wonderful to see this small State, weaker by far in numbers than either England or France, endure the onslaught of either singly, and for two years of both in alliance, not only without being destroyed, but without losing her place in Europe. She owed this astonishing result partly to the skill of one or two men, but mainly to her sea power.

The conditions of England, with reference to her fitness to enter upon the impending strife, differed from those of both Holland and France. Although monarchical in government, and with much real power in the king's hands, the latter was not able to direct the policy of the kingdom wholly at his will. He had to reckon, as Louis had not, with the temper and wishes of his people. What Louis gained for France, he gained for himself; the glory of France was his glory. Charles aimed first at his own advantage, then at that of England; but, with the memory of the past ever before him, he was determined above all not to incur his father's fate nor a repetition of his own exile. Therefore, when danger became imminent, he gave way before the feeling of the English nation. Charles himself hated Holland; he hated it as a republic; he hated the existing government because opposed in internal affairs to his connections, the House of Orange; and he hated it yet more because in the days of his exile, the republic, as one of the conditions of peace with Cromwell, had driven him from her borders. He was drawn to France by the political sympathy of a would-be absolute ruler, possibly by his Roman Catholic bias, and very largely by the money paid him by Louis, which partially freed him from the control of Parliament. In following these tendencies of his own, Charles had to take account of certain decided wishes of his people. The English, of the same race as the Dutch, and with similar conditions of situation, were declared rivals for the control of the sea and of commerce; and as the Dutch were now leading in the race, the English were the more eager and bitter. A special cause of grievance was found in the action of the Dutch East India Company,“which claimed the monopoly of trade in the East, and had obliged distant princes with whom it treated to close their States to foreign nations, who were thus excluded, not only from the Dutch colonies, but from all the territory of the Indies.”Conscious of greater strength, the English also wished to control the action of Dutch politics, and in the days of the English Republic had even sought to impose a union of the two governments. At the first, therefore, popular rivalry and enmity seconded the king's wishes; the more so as France had not for some years been formidable on the continent. As soon, however, as the aggressive policy of Louis XIV. was generally recognized, the English people, both nobles and commons, felt the great danger to be there, as a century before it had been in Spain. The transfer of the Spanish Netherlands (Belgium) to France would tend toward the subjection of Europe, and especially would be a blow to the sea power both of the Dutch and English; for it was not to be supposed that Louis would allow the Scheldt and port of Antwerp to remain closed, as they then were, under a treaty wrung by the Dutch from the weakness of Spain. The reopening to commerce of that great city would be a blow alike to Amsterdam and to London. With the revival of inherited opposition to France the ties of kindred began to tell;the memory of past alliance against the tyranny of Spain was recalled; and similarity of religious faith, still a powerful motive, drew the two together. At the same time the great and systematic efforts of Colbert to build up the commerce and the navy of France excited the jealousy of both the sea powers; rivals themselves, they instinctively turned against a third party intruding upon their domain. Charles was unable to resist the pressure of his people under all these motives;wars between England and Holland ceased, and were followed, after Charles's death, by close alliance.

Although her commerce was less extensive, the navy of England in 1660 was superior to that of Holland, particularly in organization and efficiency. The stern, enthusiastic religious government of Cromwell, grounded on military strength, had made its mark both on the fleet and army. The names of several of the superior officers under the Protector, among which that of Monk stands foremost, appear in the narrative of the first of the Dutch wars under Charles. This superiority in tone and discipline gradually disappeared under the corrupting influence of court favor in a licentious government; and Holland, which upon the whole was worsted by England alone upon the sea in 1665, successfully resisted the combined navies of England and France in 1672. As regards the material of the three fleets, we are told that the French ships had greater displacement than the English relatively to the weight of artillery and stores; hence they could keep, when fully loaded, a greater height of battery. Their hulls also had better lines. These advantages would naturally follow from the thoughtful and systematic way in which the French navy at that time was restored from a state of decay, and has a lesson of hope for us in the present analogous condition of our own navy. The Dutch ships, from the character of their coast, were flatter-bottomed and of less draught, and thus were able, when pressed, to find a refuge among the shoals; but they were in consequence less weatherly and generally of lighter scantling than those of either of the other nations.

Thus as briefly as possible have been sketched the conditions, degree of power, and aims which shaped and controlled the policy of the four principal seaboard States of the day, —Spain, France, England, and Holland. From the point of view of this history, these will come most prominently and most often into notice; but as other States exercised a powerful influence upon the course of events, and our aim is not merely naval history but an appreciation of the effect of naval and commercial power upon the course of general history, it is necessary to state shortly the condition of the rest of Europe. America had not yet begun to play a prominent part in the pages of history or in the policies of cabinets.

Germany was then divided into many small governments, with the one great empire of Austria. The policy of the smaller States shifted, and it was the aim of France to combine as many of them as possible under her influence, in pursuance of her traditional opposition to Austria. With France thus working against her on the one side, Austria was in imminent peril on the other from the constant assaults of the Turkish Empire, still vigorous though decaying. The policy of France had long inclined to friendly relations with Turkey, not only as a check upon Austria, but also from her wish to engross the trade with the Levant. Colbert, in his extreme eagerness for the sea power of France, favored this alliance. It will be remembered that Greece and Egypt were then parts of the Turkish Empire.

Prussia as now known did not exist. The foundations of the future kingdom were then being prepared by the Elector of Brandenburg, a powerful minor State, which was not yet able to stand quite alone, but carefully avoided a formally dependent position. The kingdom of Poland still existed, a most disturbing and important factor in European politics, because of its weak and unsettled government, which kept every other State anxious lest some unforeseen turn of events there should tend to the advantage of a rival. It was the traditional policy of France to keep Poland upright and strong. Russia was still below the horizon; coming, but not yet come, within the circle of European States and their living interests. She and the other powers bordering upon the Baltic were naturally rivals for preponderance in that sea, in which the other States, and above all the maritime States, had a particular interest as the source from which naval stores of every kind were chiefly drawn. Sweden and Denmark were at this time in a state of constant enmity, and were to be found on opposite sides in the quarrels that prevailed. For many years past, and during the early wars of Louis XIV., Sweden was for the most part in alliance with France; her bias was that way.

The general state of Europe being as described, the spring that was to set the various wheels in motion was in the hands of Louis XIV. The weakness of his immediate neighbors, the great resources of his kingdom, only waiting for development, the unity of direction resulting from his absolute power, his own practical talent and untiring industry, aided during the first half of his reign by a combination of ministers of singular ability, all united to make every government in Europe hang more or less upon his action, and be determined by, if not follow, his lead. The greatness of France was his object, and he had the choice of advancing it by either of two roads, — by the land or by the sea; not that the one wholly forbade the other, but that France, overwhelmingly strong as she then was, had not power to move with equal steps on both paths.

Louis chose extension by land. He had married the eldest daughter of Philip IV., the then reigning king of Spain; and though by the treaty of marriage she had renounced all claim to her father's inheritance, it was not difficult to find reasons for disregarding this stipulation. Technical grounds were found for setting it aside as regarded certain portions of the Netherlands and Franche Comté, and negotiations were entered into with the court of Spain to annul it altogether. The matter was the more important because the male heir to the throne was so feeble that it was evident that the Austrian line of Spanish kings would end in him. The desire to put a French prince on the Spanish throne — either himself, thus uniting the two crowns, or else one of his family, thus putting the House of Bourbon in authority on both sides of the Pyrenees— was the false light which led Louis astray during the rest of his reign, to the final destruction of the sea power of France and the impoverishment and misery of his people. Louis failed to understand that he had to reckon with all Europe. The direct project on the Spanish throne had to wait for a vacancy; but he got ready at once to move upon the Spanish possessions to the east of France.

In order to do this more effectually, he cut off from Spain every possible ally by skilful diplomatic intrigues, the study of which would give a useful illustration of strategy in the realm of politics, but he made two serious mistakes to the injury of the sea power of France. Portugal had until twenty years before been united to the crown of Spain, and the claim to it had not been surrendered. Louis considered that were Spain to regain that kingdom she would be too strong for him easily to carry out his aims. Among other means of prevention he promoted a marriage between Charles II. and the Infanta of Portugal, in consequence of which Portugal ceded to England, Bombay in India, and Tangiers in the Straits of Gibraltar, which was reputed an excellent port. We see here a French king, in his eagerness for extension by land, inviting England to the Mediterranean, and forwarding her alliance with Portugal. The latter was the more curious, as Louis already foresaw the failure of the Spanish royal house, and should rather have wished the union of the peninsular kingdoms. As a matter of fact, Portugal became a dependent and outpost of England, by which she readily landed in the Peninsula down to the days of Napoleon. Indeed, if independent of Spain, she is too weak not to be under the control of the power that rules the sea and so has readiest access to her. Louis continued to support her against Spain, and secured her independence. He also interfered with the Dutch, and compelled them to restore Brazil, which they had taken from the Portuguese.

On the other hand, Louis obtained from Charles II. the cession of Dunkirk on the Channel, which had been seized and used by Cromwell. This surrender was made for money, and was inexcusable from the maritime point of view. Dunkirk was for the English a bridge-head into France. To France it became a haven for privateers, the bane of England's commerce in the Channel and the North Sea. As the French sea power waned, England in treaty after treaty exacted the dismantling of the works of Dunkirk, which it may be said in passing was the home port of the celebrated Jean Bart and other great French privateersmen.

Meanwhile the greatest and wisest of Louis’ministers, Colbert, was diligently building up that system of administration, which, by increasing and solidly basing the wealth of the State, should bring a surer greatness and prosperity than the king's more showy enterprises. With those details that concern the internal development of the kingdom this history has no concern, beyond the incidental mention that production, both agricultural and manufacturing, received his careful attention; but upon the sea a policy of skilful aggression upon the shipping and commerce of the Dutch and English quickly began, and was instantly resented. Great trading companies were formed, directing French enterprise to the Baltic, to the Levant, to the East and West Indies; customs regulations were amended to encourage French manufactures, and to allow goods to be stored in bond in the great ports, by which means it was hoped to make France take Holland's place as the great warehouse for Europe, a function for which her geographical position eminently fitted her; while tonnage duties on foreign shipping, direct premiums on home-built ships, and careful, rigorous colonial decrees giving French vessels the monopoly of trade to and from the colonies, combined to encourage the growth of her mercantile marine. England retaliated at once; the Dutch, more seriously threatened because their carrying-trade was greater and their home resources smaller, only remonstrated for a time;but after three years they also made reprisals. Colbert, relying on the great superiority of France as an actual, and still more as a possible producer, feared not to move steadily on the grasping path marked out; which, in building up a great merchant shipping, would lay the broad base for the military shipping, which was being yet more rapidly forced on by the measures of the State. Prosperity grew apace. At the end of twelve years everything was flourishing, everything rich in the State, which was in utter confusion when he took charge of the finances and marine.

“Under him,”says a French historian,“France grew by peace as she had grown by war. … The warfare of tariffs and premiums skilfully conducted by him tended to reduce within just limits the exorbitant growth of commercial and maritime power which Holland had arrogated at the expense of other nations; and to restrain England, which was burning to wrest this supremacy from Holland in order to use it in a manner much more dangerous to Europe. The interest of France seemed to be peace in Europe and America; a mysterious voice, at once the voice of the past and of the future, called for her warlike activity on other shores.”

This voice found expression through the mouth of Leibnitz, one of the world's great men, who pointed out to Louis that to turn the arms of France against Egypt would give her, in the dominion of the Mediterranean and the control of Eastern trade, a victory over Holland greater than the most successful campaign on land; and while insuring a much needed peace within his kingdom, would build up a power on the sea that would insure preponderance in Europe. This memorial called Louis from the pursuit of glory on the land to seek the durable grandeur of France in the possession of a great sea power, the elements of which, thanks to the genius of Colbert, he had in his hands. A century later a greater man than Louis sought to exalt himself and France by the path pointed out by Leibnitz; but Napoleon did not have, as Louis had, a navy equal to the task proposed. This project of Leibnitz will be more fully referred to when the narrative reaches the momentous date at which it was broached; when Louis, with his kingdom and navy in the highest pitch of efficiency, stood at the point where the roads parted, and then took the one which settled that France should not be the power of the sea. This decision, which killed Colbert and ruined the prosperity of France, was felt in its consequences from generation to generation afterward, as the great navy of England, in war after war, swept the seas, insured the growing wealth of the island kingdom through exhausting strifes, while drying up the external resources of French trade and inflicting consequent misery. The false line of policy that began with Louis XIV. also turned France away from a promising career in India, in the days of his successor.

Meanwhile the two maritime States, England and Holland, though eying France distrustfully, had greater and growing grudges against each other, which under the fostering care of Charles II. led to war. The true cause was doubtless commercial jealousy, and the conflict sprang immediately from collisions between the trading companies. Hostilities began on the west coast of Africa; and an English squadron, in 1664, after subduing several Dutch stations there, sailed to New Amsterdam (now New York), and seized it. All these affairs took place before the formal declaration of war in February, 1665. This war was undoubtedly popular in England;the instinct of the people found an expression by the lips of Monk, who is reported to have said,“What matters this or that reason? What we want is more of the trade which the Dutch now have.”There is also little room to doubt that, despite the pretensions of the trading companies, the government of the United Provinces would gladly have avoided the war; the able man who was at their head saw too clearly the delicate position in which they stood between England and France. They claimed, however, the support of the latter in virtue of a defensive treaty made in 1662. Louis allowed the claim, but unwillingly; and the still young navy of France gave practically no help.

The war between the two sea States was wholly maritime, and had the general characteristics of all such wars. Three great battles were fought, — the first off Lowestoft, on the Norfolk coast, June 13, 1665; the second, known as the Four Days’Battle in the Straits of Dover, often spoken of by French writers as that of the Pas de Calais, lasting from the 11th to the 14th of June, 1666; and the third, off the North Foreland, August 4 of the same year. In the first and last of these the English had a decided success; in the second the advantage remained with the Dutch. This one only will be described at length, because of it alone has been found such a full, coherent account as will allow a clear and accurate tactical narrative to be given. There are in these fights points of interest more generally applicable to the present day than are the details of somewhat obsolete tactical movements.

In the first battle off Lowestoft, it appears that the Dutch commander, Opdam, who was not a seaman but a cavalry officer, had very positive orders to fight; the discretion proper to a commander-in-chief on the spot was not intrusted to him. To interfere thus with the commander in the field or afloat is one of the most common temptations to the government in the cabinet, and is generally disastrous. Tourville, the greatest of Louis XIV.'s admirals, was forced thus to risk the whole French navy against his own judgment; and a century later a great French fleet escaped from the English admiral Keith, through his obedience to imperative orders from his immediate superior, who was sick in port.

In the Lowestoft fight the Dutch van gave way; and a little later one of the junior admirals of the centre, Opdam's own squadron, being killed, the crew was seized with a panic, took the command of the ship from her officers, and carried her out of action. This movement was followed by twelve or thirteen other ships, leaving a great gap in the Dutch line. The occurrence shows, what has before been pointed out, that the discipline of the Dutch fleet and the tone of the officers were not high, despite the fine fighting qualities of the nation, and although it is probably true that there were more good seamen among the Dutch than among the English captains. The natural steadfastness and heroism of the Hollanders could not wholly supply that professional pride and sense of military honor which it is the object of sound military institutions to encourage. Popular feeling in the United States is pretty much at sea in this matter; there is with it no intermediate step between personal courage with a gun in its hand and entire military efficiency.

Opdam, seeing the battle going against him, seems to have yielded to a feeling approaching despair. He sought to grapple the English commander-in-chief, who on this day was the Duke of York, the king's brother. He failed in this, and in the desperate struggle which followed, his ship blew up. Shortly after, three, or as one account says four, Dutch ships ran foul of one another, and this group was burned by one fire-ship; three or four others singly met the same fate a little later. The Dutch fleet was now in disorder, and retreated under cover of the squadron of Van Tromp, son of the famous old admiral who in the days of the Commonwealth sailed through the Channel with a broom at his masthead.

Fire-ships are seen here to have played a very conspicuous part, more so certainly than in the war of 1653, though at both periods they formed an appendage to the fleet. There is on the surface an evident resemblance between the role of the fire-ship and the part assigned in modern warfare to the torpedo-cruiser. The terrible character of the attack, the comparative smallness of the vessel making it, and the large demands upon the nerve of the assailant, are the chief points of resemblance; the great points of difference are the comparative certainty with which the modern vessel can be handled, which is partly met by the same advantage in the iron-clad over the old ship-of-the-line, and the instantaneousness of the injury by torpedo, whose attack fails or succeeds at once, whereas that of the fire-ship required time for effecting the object, which in both cases is total destruction of the hostile ship, instead of crippling or otherwise reducing it. An appreciation of the character of fire-ships, of the circumstances under which they attained their greatest usefulness, and of the causes which led to their disappearance, may perhaps help in the decision to which nations must come as to whether the torpedo-cruiser, pure and simple, is a type of weapon destined to survive in fleets.

A French officer, who has been examining the records of the French navy, states that the fire-ship first appears, incorporated as an arm of the fleet, in 1636.

“Whether specially built for the purpose, or whether altered from other purposes to be fitted for their particular end, they received a special equipment. The command was given to officers not noble, with the grade of captain of fire-ship. Five subordinate officers and twentyfive seamen made up the crew. Easily known by grappling-irons which were always fitted to their yards, the fire-ship saw its role growing less in the early years of the eighteenth century. It was finally to disappear from the fleets whose speed it delayed and whose evolutions were by it complicated. As the ships-of-war grew larger, their action in concert with fire-ships became daily more difficult. On the other hand, there had already been abandoned the idea of combining them with the fighting-ships to form a few groups, each provided with all the means of attack and defence. The formation of the close-hauled line-of-battle, by assigning the fireships a place in a second line placed half a league on the side farthest from the enemy, made them more and more unfitted to fulfill their office. The official plan of the battle of Malaga (1704), drawn up immediately after the battle, shows the fire-ship in this position as laid down by Paul Hoste. Finally the use of shells, enabling ships to be set on fire more surely and quickly, and introduced on board at the period of which we are now treating, though the general use did not obtain until much later, was the last blow to the fire-ship.”

Those who are familiar with the theories and discussions of our own day on the subject of fleet tactics and weapons, will recognize in this short notice of a long obsolete type certain ideas which are not obsolete. The fire-ship disappeared from fleets“whose speed it delayed.”In heavy weather small bulk must always mean comparatively small speed. In a moderate sea, we are now told, the speed of the torpedo-boat falls from twenty knots to fifteen or less, and the seventeen to nineteen knot cruiser can either run away from the pursuing boats, or else hold them at a distance under fire of machine and heavy guns. These boats are sea-going,“and it is thought can keep the sea in all weathers; but to be on board a 110-foot torpedo-boat, when the sea is lively, is said to be far from agreeable. The heat, noise, and rapid vibrations of the engines are intense. Cooking seems to be out of the question, and it is said that if food were well cooked few would be able to appreciate it. To obtain necessary rest under these conditions, added to the rapid motions of the boat, is most difficult.”Larger boats are to be built; but the factor of loss of speed in rough weather will remain, unless the size of the torpedo-cruiser is increased to a point that will certainly lead to fitting them with something more than torpedoes. Like fireships, small torpedo-cruisers will delay the speed and complicate the evolutions of the fleet with which they are associated. (1)The disappearance of the fire-ship was also hastened, we are told, by the introduction of shell firing, or incendiary projectiles; and it is not improbable that for deep-sea fighting the transfer of the torpedo to a class of larger ships will put an end to the mere torpedo-cruiser. The fire-ship continued to be used against fleets at anchor down to the days of the American Civil War; and the torpedo-boat will always be useful within an easy distance of its port.

A third phase of naval practice two hundred years ago, mentioned in the extract quoted, involves an idea very familiar to modern discussions; namely, the group formation.“The idea of combining fire-ships with the fighting-ships to form a few groups, each provided with all the means of attack and defence,”was for a time embraced; for we are told that it was later on abandoned. The combining of the ships of a fleet into groups of two, three, or four meant to act specially together is now largely favored in England; less so in France, where it meets strong opposition. No question of this sort, ably advocated on either side, is to be settled by one man's judgment, nor until time and experience have applied their infallible tests. It may be remarked, however, that in a well-organized fleet there are two degrees of command which are in themselves both natural and necessary, that can be neither done away nor ignored; these are the command of the whole fleet as one unit, and the command of each ship as a unit in itself. When a fleet becomes too large to be handled by one man, it must be subdivided, and in the heat of action become practically two fleets acting to one common end; as Nelson, in his noble order at Trafalgar, said,“The second in command will, after my intentions are made known to him”(mark the force of the“after,”which so well protects the functions both of the commanderin-chief and the second),“have the entire direction of his line, to make the attack upon the enemy, and to follow up the blow until they are captured or destroyed.”

The size and cost of the individual iron-clad of the present day makes it unlikely that fleets will be so numerous as to require subdivision; but whether they are or not does not affect the decision of the group question. Looking simply to the principle underlying the theory, and disregarding the seeming tactical clumsiness of the special groups proposed, the question is: Shall there be introduced between the natural commands of the admiral and of the captains of individual ships a third artificial contrivance, which on the one hand will in effect partly supersede the supreme authority, and on the other will partly fetter the discretion of commanders of ships? A further difficulty springing from the narrow principle of support specially due to particular ships, on which the group system rests, is this: that when signals can no longer be seen, the duty of the captain to his own ship and to the fleet at large will be complicated by his duty to observe certain relations to particular ships; which particular ships must in time come to have undue prominence in his views. The group formation had its day of trial in old times, and disappeared before the test of experience; whether in its restored form it will survive, time will show. It may be said, before quitting the subject, that as an order of sailing, corresponding to the route-step of an army in march, a loose group formation has some advantages; maintaining some order without requiring that rigid exactness of position, to observe which by day and night must be a severe strain on captain and deck-officers. Such a route-order should not, however, be permitted until a fleet has reached high tactical precision.

To return to the question of fire-ships and torpedo-boats, the role of the latter, it is often said, is to be found in that mêlée which is always to succeed a couple of headlong passes between the opposing fleets. In the smoke and confusion of that hour is the opportunity of the torpedo-boat. This certainly sounds plausible, and the torpedo vessel certainly has a power of movement not possessed by the fire-ship. A mêlée of the two fleets, however, was not the condition most favorable for the fire-ship. I shall quote here from another French officer, whose discussion of these Anglo-Dutch sea-fights, in a late periodical, is singularly clear and suggestive. He says:

“Far from impeding the direct action of the fire-ship, which was naught or nearly so during the confused battles of the war of 1652, the regularity and ensemble newly attained in the movements of squadrons seem rather to favor it. The fire-ships played a very important part at the battles of Lowestoft, Pas de Calais, and the North Foreland. Thanks to the good order preserved by the ships-of-the-line, these incendiary ships can indeed be better protected by the artillery; much more efficiently directed than before toward a distinct and determined end.”

In the midst of the confused mêlées of 1652 the fire-ship“acted, so to speak, alone, seeking by chance an enemy to grapple, running the risk of a mistake, without protection against the guns of the enemy, nearly sure to be sunk by him or else burned uselessly. All now, in 1665, has become different. Its prey is clearly pointed out; it knows it, follows it easily into the relatively fixed position had by it in the enemy's line. On the other hand, the ships of his own division do not lose sight of the fire-ship. They accompany it as far as possible, cover it with their artillery to the end of its course, and disengage it before burning, if the fruitlessness of the attempt is seen soon enough. Evidently under such conditions its action, always uncertain (it cannot be otherwise), nevertheless acquires greater chances of success.”These instructive comments need perhaps the qualifying, or additional, remark that confusion in the enemy's order at the time that your own remains good gives the best opening for a desperate attack. The writer goes on to trace the disappearance of the fire-ship: -

“Here then we see the fire-ship at the point of its highest importance. That importance will decrease, the fire-ship itself will end by disappearing from engagements in the open sea, when naval artillery becoming more perfect shall have greater range, be more accurate and more rapid; (2) when ships receiving better forms, greater steering power, more extensive and better balanced sail power, shall be able, thanks to quicker speed and handling, to avoid almost certainly the fire-ships sent against them; when, finally, fleets led on principles of tactics as skilful as they were timid, a tactics which will predominate a century later during the whole war of American Independence, when these fleets, in order not to jeopardize the perfect regularity of their order of battle, will avoid coming to close quarters, and will leave to the cannon alone to decide the fate of an action.”

In this discussion the writer has in view the leading feature which, while aiding the action of the fire-ship, also gives this war of 1665 its peculiar interest in the history of naval tactics. In it is found for the first time the close-hauled line-of-battle undeniably adopted as the fighting order of the fleets. It is plain enough that when those fleets numbered, as they often did, from eighty to a hundred ships, such lines would be very imperfectly formed in every essential, both of line and interval; but the general aim is evident, amid whatever imperfections of execution. The credit for this development is generally given to the Duke of York, afterward James II.; but the question to whom the improvement is due is of little importance to seaofficers of the present day when compared with the instructive fact that so long a time elapsed between the appearance of the large sailing-ship, with its broadside battery, and the systematic adoption of the order which was best adapted to develop the full power of the fleet for mutual support. To us, having the elements of the problem in our hands, together with the result finally reached, that result seems simple enough, almost self-evident. Why did it take so long for the capable men of that day to reach it? The reason — and herein lies the lesson for the officer of to-day — was doubtless the same that leaves the order of battle so uncertain now;namely, that the necessity of war did not force men to make up their minds, until the Dutch at last met in the English their equals on the sea. The sequence of ideas which resulted in the line-of-battle is clear and logical. Though familiar enough to seamen, it will be here stated in the words of the writer last quoted, because they have a neatness and precision entirely French: -

“With the increase of power of the ship-of-war, and with the perfecting of its sea and warlike qualities, there has come an equal progress in the art of utilizing them. … As naval evolutions become more skilful, their importance grows from day to day. To these evolutions there is needed a base, a point from which they depart and to which they return. A fleet of warships must be always ready to meet an enemy; logically, therefore, this point of departure for naval evolutions must be the order of battle. Now, since the disappearance of galleys, almost all the artillery is found upon the sides of a ship of war. Hence it is the beam that must necessarily and always be turned toward the enemy. On the other hand, it is necessary that the sight of the latter must never be interrupted by a friendly ship. Only one formation allows the ships of the same fleet to satisfy fully these conditions. That formation is the line ahead [column]. This line, therefore, is imposed as the only order of battle, and consequently as the basis of all fleet tactics. In order that this order of battle, this long thin line of guns, may not be injured or broken at some point weaker than the rest, there is at the same time felt the necessity of putting in it only ships which, if not of equal force, have at least equally strong sides. Logically it follows, at the same moment in which the line ahead became definitively the order for battle, there was established the distinction between the ships‘of the line,’alone destined for a place therein, and the lighter ships meant for other uses.”

If to these we add the considerations which led to making the line-of-battle a closehauled line, we have the problem fully worked out. But the chain of reasoning was as clear two hundred and fifty years ago as it is now; why then was it so long in being worked out? Partly, no doubt, because old traditions — in those days traditions of galley-fighting — had hold of and confused men's minds; chiefly because men are too indolent to seek out the foundation truths of the situation in their day, and develop the true theory of action from its base up. As a rare instance of clear-sightedness, recognizing such a fundamental change in conditions and predicting results, words of Admiral Labrousse of the French navy, written in 1840, are most instructive.“Thanks to steam,”he wrote,“ships will be able to move in any direction with such speed that the effects of collision may, and indeed must, as they formerly did, take the place of projectile weapons and annul the calculations of the skilful manoeuvrer. The ram will be favorable to speed, without destroying the nautical qualities of a ship. As soon as one power shall have adopted this terrible weapon, all others must accept it, under pain of evident inferiority, and thus combats will become combats of ram against ram.”While forbearing the unconditional adhesion to the ram as the controlling weapon of the day, which the French navy has yielded, the above brief argument may well be taken as an instance of the way in which researches into the order of battle of the future should be worked out. A French writer, commenting on Labrousse's paper, says: -

“Twenty-seven years were scarce enough for our fathers, counting from 1638, the date of building the‘Couronne,’to 1665, to pass from the tactical order of the line abreast, the order for galleys, to that of the line ahead. We ourselves needed twenty-nine years from 1830, when the first steamship was brought into our fleet, to 1859, when the application of the principle of ram-fighting was affirmed by laying down the‘Solferino’and the‘Magenta’to work a revolution in the contrary direction; so true it is that truth is always slow in getting to the light. … This transformation was not sudden, not only because the new material required time to be built and armed, but above all, it is sad to say, because the necessary consequences of the new motive power escaped most minds.”

We come now to the justly celebrated Four Days’Battle of June, 1666, which claims special notice, not only on account of the great number of ships engaged on either side, nor yet only for the extraordinary physical endurance of the men who kept up a hot naval action for so many successive days, but also because the commanders-in-chief on either side, Monk and De Ruyter, were the most distinguished seamen, or rather sea-commanders, brought forth by their respective countries in the seventeenth century. Monk was possibly inferior to Blake in the annals of the English navy; but there is a general agreement that De Ruyter is the foremost figure, not only in the Dutch service, but among all the naval officers of that age. The account about to be given is mainly taken from a recent number of the“Revue Maritime et Coloniale,”and is there published as a letter, recently discovered, from a Dutch gentleman serving as volunteer on board De Ruyter's ship, to a friend in France. The narrative is delightfully clear and probable, — qualities not generally found in the description of those long-ago fights; and the satisfaction it gave was increased by finding in the Memoirs of the Count de Guiche, who also served as volunteer in the fleet, and was taken to De Ruyter after his own vessel had been destroyed by a fire-ship, an account confirming the former in its principal details. This additional pleasure was unhappily marred by recognizing certain phrases as common to both stories; and a comparison showed that the two could not be accepted as independent narratives. There are, however, points of internal difference which make it possible that the two accounts are by different eye-witnesses, who compared and corrected their versions before sending them out to their friends or writing them in their journals.

The numbers of the two fleets were: English about eighty ships, the Dutch about one hundred; but the inequality in numbers was largely compensated by the greater size of many of the English. A great strategic blunder by the government in London immediately preceded the fight. The king was informed that a French squadron was on its way from the Atlantic to join the Dutch. He at once divided his fleet, sending twenty ships under Prince Rupert to the westward to meet the French, while the remainder under Monk were to go east and oppose the Dutch.

A position like that of the English fleet, threatened with an attack from two quarters, presents one of the subtlest temptations to a commander. The impulse is very strong to meet both by dividing his own numbers as Charles did; but unless in possession of overwhelming force it is an error, exposing both divisions to be beaten separately, which, as we are about to see, actually happened in this case. The result of the first two days was disastrous to the larger English division under Monk, which was then obliged to retreat toward Rupert; and probably the opportune return of the latter alone saved the English fleet from a very serious loss, or at the least from being shut up in their own ports. A hundred and forty years later, in the exciting game of strategy that was played in the Bay of Biscay before Trafalgar, the English admiral Cornwallis made precisely the same blunder, dividing his fleet into two equal parts out of supporting distance, which Napoleon at the time characterized as a glaring piece of stupidity. The lesson is the same in all ages.

The Dutch had sailed for the English coast with a fair easterly wind, but it changed later to southwest with thick weather, and freshened, so that De Ruyter, to avoid being driven too far, came to anchor between Dunkirk and the Downs. The fleet then rode with its head to the southwest and the van on the right; while Tromp, who commanded the rear division in the natural order, was on the left. For some cause this left was most to windward, the centre squadron under Ruyter being to leeward, and the right, or van, to leeward again of the centre. This was the position of the Dutch fleet at daylight of June 11, 1666; and although not expressly so stated, it is likely, from the whole tenor of the narratives, that it was not in good order.

The same morning Monk, who was also at anchor, made out the Dutch fleet to leeward, and although so inferior in numbers determined to attack at once, hoping that by keeping the advantage of the wind he would be able to commit himself only so far as might seem best. He therefore stood along the Dutch line on the starboard tack, leaving the right and centre out of cannon-shot, until he came abreast of the left, Tromp's squadron. Monk then had thirty-five ships well in hand; but the rear had opened and was straggling, as is apt to be the case with long columns. With the thirty-five he then put his helm up and ran down for Tromp, whose squadron cut their cables and made sail on the same tack; the two engaged lines thus standing over toward the French coast, and the breeze heeling the ships so that the English could not use their lower-deck guns. The Dutch centre and rear also cut, and followed the movement, but being so far to leeward, could not for some time come into action. It was during this time that a large Dutch ship, becoming separated from her own fleet, was set on fire and burned, doubtless the ship in which was Count de Guiche.

As they drew near Dunkirk the English went about, probably all together; for in the return to the northward and westward the proper English van fell in with and was roughly handled by the Dutch centre under Ruyter himself. This fate would be more likely to befall the rear, and indicates that a simultaneous movement had reversed the order. The engaged ships had naturally lost to leeward, thus enabling Ruyter to fetch up with them. Two English flag ships were here disabled and cut off; one, the“Swiftsure,”hauled down her colors after the admiral, a young man of only twenty-seven, was killed.“Highly to be admired,”says a contemporary writer,“was the resolution of Vice-Admiral Berkeley, who, though cut off from the line, surrounded by enemies, great numbers of his men killed, his ship disabled and boarded on all sides, yet continued fighting almost alone, killed several with his own hand, and would accept no quarter; till at length, being shot in the throat with a musket-ball, he retired into the captain's cabin, where he was found dead, extended at his full length upon a table, and almost covered with his own blood.”Quite as heroic, but more fortunate in its issue, was the conduct of the other English admiral thus cut off; and the incidents of his struggle, though not specially instructive otherwise, are worth quoting, as giving a lively picture of the scenes which passed in the heat of the contests of those days, and afford coloring to otherwise dry details.

“Being in a short time completely disabled, one of the enemy's fire-ships grappled him on the starboard quarter; he was, however, freed by the almost incredible exertions of his lieutenant, who, having in the midst of the flames loosed the grappling-irons, swung back on board his own ship unhurt. The Dutch, bent on the destruction of this unfortunate ship, sent a second which grappled her on the larboard side, and with greater success than the former;for the sails instantly taking fire, the crew were so terrified that nearly fifty of them jumped overboard. The admiral, Sir John Harman, seeing this confusion, ran with his sword drawn among those who remained, and threatened with instant death the first man who should attempt to quit the ship, or should not exert himself to quench the flames. The crew then returned to their duty and got the fire under; but the rigging being a good deal burned, one of the topsail yards fell and broke Sir John's leg. In the midst of this accumulated distress, a third fire-ship prepared to grapple him, but was sunk by the guns before she could effect her purpose. The Dutch vice-admiral, Evertzen, now bore down to him and offered quarter; but Sir John replied,‘No, no, it is not come to that yet,’and giving him a broadside, killed the Dutch commander;after which the other enemies sheered off.”

It is therefore not surprising that the account we have been following reported two English flag-ships lost, one by a fire-ship.“The English chief still continued on the port tack, and,”says the writer,“as night fell we could see him proudly leading his line past the squadron of North Holland and Zealand [the actual rear, but proper van], which from noon up to that time had not been able to reach the enemy from their leewardly position.”The merit of Monk's attack as a piece of grand tactics is evident, and bears a strong resemblance to that of Nelson at the Nile. Discerning quickly the weakness of the Dutch order, he had attacked a vastly superior force in such a way that only part of it could come into action; and though the English actually lost more heavily, they carried off a brilliant prestige and must have left considerable depression and heart-burning among the Dutch. The eye-witness goes on:“The affair continued until ten P.M., friends and foes mixed together and as likely to receive injury from one as from the other. It will be remarked that the success of the day and the misfortunes of the English came from their being too much scattered, too extended in their line; but for which we could never have cut off a corner of them, as we did. The mistake of Monk was in not keeping his ships better together;”that is, closed up. The remark is just, the criticism scarcely so; the opening out of the line was almost unavoidable in so long a column of sailing-ships, and was one of the chances taken by Monk when he offered battle.

The English stood off on the port tack to the west or west-northwest, and next day returned to the fight. The Dutch were now on the port tack in natural order, the right leading, and were to windward; but the enemy, being more weatherly and better disciplined, soon gained the advantage of the wind. The English this day had forty-four ships in action, the Dutch about eighty; many of the English, as before said, larger. The two fleets passed on opposite tacks, the English to windward; but Tromp, in the rear, seeing that the Dutch order of battle was badly formed, the ships in two or three lines, overlapping and so masking each other's fire, went about and gained to windward of the enemy's van; which he was able to do from the length of the line, and because the English, running parallel to the Dutch order, were off the wind.“At this moment two flag-officers of the Dutch van kept broad off, presenting their sterns to the English. Ruyter, greatly astonished, tried to stop them, but in vain, and therefore felt obliged to imitate the manoeuvre in order to keep his squadron together; but he did so with some order, keeping some ships around him, and was joined by one of the van ships, disgusted with the conduct of his immediate superior. Tromp was now in great danger, separated [by his own act first and then by the conduct of the van] from his own fleet by the English, and would have been destroyed but for Ruyter, who, seeing the urgency of the case, hauled up for him,”the van and centre thus standing back for the rear on the opposite tack to that on which they entered action. This prevented the English from keeping up the attack on Tromp, lest Ruyter should gain the wind of them, which they could not afford to yield because of their very inferior numbers. Both the action of Tromp and that of the junior flag-officers in the van, though showing very different degrees of warlike ardor, bring out strongly the lack of subordination and of military feeling which has been charged against the Dutch officers as a body; no signs of which appear among the English at this time.

How keenly Ruyter felt the conduct of his lieutenants was manifested when“Tromp, immediately after this partial action, went on board his flagship. The seamen cheered him; but Ruyter said,‘This is no time for rejoicing, but rather for tears.’Indeed, our position was bad, each squadron acting differently, in no line, and all the ships huddled together like a flock of sheep, so packed that the English might have surrounded all of them with their forty ships. The English were in admirable order, but did not push their advantage as they should, whatever the reason.”The reason no doubt was the same that often prevented sailing-ships from pressing an advantage, — disability from crippled spars and rigging, added to the inexpediency of such inferior numbers risking a decisive action.

Ruyter was thus able to draw his fleet out into line again, although much maltreated by the English, and the two fleets passed again on opposite tacks, the Dutch to leeward, and Ruyter's ship the last in his column. As he passed the English rear, he lost his maintopmast and mainyard. After another partial encounter the English drew away to the northwest toward their own shores, the Dutch following them; the wind being still from southwest, but light. The English were now fairly in retreat, and the pursuit continued all night, Ruyter's own ship dropping out of sight in the rear from her crippled state.

The third day Monk continued retreating to the westward. He burned, by the English accounts, three disabled ships, sent ahead those that were most crippled, and himself brought up the rear with those that were in fighting condition, which are variously stated, again by the English, at twenty-eight and sixteen in number. One of the largest and finest of the English fleet, the“Royal Prince,”of ninety guns, ran aground on the Galloper Shoal and was taken by Tromp; but Monk's retreat was so steady and orderly that he was otherwise unmolested. This shows that the Dutch had suffered very severely. Toward evening Rupert's squadron was seen; and all the ships of the English fleet, except those crippled in action, were at last united.

The next day the wind came out again very fresh from the southwest, giving the Dutch the weather-gage. The English, instead of attempting to pass upon opposite tacks, came up from astern relying upon the speed and handiness of their ships. So doing, the battle engaged all along the line on the port tack, the English to leeward. The Dutch fire-ships were badly handled and did no harm, whereas the English burned two of their enemies. The two fleets ran on thus, exchanging broadsides for two hours, at the end of which time the bulk of the English fleet had passed through the Dutch line. (3)All regularity of order was henceforward lost.“At this moment,”says the eye-witness,“the lookout was extraordinary, for all were separated, the English as well as we. But luck would have it that the largest of our fractions surrounding the admiral remained to windward, and the largest fraction of the English, also with their admiral, remained to leeward. This was the cause of our victory and their ruin. Our admiral had with him thirty-five or forty ships of his own and of other squadrons, for the squadrons were scattered and order much lost. The rest of the Dutch ships had left him. The leader of the van, Van Ness, had gone off with fourteen ships in chase of three or four English ships, which under a press of sail had gained to windward of the Dutch van. Van Tromp with the rear squadron had fallen to leeward, and so had to keep on [to leeward of Ruyter and the English main body] after Van Ness, in order to rejoin the admiral by passing round the English centre.”De Ruyter and the English main body kept up a sharp action, beating to windward all the time. Tromp, having carried sail, overtook Van Ness, and returned bringing the van back with him; but owing to the constant plying to windward of the English main body he came up to leeward of it and could not rejoin Ruyter, who was to windward. Ruyter, seeing this, made signal to the ships around him, and the main body of the Dutch kept away before the wind, which was then very strong.“Thus in less than no time we found ourselves in the midst of the English; who, being attacked on both sides, were thrown into confusion and saw their whole order destroyed, as well by dint of the action, as by the strong wind that was then blowing. This was the hottest of the fight. We saw the high admiral of England separated from his fleet, followed only by one fire-ship. With that he gained to windward, and passing through the North Holland squadron, placed himself again at the head of fifteen or twenty ships that rallied to him.”

Thus ended this great sea-fight, the most remarkable, in some of its aspects, that has ever been fought upon the ocean. Amid conflicting reports it is not possible to do more than estimate the results. A fairly impartial account says:“The States lost in these actions three viceadmirals, two thousand men, and four ships. The loss of the English was five thousand killed and three thousand prisoners; and they lost besides seventeen ships, of which nine remained in the hands of the victors.”There is no doubt that the English had much the worst of it, and that this was owing wholly to the original blunder of weakening the fleet by a great detachment sent in another direction. Great detachments are sometimes necessary evils, but in this case no necessity existed. Granting the approach of the French, the proper course for the English was to fall with their whole fleet upon the Dutch before their allies could come up. This lesson is as applicable to-day as it ever was. A second lesson, likewise of present application, is the necessity of sound military institutions for implanting correct military feeling, pride, and discipline. Great as was the first blunder of the English, and serious as was the disaster, there can be no doubt that the consequences would have been much worse but for the high spirit and skill with which the plans of Monk were carried out by his subordinates, and the lack of similar support to Ruyter on the part of the Dutch subalterns. In the movements of the English, we hear nothing of two juniors turning tail at a critical moment, nor of a third, with misdirected ardor, getting on the wrong side of the enemy's fleet. Their drill also, their tactical precision,was remarked even then. The Frenchman De Guiche, after witnessing this Four Days’Fight, wrote: -

“Nothing equals the beautiful order of the English at sea. Never was a line drawn straighter than that formed by their ships; thus they bring all their fire to bear upon those who draw near them…. They fight like a line of cavalry which is handled according to rule, and applies itself solely to force back those who oppose; whereas the Dutch advance like cavalry whose squadrons leave their ranks and come separately to the charge.”

The Dutch government, averse to expense, unmilitary in its tone, and incautious from long and easy victory over the degenerate navy of Spain, had allowed its fleet to sink into a mere assembly of armed merchantmen. Things were at their worst in the days of Cromwell. Taught by the severe lessons of that war, the United Provinces, under an able ruler, had done much to mend matters, but full efficiency had not yet been gained.

“In 1666 as in 1653,”says a French naval writer,“the fortune of war seemed to lean to the side of the English. Of the three great battles fought two were decided victories; and the third, though adverse, had but increased the glory of her seamen. This was due to the intelligent boldness of Monk and Rupert, the talents of part of the admirals and captains, and the skill of the seamen and soldiers under them. The wise and vigorous efforts made by the government of the United Provinces, and the undeniable superiority of Ruyter in experience and genius over any one of his opponents, could not compensate for the weakness or incapacity of part of the Dutch officers, and the manifest inferiority of the men under their orders.”

England, as has been said before, still felt the impress of Cromwell's iron hand upon her military institutions; but that impress was growing weaker. Before the next Dutch war Monk was dead, and was poorly replaced by the cavalier Rupert. Court extravagance cut down the equipment of the navy as did the burgomaster's parsimony, and court corruption undermined discipline as surely as commercial indifference. The effect was evident when the fleets of the two countries met again, six years later.

There was one well-known feature of all the military navies of that day which calls for a passing comment; for its correct bearing and value is not always, perhaps not generally, seen. The command of fleets and of single vessels was often given to soldiers, to military men unaccustomed to the sea, and ignorant how to handle the ship, that duty being intrusted to another class of officer. Looking closely into the facts, it is seen that this made a clean division between the direction of the fighting and of the motive power of the ship. This is the essence of the matter; and the principle is the same whatever the motive power may be. The inconvenience and inefficiency of such a system was obvious then as it is now, and the logic of facts gradually threw the two functions into the hands of one corps of officers, the result being the modern naval officer, as that term is generally understood. (4)Unfortunately, in this process of blending, the less important function was allowed to get the upper hand; the naval officer came to feel more proud of his dexterity in managing the motive power of his ship than of his skill in developing her military efficiency. The bad effects of this lack of interest in military science became most evident when the point of handling fleets was reached, because for that military skill told most, and previous study was most necessary; but it was felt in the single ship as well. Hence it came to pass, and especially in the English navy, that the pride of the seaman took the place of the pride of the military man. The English naval officer thought more of that which likened him to the merchant captain than of that which made him akin to the soldier. In the French navy this result was less general, owing probably to the more military spirit of the government, and especially of the nobility, to whom the rank of officer was reserved. It was not possible that men whose whole association was military, all of whose friends looked upon arms as the one career for a gentleman, could think more of the sails and rigging than of the guns or the fleet. The English corps of officers was of different origin. There was more than the writer thought in Macaulay's well-known saying:“There were seamen and there were gentlemen in the navy of Charles II.; but the seamen were not gentlemen, and the gentlemen were not seamen.”The trouble was not in the absence or presence of gentlemen as such, but in the fact that under the conditions of that day the gentleman was pre-eminently the military element of society; and that the seaman, after the Dutch wars, gradually edged the gentleman, and with him the military tone and spirit as distinguished from simple courage, out of the service. Even“such men of family as Herbert and Russell, William III.'s admirals,”says the biographer of Lord Hawke,“were sailors indeed, but only able to hold their own by adopting the boisterous manners of the hardy tarpaulin.”The same national traits which made the French inferior as seamen made them superior as military men; not in courage, but in skill. To this day the same tendency obtains; the direction of the motive power has no such consideration as the military functions in the navies of the Latin nations. The studious and systematic side of the French character also inclined the French officer, when not a trifler, to consider and develop tactical questions in a logical manner;to prepare himself to handle fleets, not merely as a seaman but as a military man. The result showed, in the American Revolutionary War, that despite a mournful history of governmental neglect, men who were first of all military men, inferior though they were in opportunities as seamen to their enemies, could meet them on more than equal terms as to tactical skill, and were practically their superiors in handling fleets. The false theory has already been pointed out, which directed the action of the French fleet not to crushing its enemy, but to some ulterior aim;but this does not affect the fact that in tactical skill the military men were superior to the mere seamen, though their tactical skill was applied to mistaken strategic ends. The source whence the Dutch mainly drew their officers does not certainly appear; for while the English naval historian in 1666 says that most of the captains of their fleet were sons of rich burgomasters, placed there for political reasons by the Grand Pensionary, and without experience, Duquesne, the ablest French admiral of the day, comments in 1676 on the precision and skill of the Dutch captains in terms very disparaging to his own. It is likely, from many indications, that they were generally merchant seamen, with little original military feeling; but the severity with which the delinquents were punished both by the State and by popular frenzy, seems to have driven these officers, who were far from lacking the highest personal courage, into a sense of what military loyalty and subordination required. They made a very different record in 1672 from that of 1666.

Before finally leaving the Four Days’Fight, the conclusions of another writer may well be quoted: -

“Such was that bloody Battle of the Four Days, or Straits of Calais, the most memorable sea-fight of modern days; not, indeed, by its results, but by the aspect of its different phases; by the fury of the combatants; by the boldness and skill of the leaders; and by the new character which it gave to sea warfare. More than any other this fight marks clearly the passage from former methods to the tactics of the end of the seventeenth century. For the first time we can follow, as though traced upon a plan, the principal movements of the contending fleets. It seems quite clear that to the Dutch as well as to the British have been given a tactical book and a code of signals; or, at the least, written instructions, extensive and precise, to serve instead of such a code. We feel that each admiral now has his squadron in hand, and that even the commanderin-chief disposes at his will, during the fight, of the various subdivisions of his fleet. Compare this action with those of 1652, and one plain fact stares you in the face, — that between the two dates naval tactics have undergone a revolution.

“Such were the changes that distinguish the war of 1665 from that of 1652. As in the latter epoch, the admiral still thinks the weather-gage an advantage for his fleet; but it is no longer, from the tactical point of view, the principal, we might almost say the sole, preoccupation. Now he wishes above all to keep his fleet in good order and compact as long as possible, so as to keep the power of combining, during the action, the movements of the different squadrons. Look at Ruyter, at the end of the Four Days’Fight; with great difficulty he has kept to windward of the English fleet, yet he does not hesitate to sacrifice this advantage in order to unite the two parts of his fleet, which are separated by the enemy. If at the later fight off the North Foreland great intervals exist between the Dutch squadrons, if the rear afterward continues to withdraw from the centre, Ruyter deplores such a fault as the chief cause of his defeat. He so deplores it in his official report; he even accuses Tromp [who was his personal enemy] of treason or cowardice, — an unjust accusation, but which none the less shows the enormous importance thenceforth attached, during action, to the reunion of the fleet into a whole strictly and regularly maintained.”

This commentary is justified in so far as it points out general aims and tendencies; but the results were not as complete as might be inferred from it.

The English, notwithstanding their heavy loss in the Four Days’Battle, were at sea again within two months, much to the surprise of the Dutch; and on the 4th of August another severe fight was fought off the North Foreland, ending in the complete defeat of the latter, who retired to their own coasts. The English followed, and effected an entrance into one of the Dutch harbors, where they destroyed a large fleet of merchantmen as well as a town of some importance. Toward the end of 1666 both sides were tired of the war, which was doing great harm to trade, and weakening both navies to the advantage of the growing sea power of France. Negotiations looking toward peace were opened; but Charles II., ill disposed to the United Provinces, confident that the growing pretensions of Louis XIV. to the Spanish Netherlands would break up the existing alliance between Holland and France, and relying also upon the severe reverses suffered at sea by the Dutch, was exacting and haughty in his demands. To justify and maintain this line of conduct he should have kept up his fleet, the prestige of which had been so advanced by its victories. Instead of that, poverty, the result of extravagance and of his home policy, led him to permit it to decline; ships in large numbers were laid up; and he readily adopted an opinion which chimed in with his penury, and which, as it has had advocates at all periods of sea history, should be noted and condemned here. This opinion, warmly opposed by Monk, was: -

“That as the Dutch were chiefly supported by trade, as the supply of their navy depended upon trade, and, as experience showed, nothing provoked the people so much as injuring their trade, his Majesty should therefore apply himself to this, which would effectually humble them, at the same time that it would less exhaust the English than fitting out such mighty fleets as had hitherto kept the sea every summer…. Upon these motives the king took a fatal resolution of laying up his great ships and keeping only a few frigates on the cruise.”

In consequence of this economical theory of carrying on a war, the Grand Pensionary of Holland, De Witt, who had the year before caused soundings of the Thames to be made, sent into the river, under De Ruyter, a force of sixty or seventy ships-of-the-line, which on the 14th of June, 1667, went up as high as Gravesend, destroying ships at Chatham and in the Medway, and taking possession of Sheerness. The light of the fires could be seen from London, and the Dutch fleet remained in possession of the mouth of the river until the end of the month. Under this blow, following as it did upon the great plague and the great fire of London, Charles consented to peace, which was signed July 31, 1667, and is known as the Peace of Breda. The most lasting result of the war was the transfer of New York and New Jersey to England, thus joining her northern and southern colonies in North America.

Before going on again with the general course of the history of the times, it will be well to consider for a moment the theory which worked so disastrously for England in 1667; that, namely, of maintaining a sea-war mainly by preying upon the enemy's commerce. This plan, which involves only the maintenance of a few swift cruisers and can be backed by the spirit of greed in a nation, fitting out privateers without direct expense to the State, possesses the specious attractions which economy always presents. The great injury done to the wealth and prosperity of the enemy is also undeniable; and although to some extent his merchant-ships can shelter themselves ignobly under a foreign flag while the war lasts, this guerre de course, as the French call it, this commerce-destroying, to use our own phrase, must, if in itself successful, greatly embarrass the foreign government and distress its people. Such a war, however, cannot stand alone; it must be supported, to use the military phrase; unsubstantial and evanescent in itself, it cannot reach far from its base. That base must be either home ports, or else some solid outpost of the national power, on the shore or the sea; a distant dependency or a powerful fleet. Failing such support, the cruiser can only dash out hurriedly a short distance from home, and its blows, though painful, cannot be fatal. It was not the policy of 1667, but Cromwell's powerful fleets of ships-of-the-line in 1652, that shut the Dutch merchantmen in their ports and caused the grass to grow in the streets of Amsterdam. When, instructed by the suffering of that time, the Dutch kept large fleets afloat through two exhausting wars, though their commerce suffered greatly, they bore up the burden of the strife against England and France united. Forty years later, Louis XIV. was driven, by exhaustion, to the policy adopted by Charles II. through parsimony. Then were the days of the great French privateers, Jean Bart, Forbin, DuguayTrouin, Du Casse, and others. The regular fleets of the French navy were practically withdrawn from the ocean during the great War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1712). The French naval historian says: -

“Unable to renew the naval armaments, Louis XIV. increased the number of cruisers upon the more frequented seas, especially the Channel and the German Ocean [not far from home, it will be noticed]. In these different spots the cruisers were always in a position to intercept or hinder the movements of transports laden with troops, and of the numerous convoys carrying supplies of all kinds. In these seas, in the centre of the commercial and political world, there is always work for cruisers. Notwithstanding the difficulties they met, owing to the absence of large friendly fleets, they served advantageously the cause of the two peoples [French and Spanish]. These cruisers, in the face of the Anglo-Dutch power, needed good luck, boldness, and skill. These three conditions were not lacking to our seamen; but then, what chiefs and what captains they had!”

The English historian, on the other hand, while admitting how severely the people and commerce of England suffered from the cruisers, bitterly reflecting at times upon the administration, yet refers over and over again to the increasing prosperity of the whole country, and especially of its commercial part. In the preceding war, on the contrary, from 1689 to 1697, when France sent great fleets to sea and disputed the supremacy of the ocean, how different the result! The same English writer says of that time: -

“With respect to our trade it is certain that we suffered infinitely more, not merely than the French, for that was to be expected from the greater number of our merchant-ships, but than we ever did in any former war. … This proceeded in great measure from the vigilance of the French, who carried on the war in a piratical way. It is out of all doubt that, taking all together, our traffic suffered excessively; our merchants were many of them ruined.”

Macaulay says of this period:“During many months of 1693 the English trade with the Mediterranean had been interrupted almost entirely. There was no chance that a merchantman from London or Amsterdam would, if unprotected, reach the Pillars of Hercules without being boarded by a French privateer; and the protection of armed vessels was not easily obtained.”Why? Because the vessels of England's navy were occupied watching the French navy, and this diversion of them from the cruisers and privateers constituted the support which a commercedestroying war must have. A French historian, speaking of the same period in England (1696), says:“The state of the finances was deplorable; money was scarce, maritime insurance thirty per cent, the Navigation Act was virtually suspended, and the English shipping reduced to the necessity of sailing under the Swedish and Danish flags.”Half a century later the French government was again reduced, by long neglect of the navy, to a cruising warfare. With what results? First, the French historian says:“From June, 1756, to June, 1760, French privateers captured from the English more than twenty-five hundred merchantmen. In 1761, though France had not, so to speak, a single ship-of-the-line at sea, and though the English had taken two hundred and forty of our privateers, their comrades still took eight hundred and twelve vessels. But,”he goes on to say,“the prodigious growth of the English shipping explains the number of these prizes.”In other words, the suffering involved to England in such numerous captures, which must have caused great individual injury and discontent, did not really prevent the growing prosperity of the State and of the community at large. The English naval historian, speaking of the same period, says:“While the commerce of France was nearly destroyed, the trading-fleet of England covered the seas. Every year her commerce was increasing; the money which the war carried out was returned by the produce of her industry. Eight thousand merchant vessels were employed by the English merchants.”And again, summing up the results of the war, after stating the immense amount of specie brought into the kingdom by foreign conquests, he says:“The trade of England increased gradually every year, and such a scene of national prosperity, while waging a long, bloody, and costly war, was never before shown by any people in the world.”On the other hand, the historian of the French navy, speaking of an earlier phase of the same wars, says:“The English fleets, having nothing to resist them, swept the seas. Our privateers and single cruisers, having no fleet to keep down the abundance of their enemies, ran short careers. Twenty thousand French seamen lay in English prisons.”When, on the other hand, in the War of the American Revolution France resumed the policy of Colbert and of the early reign of Louis XIV., and kept large battle-fleets afloat, the same result again followed as in the days of Tourville.“For the first time,”says the Annual Register, forgetting or ignorant of the experience of 1693, and remembering only the glories of the later wars,“English merchant-ships were driven to take refuge under foreign flags.”Finally, in quitting this part of the subject, it may be remarked that in the island of Martinique the French had a powerful distant dependency upon which to base a cruising warfare; and during the Seven Years’War, as afterward during the First Empire, it, with Guadeloupe, was the refuge of numerous privateers.“The records of the English admiralty raise the losses of the English in the West Indies during the first years of the Seven Years’War to fourteen hundred merchantmen taken or destroyed.”The English fleet was therefore directed against the islands, both of which fell, involving a loss to the trade of France greater than all the depredations of her cruisers on the English commerce, besides breaking up the system; but in the war of 1778 the great fleets protected the islands,which were not even threatened at any time.

So far we have been viewing the effect of a purely cruising warfare, not based upon powerful squadrons, only upon that particular part of the enemy's strength against which it is theoretically directed, — upon his commerce and general wealth; upon the sinews of war. The evidence seems to show that even for its own special ends such a mode of war is inconclusive, worrying but not deadly; it might almost be said that it causes needless suffering. What, however, is the effect of this policy upon the general ends of the war, to which it is one of the means, and to which it is subsidiary? How, again, does it react upon the people that practise it? As the historical evidences will come up in detail from time to time, it need here only be summarized. The result to England in the days of Charles II. has been seen, — her coast insulted, her shipping burned almost within sight of her capital. In the War of the Spanish Succession, when the control of Spain was the military object, while the French depended upon a cruising war against commerce, the navies of England and Holland, unopposed, guarded the coasts of the peninsula, blocked the port of Toulon, forced the French succors to cross the Pyrenees, and by keeping open the sea highway, neutralized the geographical nearness of France to the seat of war. Their fleets seized Gibraltar, Barcelona, and Minorca, and cooperating with the Austrian army failed by little of reducing Toulon. In the Seven Years’War the English fleets seized, or aided in seizing, all the most valuable colonies of France and Spain, and made frequent descents on the French coast. The War of the American Revolution affords no lesson, the fleets being nearly equal. The next most striking instance to Americans is the War of 1812. Everybody knows how our privateers swarmed over the seas, and that from the smallness of our navy the war was essentially, indeed solely, a cruising war. Except upon the lakes, it is doubtful if more than two of our ships at any time acted together. The injury done to English commerce, thus unexpectedly attacked by a distant foe which had been undervalued, may be fully conceded; but on the one hand, the American cruisers were powerfully supported by the French fleet, which being assembled in larger or smaller bodies in the many ports under the emperor's control from Antwerp to Venice, tied the fleets of England to blockade duty; and on the other hand, when the fall of the emperor released them, our coasts were insulted in every direction, the Chesapeake entered and controlled, its shores wasted, the Potomac ascended, and Washington burned. The Northern frontier was kept in a state of alarm, though there squadrons, absolutely weak but relatively strong, sustained the general defence; while in the South the Mississippi was entered unopposed, and New Orleans barely saved. When negotiations for peace were opened, the bearing of the English toward the American envoys was not that of men who felt their country to be threatened with an unbearable evil. The late Civil War, with the cruises of the“Alabama”and“Sumter”and their consorts, revived the tradition of commerce-destroying. In so far as this is one means to a general end, and is based upon a navy otherwise powerful, it is well; but we need not expect to see the feats of those ships repeated in the face of a great sea power. In the first place, those cruises were powerfully supported by the determination of the United States to blockade, not only the chief centres of Southern trade, but every inlet of the coast, thus leaving few ships available for pursuit; in the second place, had there been ten of those cruisers where there was one, they would not have stopped the incursion in Southern waters of the Union fleet, which penetrated to every point accessible from the sea;and in the third place, the undeniable injury, direct and indirect, inflicted upon individuals and upon one branch of the nation's industry (and how high that shipping industry stands in the writer's estimation need not be repeated), did not in the least influence or retard the event of the war. Such injuries, unaccompanied by others, are more irritating than weakening. On the other hand, will any refuse to admit that the work of the great Union fleets powerfully modified and hastened an end which was probably inevitable in any case? As a sea power the South then occupied the place of France in the wars we have been considering, while the situation of the North resembled that of England; and, as in France, the sufferers in the Confederacy were not a class, but the government and the nation at large. It is not the taking of individual ships or convoys, be they few or many, that strikes down the money power of a nation; it is the possession of that overbearing power on the sea which drives the enemy's flag from it, or allows it to appear only as a fugitive; and which, by controlling the great common, closes the highways by which commerce moves to and from the enemy's shores. This overbearing power can only be exercised by great navies, and by them (on the broad sea) less efficiently now than in the days when the neutral flag had not its present immunity. It is not unlikely that, in the event of a war between maritime nations, an attempt may be made by the one having a great sea power and wishing to break down its enemy's commerce, to interpret the phrase“effective blockade”in the manner that best suits its interests at the time; to assert that the speed and disposal of its ships make the blockade effective at much greater distances and with fewer ships than formerly. The determination of such a question will depend, not upon the weaker belligerent, but upon neutral powers; it will raise the issue between belligerent and neutral rights; and if the belligerent have a vastly overpowering navy he may carry his point, just as England, when possessing the mastery of the seas, long refused to admit the doctrine of the neutral flag covering the goods.

FOOTNOTES:

(1) Since the above was written, the experience of the English autumn manoeuvres of 1888 has verified this statement; not indeed that any such experiment was needed to establish a self-evident fact.

(2) The recent development of rapid-firing and machine guns, with the great increase of their calibre and consequent range and penetration, reproduces this same step in the cycle of progress.

(3) This result was probably due simply to the greater weatherliness of the English ships. It would perhaps be more accurate to say that the Dutch had sagged to leeward so that they drifted through the English line.

(4) The true significance of this change has often been misunderstood, and hence erroneous inferences as to the future have been drawn. It was not a case of the new displacing the old, but of the military element in a military organization asserting its necessary and inevitable control over all other functions.

1665-1667年间的第二次英荷战争；

洛斯托夫特海战与“四日海战”

我们进行此种历史研究的起始时期，人们一直宽泛地称之为17世纪中叶。现在，我们把1660年作为开始研究的准确时间。在那一年的五月，查理二世在人民普遍的欢欣鼓舞中，重新登上了英国王位。第二年三月，当马萨林主教去世之后，路易十四也将自己的大臣召集拢来，对他们说：“我召你们来，是为了告诉你们，至今我都很满意，能够将我的事情托付给已故的大主教掌管；但从今以后，我会亲自来总理国家事务。我规定，除非有我的命令，否则任何法令都不能批准，并且我还命令各位国务大臣和财务大臣，没有我的命令，就不能签署任何文件。”如此夺得权力的这个专制政府，名义上和实际上都持续存在了半个多世纪。

前述的这一年间，在经历了一个有点儿旷日持久的混乱时期、国家生活开始朝着一个新的阶段前进之后，尽管彼此有着诸多差异，但英、法这两个国家开始在欧洲和美洲的海洋历史上，事实上是在整个世界的海洋史上，位列前茅了。然而海洋的历史，不过是国家兴衰的一个因素罢了，各国都把这种兴衰称之为本国的历史；倘若忽视了与历史紧密相关的其他因素，对于海洋历史的重要性，我们就会形成一种扭曲的观念，不是言过其实，便是轻蔑待之。正是由于我们觉得，那些与海洋无关的人，尤其是如今的美国人，就算并非全然无视，也是极大地低估了此种重要性，所以我们才来进行此种研究。

我们所选的1660年这个时间点，紧跟着另一时间点；后者标志着根据一场全面战争——即史称的“三十年战争”——的结果而达成的条约生效，欧洲形势极大地稳定下来了。这另一个时间点，便是签署《威斯特伐利亚条约》或《明斯特和约》的1648年。在这份条约中，西班牙正式承认荷兰联合省王国独立——实际上，这种独立早就存在了；1659年，法、西两国继而签署了《比利牛斯条约》，虽说这使得欧洲拥有了一种全面的外部和平形势，但注定很快就会爆发出一系列几乎席卷全球、持续时间与路易十四在世时间一样久的战争——它们将会给欧洲版图带来深刻的变化；在这些战争中，一些新的国家将会崛起，而其他一些国家则会衰落，并且所有国家都会经历种种巨变，这些变化不是领土范围上的，就是政治权力上的。对于这些结果的出现，制海权都直接或间接地发挥了巨大的作用。

我们首先必须来看一看，在研究开始的那个时间，欧洲各国的一般形势。在长达一个世纪左右、并以《威斯特伐利亚条约》为标志而结束的一系列战争中，史称“哈布斯堡王朝”的英国皇室一直都是他国所畏惧的一个无敌大国。在英王查理五世漫长的统治时期——他在一个世纪前就退位了——这个王朝的首脑将奥地利和西班牙两顶王冠集于自己一身，而随着这两顶王冠而来的，除了其他财产之外，还有如今我们所知的荷兰与比利时两国国土，以及在意大利国内一种压倒性的影响力。查理五世退位之后，奥地利和西班牙的两位伟大君主便都脱离了哈布斯堡王朝；不过，尽管由不同的君主所统治，它们却仍属于同一家族，并且往往有着一种标志着当时那个世纪以及下一个世纪中王朝之间关系的统一目标和一致行动。在这种紧密的家族关系之上，还有共同的宗教信仰这一纽带。在《威斯特伐利亚条约》签订前的那一个世纪里，皇室权力和宗教势力的扩张，就是政治行动最有力的两大动因。这一时期，大规模的宗教战争频发，使得国家反目、诸侯成仇，而在一国内部，则常常导致派系争雄。宗教迫害曾经导致了信奉新教的荷兰共和国发生反抗西班牙的起义，在经历了80年的持续战争之后，最终才以西班牙承认荷兰独立而告结束。不时演变为内战的宗教纷争，在同一时期的大部分时间里也分散了法国的注意力，不但深刻地影响到了该国的内政，还深刻地影响到了该国的对外政策。这就是圣巴塞洛缪的时代，是亨利四世因宗教而被谋杀的时代，是围攻拉罗谢尔[1]的时代，也是信奉罗马天主教的西班牙与同样信奉天主教的法国人之间不断密谋勾结的时代。由于宗教动因在一个本来并不属于它的领域内起作用，并且它也在此领域内因为没有正当的地位而逐渐衰弱下去，所以各国的政治需要与利益开始具有更加正当的重要性了；不是说各国在此期间完全没有看到这种重要性，而是因为宗教仇恨或是遮蔽了政治家们的双眼，或是束缚了政治家们的行动。由于新教少数派的人数与性格方面的原因，法国成为了最大的宗教狂热受害国之一；所以，我们在法国首先且最为明显地看到这种反应，就是自然而然的了。法国位于西班牙和日耳曼各国之间，而奥地利又傲立其中，无可匹敌，所以内部的团结以及遏制哈布斯堡王朝的势力，就是法国在政治上得以生存的必备条件。幸亏，老天相继为法国培养了两位伟大的统治者，即亨利四世和黎塞留——这两位统治者心中的宗教信仰，并未达到偏执的程度；而当他们被迫在政治领域认可宗教信仰的时候，他们也做得像是宗教的主人，而非宗教的奴隶。在他们治下，法国的政治家们得到了指引；这种指引，被黎塞留系统地阐述为一种传统，并且按照下述总的路线发展着：（1）安抚或者镇压宗教纷争，并将权力集中到国王手中，保持王国内部的统一；（2）抵制哈布斯堡王朝的势力，这实际上伴随着、也必然会导致法国与信奉新教的各日耳曼国家以及荷兰结成联盟；（3）向东扩张法国国土，主要是会损及西班牙的利益，当时的西班牙不仅拥有如今的比利时，还占领着长久以来就并入了法国的许多其他省份；（4）在王国财力的基础之上，创建并发展一种强大的制海权，旨在专门抵制法国的宿敌英国；为达成这一目标，同样也必须不忘与荷兰结盟。这些，就是该国一流的政治家为指导国家发展而制定的政策的大致内容；法国人民完全有理由宣称自己是欧洲文明最彻底的典型，并声称自己走在政治进步与个人发展之路的前列。马萨林所坚持的这种传统，被路易十四从他那儿继承下来了；我们将会看到，路易十四是多么忠实地践行着这种传统，而他的做法又给法国带来了什么样的后果。与此同时，我们还应注意到，在指引法国走向伟大的这4个必要因素当中，制海权就是其中之一；从采用的手段上来看，第二点和第三点其实属于同一个因素，因此我们可以说，制海权是法国维持其外在伟大性的两大手段之一。海洋上的英国和大陆上的奥地利，都表明了法国日后努力的方向。

至于1660年法国的形势，以及法国是否准备好沿着黎塞留所标明的道路前进，我们可以这样说：该国内部已经实现和平，贵族阶层的势力已经彻底瓦解，宗教纷争已经平息；规定信仰自由的《南特敕令》[2]仍然有效，而新教徒其他的不满也已通过武力手段得以压制。国家的所有权力，全都集中到了国王手中。不过，尽管整个王国一片太平，其他方面的形势却并不那么令人满意。当时该国几乎没有海军；国内和对外商业贸易并不兴旺；国家财政混乱不堪；陆军规模也很小。

不到一个世纪之前，其他各国在面对它时还都惶恐不安的西班牙，如今早已没落下去，并不令人敬畏了；该国中央政府的软弱无能，已经蔓延到了政府的各个部门。然而，从国土面积来看，西班牙却依然强大得很。在继续占有西属尼德兰的同时，该国还占领了那不勒斯、西西里和撒丁岛；直布罗陀此时还没有落入英国手中；西班牙在美洲的广袤殖民地——除了牙买加，因为数年前此处就已经被英国攻占了——也仍然原封未动。该国和平时期与战时的海上力量情况，前面都已经提及。多年以前，黎塞留曾与西班牙订立条约并与之暂时结盟，借此将西班牙的40艘舰船置于自己的掌控之下；不过，这些船只的状况都极差，因为大部分都没什么武器装备，指挥水平又低劣，所以法国不得不又将它们退回了西班牙。当时，西班牙海军正在全面没落下去，而其软弱并未逃过马萨林大主教的火眼金睛。1639年，西班牙舰队与荷兰舰队之间爆发的一场遭遇战，就极为明显地表现出了这支昔日自负得很的海军所陷入的那种落魄境地。

“此时，该国的海军，”引述的历史记载中称，“遭遇到了多次沉重打击中的一次；在此次战争中，一连串这样的打击，使得该国从全球海洋霸主的高位，一下子跌至了令人鄙视的地位。西班牙国王正在装备一支强有力的舰队，准备打到瑞典沿海去；而为了装备这支舰队，他下令从敦克尔克调派支援部队和给养。于是，一支舰队奉命从敦克尔克起航，却遭到了范·特龙普[3]的袭击，一些人被俘，剩下的人只得再次退回敦克尔克港内。不久之后，范·特龙普俘获了3条英国的（中立）船只，船上载有1070名从加的斯前往敦克尔克的西班牙士兵；他俘虏了这支部队，但释放了那3艘船只。特龙普留下17艘舰船封锁敦克尔克，自己则率其余的12艘军舰，动身前去迎击到来的敌方舰队。很快，他就看到敌方舰队进入了多佛海峡，舰船数量达67艘，兵力则有2000名。待德·威特率另外4艘船与他会合之后，特龙普便指挥自己这支小型分舰队，坚定地向敌人发起了进攻。战斗持续到了下午4点，之后西班牙的舰队司令便率军躲进了唐斯锚地。特龙普决定，倘若敌军出来，他还会继续战斗；但在西班牙这一方，奥肯多和他那支强大的舰队，其中许多军舰携带的火炮数量都在60门至100门之间，却甘愿被荷军封锁；而英国的舰队司令又通告特龙普说，如果再开战，英军便会奉命加入西班牙一方。特龙普便派人回国寻求指示，所以英国的这一做法仅仅是引出了荷兰数量庞大的海军力量。特龙普的舰队很快得到了支援，舰船数量达到了96艘，外加12艘火攻船，于是他便下令进攻。他留下一支小分队监视英国人——假如英国人支援西班牙的话，那就进攻英军——之后便开始在大雾中强行作战；西班牙人在大雾的掩护之下，割断缆绳逃跑了。由于逃跑时离岸太近，许多舰船都搁了浅，而其余绝大部分试图撤退的船只要么被击沉，要么被俘虏，要么被驱赶到了法国沿海。历史上还从未有过如此完美的大捷呢。”

一支海军在承受了这样的一次战斗之后，其所有的力量与自负必定都会烟消云散；不过，这支海军还只是西班牙全面衰落的一个方面，而这种全面衰落，使得西班牙在欧洲政治舞台上的作用，自此以后便日益削弱下去了。

“就在西班牙宫廷和语言都显赫非凡的时候，”基佐[4]曾说，“西班牙政府却感觉到了自己所处的劣势，并且试图通过按兵不动来掩盖这种劣势。腓力四世和手下的大臣们，都对那种虽然努力但最终却被别国征服的事情感到厌倦了，所以只想确保天下太平，只想将那些耗不起精力的问题抛到一边。由于已经四分五裂、衰弱无力，哈布斯堡王朝的野心甚至比其业已拥有的权力更少，所以除了在完全被迫的情况下，查理五世之后历任继承者的政策，便都变成了一种盲目自大、不思进取的政策。”

那个时代的西班牙就是这样的。时称“低地国家”或者“信奉罗马天主教的尼德兰”（即如今的比利时）这一部分西班牙领土，不久就会让法国与其天然盟友荷兰共和国因为此处而产生出无尽的纷争来。荷兰共和国的政治名称本为“联合省”，此时已经到达了其影响力与势力的巅峰——正如前面已经说明的那样，这种势力完全是以海洋为基础，是完全建立在利用荷兰人民那种伟大的海洋与商业天赋所创造的环境这一基础之上的。近代的一位法国作家，是如此描述路易十四退位之时，这个民族所处的商业贸易和殖民环境的——在现代，除了英国，还没有哪个国家像荷兰那样，表明海洋上的收获是如何能够让一个本质衰弱、缺乏资源的国家，上升到财力与实力的顶峰的：

“荷兰已经成为了现代的腓尼基。联合省是斯凯尔特河上的霸主，它封锁了安特卫普通往海洋的诸条水路，还继承了这个富庶之市的商业实力；15世纪时，一位威尼斯的大使曾认为，该市堪与威尼斯相媲美。除此之外，他们的主要城市还接收了‘低地国家’中从西班牙道德暴政下逃离出来的大量工人。服装、亚麻制品等制造业吸纳了60万人就业，为这个以前只满足于奶酪与鱼类贸易的民族开辟了新的获利来源。渔业一项，本就已经让他们富裕起来了。鲱鱼产业养活了荷兰差不多1/5的人口，该国每年能够生产30万吨咸鱼，并且带来800多万法郎的收入。

“这个共和国的海军实力与商业实力得到了飞速的发展。单是荷兰的商船队，就有10000艘船只、168000名水手，养活了26万居民。它已经获取了欧洲的大部分海外贸易，而自和约签订以后，它不但垄断了美洲和西班牙之间所有往来的商品运输，还为法国诸港口提供相同的运输业务，并且保持了高达3600万法郎的进口贸易。由于联合省可以从波罗的海前往勃兰登堡、丹麦、瑞典、莫斯科大公国、波兰等北方诸国，所以这些地方就成了联合省一个广袤无边的商品交换市场。联合省将商品售卖给这些国家，然后再购买北方诸国的产品，比如小麦、木材、铜、大麻和皮草，从而滋养着这个市场。荷兰商船在所有海域运送的商品总价值，每年都超过了10亿法郎。用当代的话来说，荷兰人已经让自己成为了‘全球海洋的搬运工’。”

正是通过自己的殖民地，荷兰共和国才能如此发展其海上贸易。它垄断了东方的所有商品。它将亚洲的农产品和香料运往欧洲，年均价值达到了1600万法郎。成立于1602年的东印度公司非常强大，已经通过夺取葡萄牙的领地与利益，在亚洲建立起了一个商业帝国。1650年时，荷兰已经称霸好望角，使得该国的船只有了一个停靠之所；而且，它还像君主一样统治着锡兰，还有马拉巴尔和科罗曼德尔海岸。它将巴达维亚定为行政中心，然后将贸易扩张到了中国和日本。与此同时，崛起速度更快、但存续时间较短的西印度公司，则装备好了800艘战舰与商船，利用这些舰船，该国消灭了葡萄牙在几内亚以及巴西沿海的残余势力。

就这样，荷兰共和国便成了一个汇集各国商品的大货栈。

此时荷兰的诸多殖民地散布在东方的各个海域，有印度、马六甲、爪哇、摩鹿加群岛，以及澳大利亚北方众多群岛中的许多地区。该国在非洲西海岸也有殖民地，并且到那时为止，新阿姆斯特丹这个殖民地也还掌控在荷兰手中。在南美洲，荷属西印度公司本已拥有从巴西的巴伊亚一直向北、长约300里格[5]的沿海地区；不过，近来很多地方都摆脱了该公司的掌控。

荷兰共和国认为，一个国家所获得的尊重与实力，都应归功于该国的财力和舰队。所以荷兰征服了大海，使之变成了一个用处颇大的仆人；但陆地却会见证该国的没落。荷兰人民与另一个比海洋更加残暴的敌人，一直进行着持久而激烈的斗争，这个敌人就是西班牙王国；斗争的结果虽说很成功，让西班牙王国虚假地承诺止戈息争，却敲响了荷兰共和国的丧钟。只要西班牙的实力未遭到削弱，或者西班牙的实力至少足以维持其早已造成的恐怖气氛，那么荷兰王国应当强大、应当独立这一点，便是符合英、法两国利益的，因为这两个国家都曾深受西班牙的威胁和阴谋诡计之苦。而当西班牙垮台之后——该国一而再、再而三地遭受到的屈辱，表明它的弱点是实实在在而非表面上的——两国便不再担忧，而是有了其他的心思。英国觊觎着荷兰的贸易和海洋霸权；法国则想攫取西属尼德兰。在这两个方面，荷兰共和国都完全有理由去反抗英、法两国。

在这两个敌国的联合攻击之下，荷兰共和国固有的弱点很快就暴露无遗了。该国陆军兵力极少，陆地上很容易遭到攻击，而政府又不擅协调，没有发挥民族团结的力量，尤其是备战很不充分；所以，荷兰共和国和荷兰这个民族的衰落的速度，就必定会比其崛起的速度更快。然而，到当时的1660年为止，人们却并未注意到即将到来的衰落所表现出的种种迹象。荷兰共和国仍然在欧洲列强中首屈一指。虽说在1654年的英荷战争中，这支在海洋上一直长久打压着西班牙自尊的海军，不可思议地表现得毫无准备，但另一方面，1657年荷兰共和国却又成功地阻止了法国针对其商业贸易而进行的侵犯；而且一年之后，“通过介入位于丹麦与瑞典之间的波罗的海，该国又阻止了瑞典，使之无法在北方确立一种会给诸联合省带来灾难性后果的优势。该国迫使瑞典敞开了波罗的海入口，并且仍然主宰着此处，因为没有别国的海军能够与之争夺此处的控制权。荷兰舰队所具有的优势，荷兰军队的勇猛以及荷兰外交手段的娴熟与坚定，都使得荷兰共和国政府赢得了各国公认的威望。但由于在最后一次英荷战争中实力被削弱并蒙受了耻辱，该国便不再站在强国之列里了。就在此时，查理二世重新登上了王位。”

荷兰共和国政府的总体特点，前面已经提到过；所以，此处我们只需回想一下就行了。这是一个关系松散的联邦制政府，由一个或许可以并不准确地称之为“商业贵族”的阶层所统治；这个阶层在政治上很谨慎，使得政府在战争时期要冒极大的风险。部门之间的相互猜忌和从事商业贸易的精神这两个因素，给属于军事领域的海军带来了灾难性的影响。在和平时期，海军并未妥善地保持着良好的状态；同一支舰队里，也必然存在着种种竞争行为。所以，与其说这支舰队是一支统一的海军，还不如说它是一种海上联合体；并且，荷兰海军官兵当中也没有一种真正的尚武精神。虽说还没有哪一个民族比荷兰人民更为英勇，而关于荷兰人海战的历史记载，也为我们提供了他们孤注一掷、破釜沉舟以及持久坚韧的实例——在别的地方，还没有人超过了他们的这种精神，或许甚至永远也无法与之相媲美——不过，其中也有变节和行为不端的例子，这说明他们缺乏尚武精神，显然也是由于他们缺少职业荣誉感和专业训练所致。当时，各国海军几乎都没有这样的专业训练；但在君主制国家里，军人阶层的社会地位感在很大程度上弥补了专业训练的缺失。我们还须注意，由于前述种种原因而变得相当软弱的荷兰共和国政府，又因整个民族分裂成了两个相互极为仇视的派别而更加软弱了。第一派是商贾（即各市镇长官），此时正掌大权，他们拥护前面所说的那种联邦制共和政体；另一派则想要一种由奥兰治王室统治之下的君主政体。共和派希望与法国结盟，如果可能的话，还希望拥有一支强大的海军；奥兰治派则更想与英国结盟，因为奥兰治亲王与英国王室关系密切，他们还想拥有一支强大的陆军。由于处在这样的政权形势之下，人口数量又不如别国多，所以财力雄厚、海外活动频繁的荷兰共和国在1660年时，就像是一个靠兴奋剂支撑着的人那样。这种人为的力量，是不可能无限期地支撑下去的；不过令人惊奇的是，这个人口数量远远逊于英、法两国的小国，既经受住了这两个国家单独的进攻，还在两国的联合进击之下坚持了两年，并且不但没有被两国消灭，还没有失去自己在欧洲所处的地位。虽说该国把这一令人称奇的结果部分地归功于一两个人物的本领，但主要还是应当归功于它所拥有的制海权。

英国的形势，就其是否适合加入这一即将发生的纷争来看，与荷兰和法国都不相同。尽管属于君主政体，国王手中也有很多实实在在的权力，但英国国王并不能完全随意地左右整个王国的政策。他必须考虑手下臣民的脾性与意愿，而路易十四却没有这么做。路易十四为法国获取了什么，他也为自己获取了什么；法国的荣耀，也就是他的荣耀。英王查理二世的目标，首先却是自己的利益，然后才是英国的利益；不过，因为还记得过去的教训，所以他首先就下定了决心，既不能重蹈父亲的覆辙，自己也不能再次被流放。因此，当危险迫近之时，他还是在英国人民的感受面前让了步。查理二世本人很不喜欢荷兰；他憎恨这是一个共和国；他憎恨该国当时的政府，因为这个政府在内部事务上总与他的亲戚即奥兰治王室作对；而且，因为在他流亡期间，荷兰共和国曾将他逐出国境，以此作为该国与克伦威尔达成和约的条件之一，所以他更憎恨这个共和国了。他倒向了法国这一边的原因，是被可以成为一个绝对统治者的这种政治同感所吸引，可能还是被自己所奉罗马天主教的偏见所吸引，并且更主要的，是被路易十四给他的大笔资金所吸引——这些资金，使他部分地摆脱了英国议会的控制。由于自己的这些脾性，所以查理二世不得不顾及到臣民们某些坚定的意愿。英国人与荷兰人属于同一种族，而所处形势也相类似，但在争夺海洋和贸易控制权上，却是公开的对手；由于荷兰人此时在争夺中领先，所以英国人就更加急不可耐、痛苦万分了。荷属东印度公司的做法，也是引起英国人不满的一个特殊原因：“东印度公司要求垄断东方的贸易，并且迫使一些与该公司进行贸易的、偏远地区的统治者答应，这些国家都不接纳异族，从而使得这些民族非但被排除在荷属诸殖民地之外，也被排除在印度群岛的所有殖民地之外了。”认识到自己的实力增强了之后，英国人还想控制荷兰的政治行为；而在英国的共和时代，英国人甚至还试图迫使两国政府合并起来呢。因此从一开始，民众的争斗与敌意就有利于达成英王的心愿；而后来，由于法国在欧洲大陆已经多年不再称霸，就更是这样了。然而，一旦路易十四那种穷兵黩武的政策变得路人皆知，不论是贵族还是平民，英国人民便都觉得这是一种巨大的威胁，跟一个世纪之前西班牙所带来的威胁一样了。将西属尼德兰（比利时）让给法国，可能会让整个欧洲都臣服于法国脚下，尤其是可能会给荷、英两国的制海权带来沉重的打击；因为我们不可能指望，路易十四会允许荷兰继续像当时那样不开放斯凯尔特河与安特卫普港——这种封锁，是荷兰人抓住西班牙的痛处，迫使后者签署了一份条约，并按照该条约规定实施的。让安特卫普这座大城市重新打开商业贸易的大门，对阿姆斯特丹和伦敦来说，同样都是一种打击。随着民众那种传承下来的、反对法国的态度日益复兴起来，两国之间的种族纽带又开始发挥作用了：人们想起了以前两国联手对抗西班牙暴政的经历；而宗教信仰方面的相似性，此时也仍然是一种强大的动力，从而使得两国能够团结起来。与此同时，柯尔贝尔付出了巨大而系统的努力，想要逐步增强法国的商业贸易和海军的实力，这一做法却激起了英、荷两个海洋大国的猜忌；尽管两国本身也是对手，但它们还是本能地联合起来，转而开始对付一个侵害两国势力范围的第三国了。子民们在这些动力驱使之下对他施加的压力，查理二世是无法抗拒的；由于此时英、荷两国之间的战火也早已平息，所以查理二世死后，两国又成为关系密切的盟国了。

尽管英国的商业贸易规模相对较小，但1660年英国的海军却已胜过了荷兰海军，尤其是在海军的编制和作战效率方面。克伦威尔时期的英国政府，是一个法令严酷、宗教狂热的政府，以军事实力为基础，给英国的舰队和陆军都打上了深深的烙印。摄政时期几位最高将领的名字——其中蒙克的威望最高——也出现在查理二世统治时期的第一次英荷战争史中。在一个放纵荒淫、专事宫廷争宠的政府治下，这种士气与风纪上的优势，因受到腐蚀而日渐消失殆尽了；而荷兰呢，虽说在1665年的海战中被英国这一个国家基本上击溃了，却仍然成功地抵挡住了1672年英、法两国海军的联合进攻。至于这三支舰队的装备情况，我们得知，相对于火炮与补给的重量来说，法国舰船的排水量都比英国舰船大；所以在满载的情况下，法国舰船的炮台位置也更高。法国舰队的船体轮廓设计得也更好。这些优势，自然是当时法国海军正深思熟虑、有条不紊地从一种没落状态恢复过来的结果，而对于目前正处于相似形势之下的我国海军来说，也是一种很值得我们期待的教训。由于沿海地区的特点，荷兰舰船的底部更为平坦，吃水也更浅，因而在被敌军追击时能够躲进浅水区；不过，它们的抢风航行能力也因此而比较弱，船体通常也比其余两国的舰船要小。

上面我们尽量简要地概括了决定并控制当时西班牙、法国、英国和荷兰这4个主要沿海国家政策走向的形势、实力强弱和目标。从这段历史的角度来看，上述三个方面最为突出，也最经常被人们注意到；不过，因为其他国家对历史进程也产生了巨大的影响，而我们的目的也并非仅仅是海军历史，而是理解海军与贸易实力对普通历史进程所产生的共同影响，所以还得简短地来说明一下欧洲其余国家的情况。此时，在史册中或者在内阁政策方面，美国还谈不上发挥出了什么重要的作用。

当时的德国分裂成了多个小型政权，还有一个庞大的奥地利帝国。那些较小国家的政策多变，因此，法国的目标就是尽可能多地将这些国家联合起来，置于自己的羽翼之下，以共同进行其一贯抵抗奥地利的行动。奥地利呢，因为法国在其一侧对其如此不利，而在另一侧，土耳其帝国又不断袭击它，使得此时虽已开始没落却仍然强大有力的奥地利觉得如剑悬顶。长久以来，法国的政策一直都倾向于与土耳其帝国搞好关系，这是因为法国不仅想让土耳其遏制奥地利，还希望垄断与黎凡特之间的贸易。柯尔贝尔因急于确立法国的制海权，所以支持这种同盟关系。我们都不会忘记，希腊和埃及当时还是土耳其帝国的一部分。

如今我们所知的普鲁士，当时还没有出现。这个未来王国的基础，是勃兰登堡选帝侯[6]这个强有力的小国打下的；其时，虽说勃兰登堡尚无能力独立，它却小心谨慎地没有让自己变成一个正式的附属国。波兰王国当时也还存在，由于该国政府软弱无能、动荡不安，所以它是欧洲政治中一个极为令人不安和重要的因素，使得其他各国都焦虑不已，严防出现什么有利于对手的、不可预见的形势逆转。法国长久以来的政策，便是让波兰不致垮台并保持强大。俄国此时尚默默无闻；虽说已经出现，却仍未进入欧洲国家之列，也未进入各国现存利益之列，它与波罗的海沿岸其他列强之间是天生的对头，相互争夺在这一海域的优势地位；而在这一点上，其他国家，尤其是所有的海洋国家，都有着特殊的兴趣，因为它们的各种海军补给品主要都来自于波罗的海地区。此时的瑞典和丹麦一直保持敌对状态，因而在当时的各种纷争中，两国支持的都是对立的各方。在过去的许多年间，以及在路易十四早期发动的战争当中，瑞典多半都是法国的盟国；由此即可看出该国的成见来。

由于欧洲的整体形势如上所述，所以开动各国战争机器的发条，就掌握在路易十四的手中。法国的近邻都软弱无能，法国又拥有丰富的资源，只待开发，路易十四大权在握使得法国有着统一的方针政策，路易十四本人又有着实干才能，并且勤奋不懈，在其统治法国的前半期，又有许多能力非凡的大臣协助——这一切结合起来，便使得欧洲各国政府或多或少都唯他的马首是瞻，即便不能说是全听他指挥，起码也是对他亦步亦趋。让法国走向伟大和辉煌，就是他的目标；而他有两条道路可供选择，来推进这一进程——要么是经由陆地，要么便是经由海洋。这并不是因为选择其中之一，便必须完全排除另一条，而是因为法国当时尽管极为强大，却仍然不具备在两条道路上同时推进的实力。

路易十四选择了从陆地上进行扩张。他已经迎娶了当时西班牙国王腓力四世的大姐；尽管缔结婚约时她已经宣布放弃了父亲的所有遗产，但要找个借口无视这一约定却并不困难。他们找出了一些合乎法律的理由，撤销了这一约定对尼德兰和弗朗什孔泰某些地区的约束力，并进而与西班牙王室进行谈判，完全废除了这一约定。对路易十四来说，这个问题更为重要，因为当时西班牙的男性王储极为懦弱，该国的哈布斯堡血统显然会在这位王储手中断送掉。路易十四很想扶植一位法国亲王登上西班牙的王位——要么是他自己，从而将两个王权政府合并归一；要么是他的家人之一，从而使得波旁王室在比利牛斯山两侧都掌权——但这是一种虚假的浮光，使得路易十四在余下的统治时期误入了歧途，并最终导致了法国制海权的覆灭，以及法国人民的贫困与苦难。路易十四没有明白，自己必须去应对欧洲各国。直接觊觎西班牙的王位，那也必须等到无人继承大统的时候；可他却急不可耐，准备马上向法国东面的西班牙领土进逼了。

为了更加有效地实现这一目标，他通过种种巧妙的外交阴谋，离间了西班牙每一个可能的盟国——研究这些外交阴谋，可以很好地说明政治领域的战略；不过，他犯下了两个严重的错误，从而极大地损害了法国的制海权。直到20年前，葡萄牙才并入西班牙王国治下，但此时尚未放弃自己的主权声索要求。路易十四认为，倘若这个王国重新回到西班牙手中，那么西班牙就会变得极其强大，他就没那么容易实现自己的目的了。于是，他用尽了种种手段进行阻挠，还促成了查理二世与葡萄牙公主的婚事，使得葡萄牙因此而将印度的孟买以及位于直布罗陀海峡、久负盛名的良港丹吉尔割让给了英国。从中我们即可看出，这位法国国王因为急于扩张领土，从而怂恿英国进入地中海地区，并且促成了英、葡之间的联盟。后面这个结果更为奇怪，因为路易十四既已预见到了西班牙王室的衰败，就更应当希望将伊比利亚半岛上的这两个王国统一起来才是。事实上，葡萄牙变成了英国的附属国与前哨基地，使得英国晚至拿破仑时代，都可以轻而易举地登陆伊比利亚半岛了。的确，倘若不倚赖西班牙，葡萄牙也会因为实力太弱而受到英国这个海洋大国的控制，从而使得英国不费吹灰之力便可侵入该国。可路易十四却一直支持该国反抗西班牙，最终使得葡萄牙独立了。他还对荷兰人进行了干涉，迫使他们把从葡萄牙人手中夺取的巴西归还给了葡萄牙。

另一方面，路易十四从查理二世手中获得了位于英吉利海峡上、由克伦威尔攻取并一直加以利用的敦克尔克。查理二世割让此处虽是为了钱，但从制海权的角度来看，这种做法却是不可宽恕的。敦克尔克是英国进入法国的桥头堡，而对于法国来说，这儿却是私掠者们的天堂，是祸害英国在英吉利海峡和北海地区商业贸易的灾星。由于法国的海上实力日渐衰落，英国便通过一个又一个条约，迫使法国拆除了敦克尔克的防御工事——顺便说一句，敦克尔克正是赫赫有名的让·巴尔[7]以及法国其他主要私掠者的母港。

与此同时，柯尔贝尔这位路易十四手下最伟大、最睿智的大臣，正在孜孜不倦地建立起一套行政制度；通过增加国家财力并夯实国家财力的基础，比起国王那些华而不实的做法来说，这一制度应该更有可能让法国变得伟大而繁荣起来。这一时期，与柯尔贝尔对法国国内发展的那些具体政策并无关系，他只是慎重地关注了偶尔提及到的农业生产和工业生产；但在海上，法国却很快开始实施一种巧妙地侵袭荷、英两国海运与贸易的政策，并随即招来了这两个国家的不满。法国成立了许多大型的贸易公司，使得法国的商业贸易扩张到了波罗的海、黎凡特以及东、西印度群岛；海关法规进行了修订，目的是刺激法国的制造业，并允许货物存储在大型港口的保税仓库里——法国希望通过这些措施，让本国取代荷兰而成为“欧洲大货栈”，因为法国的地理位置极适合于让它成为这样的角色；而对外国船只征收吨位税、对国内建造的船只进行直接补贴，以及制定细致而严厉的殖民法令，让法国船只垄断与各殖民地之间的贸易往来，这些措施结合起来，都刺激了法国商业贸易的发展和壮大。英国马上就进行了报复；荷兰人受到的威胁更为严重，因为他们的海外贸易规模较大，国内资源也较少，可他们却只是抗议了一阵子；不过，3年之后他们也采取了报复行动。柯尔贝尔坚信，法国成为一个真正的生产国之后，就会具有极大的优势，即便是成为一个潜在的生产国也是如此，所以他毫不担心，继续平稳地沿着业已制定的贪婪道路走下去；一旦建立起规模庞大的商船运输业，就会为军事航运奠定广泛的基础——事实上，该国采取的措施此时正迫使军事航运以更快的速度发展着。法国迅速繁荣起来了。12年之后，法国的各行各业便都欣欣向荣了；而在柯尔贝尔刚刚接管财政和海洋事务之初，各行各业却还是乱成一团呢。

“在他的治下，”一位法国历史学家如是说道，“法国和平地发展起来，就像过去通过战争壮大起来一样……他老练地挑起的关税和补贴冲突，既有助于将荷兰曾经用牺牲他国利益的办法而僭取的贸易和海洋实力上的过度增长，降低到合理的限度内；也有助于遏制英国，因为英国当时正急于从荷兰手中，用一种严重威胁整个欧洲的方式来夺取海上霸权。在欧洲和美洲保持和平状态，似乎符合法国的利益；但一种神秘的召唤，即过去与未来合二为一的召唤，却要求法国在别的沿海地区采取军事行动。”

这种召唤，从位列世界伟人之一的莱布尼茨[8]口中表达了出来；他向路易十四指出，将法国的兵力转而针对埃及，会让法国在称霸地中海地区、掌控东方贸易两个方面击败荷兰，并且效果会比最成功的陆上大捷都好；而在保持好国内迫切需要之和平局势的同时，这也会为法国建立起制海权，从而确保法国在欧洲的优势。这次请愿，要求路易十四不再在欧洲大陆上追求荣耀，转而在拥有制海权这个方面去寻求法国更为持久的辉煌；多亏了柯尔贝尔的才干，此时建立制海权的各种要素，都已握在了路易十四的手中。100年过后，拿破仑这位比路易十四更加伟大的人，又试图让法国按照莱布尼茨所指出的那条道路走下去；可他却不像路易十四，并没有一支可以担当上述重任的海军。当本书所述之历史到达莱布尼茨提出这一建议的重大时刻时，我们会更加完整地说明这一建议的内容；此时，路易十四治下的法国和法国海军都处于效率的巅峰，他正站在一个分岔口上，之后便选择了一条让法国不会成为海洋大国的道路。导致柯尔贝尔去世并且摧毁了法国繁荣之势的这一决定，影响到了后来一代又一代的法国人；因为英国庞大的海军通过一场又一场战争横扫了各个海域，通过种种倾尽全力的争夺，保证了这个岛国财力的持续增长，同时榨干了法国贸易业的外部资源，并使法国人民遭受了相应的不幸。开始于路易十四时期的这种错误方针，还使得在下一任国王统治的时期，法国在印度群岛的殖民贸易事业开始变得前途黯淡起来。

在此期间，虽说英国和荷兰这两个海洋国家都认为法国靠不住，但它们之间的积怨却也越来越深、越来越多；这种积怨在查理二世的大力推动下，最终导致了战争。两国积怨的真正原因，在于商业贸易上的猜忌；而这种矛盾，又直接源于两国贸易公司之间的摩擦。两国的敌对行动，开始于非洲西海岸；1664年，一支英国舰队在当地攻下了荷兰的数个军事驻地之后，开始驶向新阿姆斯特丹（即如今的纽约），并且攻占了该地。这些战事都发生在1665年2月两国正式宣战之前。这次战争，在英国国内无疑是尽人皆知的；而英国民众的反应，则从蒙克的话可以看出来——据闻，蒙克曾经这样说道：“这个原因也好，那个原因也好，又有什么关系呢？我们想要的，就是荷兰现在所拥有的、更多的贸易。”我们也没有什么理由来怀疑，尽管诸贸易公司有着种种要求，但荷兰共和国政府应当是巴不得免去这场战争的；当时该国政府的首脑是个能力出众的人，很清醒地认识到了他们夹在英、法两国之间的那种微妙形势。然而，他们却根据1662年签订的一份防御条约，要求法国支援。路易十四虽说批准进行支援，却是极不情愿的；而实际上，当时仍然羽翼未丰的法国海军也没有起到什么作用。

英、荷两个海洋国家之间的这场战争，完全是在海上进行的，并且具备所有此种海战的共同特征。两国间进行了3次大规模的海战——第一次是1665年6月13日发生在诺福克海岸的洛斯托夫特海战；第二次是史称多佛海峡的“四日海战”，而法国史学家则常常称之为加来海峡的“四日海战”，从1666年6月11日一直持续到了14日；第三次则是同年8月4日在北福兰海域发生的海战。在其中的第一次和第三次海战中，英军都大获全胜；而在第二次海战中，优势却在荷兰这一方。我们只会详细地描述这一场战斗，因为只有此次海战才有全面、连贯的记述，才能够清楚、准确地说明其战术。跟那些有点儿老式的战术运动的详细情况相比，这几次海战具有一些值得关注的地方，更能普遍地适用于如今的形势。

在洛斯托夫特海域进行的第一场战斗中，原非水兵而是骑兵将领的荷兰海军司令奥普丹，似乎有着明确的作战命令；可他却没有被授予一个作战总指挥所应有的那种自由裁量权。如此牵制战场或海上指挥官的做法，是内阁政府中最为常见的恶行之一，通常都会带来灾难性的后果。图维尔是路易十四手下最杰出的一位舰队司令，就是因为政府掣肘，才不得不违背自己的判断，拿整个法国海军去冒险；而100年之后，一支大型的法国舰队也因为英国舰队司令基斯服从其直接上司的紧急命令而逃过了一劫——当时，基斯的直接上级因病而留在港内，没有出海。

在洛斯托夫特海战中，荷兰的先头部队被击退了；不久之后，在奥普丹亲率的中锋舰队中，有位资历较浅的将领牺牲了，全舰水兵便都惊慌失措，从军官们手中夺取了该舰的指挥权，并率该舰退出了战斗。接着，又有12艘或13艘舰船随之撤离了，在荷军的战线上留下了一个大大的缺口。这一事件表明，正如之前已经指出的那样，荷兰舰队的纪律和官兵的士气都不高；尽管荷兰这个民族有着良好的战斗素质，并且尽管荷兰舰队中的优秀水兵人数很可能多过英国海军官兵，但这些都于事无补。荷兰人天生的毅力和英雄气概，并不能完整地带来职业自豪感和军事荣誉感，而这种职业自豪感和军事荣誉感，则正是那些健全的军事制度所要鼓励实现的目标。在这个问题上，如今美国的民心几乎全都是茫然一片；而在手中有枪的个人勇气与全面的军事效率之间，却并没有什么中间阶段。

奥普丹看到战斗不利于自己之后，似乎也开始感到绝望了。他试图抓住英军的总司令；此日的英军总司令，正是英王的弟弟约克公爵。奥普丹非但没能抓住约克公爵，而且在接下来孤注一掷的殊死战斗中，他的座舰又被炸坏了。旋即，3艘荷兰军舰——据另一份记录称，是4艘荷兰军舰——彼此相撞，然后就被一艘火攻船给烧毁了；不久后，又有3或4艘落了单的军舰遭遇了与此相同的命运。此时，荷兰舰队已经乱成一团，只得在范·特龙普的掩护下撤退——这个范·特龙普，正是荷兰共和国时期曾率领舰队通过英吉利海峡，并在桅顶悬挂金雀花的那位有名的原海军将领的儿子。

在此役中我们可以看到，火攻船发挥了极为显著的作用，比在1653年那场战争中发挥的作用更为明显，尽管在这两个时期，火攻船都只是整个舰队的附属武器。从表面来看，火攻船的作用与现代战争中鱼雷巡洋舰的作用有着明显的相似之处。它们在攻击时都具有令人觉得可怖的特点，在建造时船体尺寸都相对较小，并且进攻时都极大地考验着攻击者的神经，这些就是两者主要的相似之处；而它们的重大差异，一是现代的鱼雷巡洋舰操纵起来相对更有把握——这一点，在一定程度上来说，足以媲美铁甲舰船具有胜过原来的战列舰的那种相同的优势；二是鱼雷的瞬间杀伤力，因为鱼雷发射之后，要么击不中，要么便是一击而中，而火攻船则需要时间才能实现目标——但在这两种情形下，开火的目标都是彻底摧毁敌舰，而不是仅仅使之受损或者用其他的方式将其削弱。充分认识到火攻船的特点，认识到它们在什么样的环境下威力最大，并且认识到导致它们销声匿迹的原因，可能会有助于各国进行决策，以便判断纯粹的鱼雷巡洋舰是不是一种注定会在舰队中存续下去的武器。

一位曾经研究过法国海军历史记载的法国军官称，火攻船是在1636年作为武器编入舰队而首次出现的。

“无论是为火攻而特意建造的，还是用别的船只改造成符合其特定用途的，它们都会安装一种特殊的设备。命令则会按照火攻船舰长的级别，下达给并非贵族的那些军官。一艘火攻船上，有5名下级军官和25名水兵。由于其帆桁上总是安放着多爪锚，敌人很容易辨认出来，所以在18世纪早期，人们认为火攻船的用处越来越少了。火攻船最终消失的原因，一方面，在于它们既拖累了整个舰队的速度，也是因为它们使得舰队的战术机动变得很复杂，由于军舰建造得越来越大，所以它们与火攻船的协同作战也变得日益困难了。另一方面，人们也已放弃了用火攻船与军舰联合起来形成数个战斗群、每个群都配备全部攻防武器的那种观念。迎风展开战斗队形，将火攻船置于离敌舰最远那一侧达半里格的第二防线，这样的阵形使得火攻船越发不适合于发挥它们的作用了。1704年马拉加海战之后立即起草的官方作战计划，表明是保罗·何斯德规定将火攻船部署于此处的。最终，由于炮弹能让敌舰更有可能、也更快速地燃烧起来，并在我们所论述的这一时期被运用到了军舰上，从而给了火攻船最后一击；尽管直到过后很久，各国才开始在军舰上普遍使用炮弹。”

熟悉我们这个时代与舰队战术和武器装备相关的那些理论和论述的人，从这一段关于早已过时的火攻船的简短介绍中，便可以看出一些并不过时的观点来。火攻船从舰队中消失，是因为“它拖累了舰队的速度”。在恶劣的天气条件下，船体小就必定意味着航行速度也相对较小。如今我们知道，海上风平浪静的时候，鱼雷艇的速度会从20节下降到15节，甚至更低，而速度在17节至19节的巡洋舰要么可以摆脱其他船只的追击，要么就可以远距离用机关枪和大炮的火力压制住它们。这些舰船都是海轮，“人们以为这种舰船在所有天气情况下都能在海上来去自如；不过据说，在大海波涛汹涌的时候登上一艘110英尺长的鱼雷艇，那可不是闹着玩的。热浪、嘈杂、发动机的快速转动，都会令人喘不过气来。做饭烧菜似乎根本就不可能，并且据说，就算饭菜做得再可口，也没有几个人能够吃好。在这样的条件之下，船只又在快速航行，所以要想得到必要的休息，是难如登天的。”因此，人们就必须建造出体积更大的舰船才行；不过，除非将鱼雷巡洋舰的船体加大到某种程度，使之完全能够配备其他武器装备，而不仅仅只是鱼雷，否则的话，在恶劣天气中速度降低这个因素就会依然存在。与火攻船一样，小型鱼雷巡洋舰也会拖累所属舰队的速度，也会让舰队的战术机动变得复杂起来。（1）我们知道，采用炮弹或燃烧弹发射的技术，加速了火攻船的绝迹；所以对于深海作战来说，将鱼雷艇变成一种更大型的舰船会终结单纯的鱼雷巡洋舰，这也不是不可能的。晚至美国内战时期，火攻船一直都被继续用于攻击停泊着的舰队；而鱼雷艇在距其不远的范围内，也总是能发挥出威力。

前述摘录中提及了200年前海军实践的第三个阶段，它涉及到现代论述中很常见的一种观念，即群组编队。人们曾经在一段时间里，接受了“将火攻船与军舰联合起来形成数个战斗群、每个群都配备全部攻防武器的观念”；因为我们得知，后来这种观念被人们舍弃了。但在如今的英国，人们却大多支持将舰队中的舰船编组成2、3或4个舰群，并专门让这些舰群一起作战的做法；在法国则不然，很多人都强烈地反对这样做。此种情况，由于双方提倡得都很巧妙，所以是不可能通过一个人的意见就能解决得了的，也只有当时间和经验已经可靠地检验过了之后，这个问题才能尘埃落定。不过我们可以说，在一支井然有序的舰队里，有两种层次的指挥权，它们本身都是正常而且必要的，既不能废止，也不能无视；这就是整支舰队的指挥权，以及每艘舰船本身的指挥权。当一支舰队过于庞大，一个人指挥不了的时候，这支舰队就得再进行拆分，而在激烈的战斗中，这支舰队实际上就变成了两支协同作战以达到同一目标的舰队了；正因为如此，纳尔逊在特拉法尔加海战中才下了一道庄严的命令，说：“在我的作战意图传达给他之后，副司令”（注意“之后”这个词的实质，它有效地保护了总司令和副司令各自的职权）“对其所率部队具有完全的指挥权，可以对敌发动攻击，可以继续追击，直至俘虏或摧毁敌军。”

如今铁甲舰船的大小和造价，使得舰队的数量不太可能多到需要再进行拆分的程度了；不过，无论舰队是多是少，都不会影响到对群组编队问题的决策。只要看一看这种理论中的基本原则，不去考虑前面提到的、从战术角度来看特定编队并不灵活的方面，那么这个问题就成了：在海军司令的正常指挥权和各个舰长的正常指挥权之间，应不应该增加第三种人工机制，使之一方面能够部分地代行最高指挥权，另一方面又能部分地约束各舰指挥官的自由裁量权呢？而进行支援时尤其应当倚赖特殊舰船的这种狭隘原则，又带来了另一个难题，那就是：在无法再看见信号的时候，一名舰长对于自己所率舰船的职责，以及对于整支舰队所负的职责，会因他执行对特殊舰船所负有的某些职责而变得复杂起来；这些特殊舰船，必须能够及时让他想起、并且让他觉得必须极其重视才行。群组编队阵法在过去有幸得到了实验，但还未经过实践检验就销声匿迹了；这种阵法是否会以其复兴之后的形式继续存在下去，时间会给出答案的。在放弃这个话题之前，我们可以这么说，作为一种航行次序，松散的群组编队相当于陆军在行军时的便步行军，还是具有某些优势的；因为这样既可以保持某种次序，又无需严格、准确地坚守自己的位置——夜以继日地保持好自己的位置，对舰长和驾驶人员来说，都必定是一种极大的压力。然而，只有一支舰队达到了高超的战术精度之后，才能允许它保持此种航行秩序。

再回到火攻船和鱼雷艇的问题上来。人们常说，后者的作用从双方舰队的混战中可以看出来，因为这种混战，往往会在两支舰队当中猛然地撕开数个缺口。而在战火纷飞、乱成一团的这个时刻，鱼雷艇的机会便来了。这种说法听起来自然貌似很有道理，并且鱼雷艇自然也有着火攻船所不具备的机动能力。然而，两支舰队的混战，并非最有利于火攻船的条件。在此，我将引述另一位法国将领的话，他在前不久的一份杂志上论述了英、荷两国之间的那些海战。他说：

“1652年战争期间的多次混战当中，火攻船都没有直接参战，或者参战次数几近于零；而分舰队机动中刚刚实现的整齐划一，却似乎并未妨碍火攻船的直接作战，反而是对其有利的。在加来海峡的洛斯托夫特海战以及北福兰海战中，火攻船都发挥了极其重要的作用。多亏了那些战列舰保持着良好的秩序，这些火攻船事实上才能得到火炮更好的掩护，才能比以前得到更加有效的指挥，从而实现其明确而坚定的目的。”

在1652年的这场混战当中，火攻船却“可以说是单独作战，随机地寻找敌舰来进行攻击，冒着犯下错误的危险，毫无掩护地暴露在敌舰炮火之下，被敌舰击沉或者烧毁几成定局。如今，在1665年，一切却都迥然不同了。火攻船的目标，已经明确地指出来了；火攻船知道自己的目标是哪艘敌舰，可以轻而易举地尾随目标，进入它在敌方阵线相对固定的战位。另一方面，火攻船这一方的舰船，都不会看不到它。它们会尽量地伴随在其左右，用自己的火炮掩护它，直到它到达自己的目标位置，并且一旦认识到火攻无果，就会在它遭到攻击和着火之前，让它撤出战斗。显然，在这些条件之下，火攻船的行动虽说一向都没有什么把握（不可能有别的指望），却获得了更多成功的机会。”这些颇具启发性的话语，或许还需恰当地补充一点，那就是当敌舰乱成一团而己方秩序井然的时候，也是开始绝地反击的最佳时机。接下来，作者继续探索火攻船销声匿迹的原因：

“在此我们看到，火攻船的重要性达到了顶峰。这种重要性是会下降的，而在下述情况下，火攻船本身就不会再出海参战，从而退出历史舞台了：待海军的火炮更加完善，使得火炮射程更远、射击更精确、速度更快了之后（2）；当外形更加完美、更易操纵、具有更多更平稳动力的那些帆船因为速度更快、机动性更好，因而应当差不多有十足把握避开敌方火攻船的时候；最后，当舰船由一种战术的基本原则所引领，既灵巧又谨慎，而这种战术在100年后的整个美国独立战争期间都大行其道，当这些舰队为了不危及到其战斗序列那种完美的整齐划一而避免扎成一堆，并让大炮独自来决定战斗结局的时候。”

在这段论述中，作者考虑到了一个主要的特点；这个主要特点，在协助火攻船实施作战行动的同时，也让1665年的这场战争在海军战术史上具有了独特的重要性。在这场战争中，我们首次看到了迎风展开的战线，这种阵法无疑就是舰队所采用的作战序列。很显然，当舰队的舰船数量达到80艘至100艘之后——当时的舰队规模常常如此——这样的战线，从舰船队列和间隔这两个要点来看，编队都是极不完善的；不过，无论在实施过程中有着什么样的缺陷，其总体目标都是很明确的。开发出这种战阵的功劳，人们通常都认为应当归于詹姆士二世之后的约克公爵；不过，这种进步应当归因于何人，对如今的海军将领来说，跟拥有侧舷排炮的大型帆船问世之后过了很久，人们才开始系统地采用最能发挥出整个舰队威力、以便相互支援的战斗序列这一问题相比，根本就不重要了。由于掌握了这个问题的基本要素，又有最终实现的结果，所以对于我们而言，这一结果似乎就相当简单，差不多是不言而喻的了。那么，为什么当时那些能人花了那么久的时间，才得出了这一结果呢？个中原因——其中也含有如今的海军将领可以汲取的教训——与使得此时的作战序列如此没有把握的原因，无疑是相同的；也就是说，在荷兰人最终遭遇英国人、两者在海洋上棋逢对手之前，战争的必要性都并没有迫使人们下定决心。导致出现作战队形的那种理念脉络，既清晰，又合乎逻辑。尽管水兵都相当熟悉这一点，但此处我们还是要用上面那位作者的话加以说明，因为这位作者的阐述，具有一种纯属法国式的简洁性与准确性：

“随着军舰作战力量的提升，随着军舰进行航海与作战的能力日趋完善起来，人们利用军舰来作战的技术也有了同样的进步……由于海军的战术机动变得越来越巧妙，所以海军的重要性也日益增加了。为了实施这些战术机动，海军就必须拥有一个基地，使得它可以从此处出发，之后再返回此处。一支军事舰队，必须时刻准备着遭遇敌人；因此，从逻辑上来看，进行海军战术机动的这种舰队的出发之地，就必定是战斗编队。如今，自从桨帆船消失之后，几乎所有的火炮都是安放在战舰的两侧。因此，必须并且一向都是将船体一侧转向敌人。另一方面，敌舰必须时时能够看到，决不能被友舰所遮挡才行。只有一种编队，能够让同一支舰队的所有舰船都充分地满足这些条件。此种编队，就是纵列排阵（即排成纵队）。因此，这种纵队就不得不成了唯一的战斗序列，并成为了所有舰队战术的基础。要想让这种战斗序列、让这种窄长的纵列炮阵不至于在某个薄弱之处受损或断裂，那么我们同时必须确保，舰队中所有船只的兵力就算不是完全相等，至少其两侧的兵力要同样强大才行。因此，合乎逻辑的结论就是，一旦纵列排阵最终变成了战斗序列，那么就已表明了‘纵列当中’那些船只——它们注定要编入其中——与派作其他用场的轻型舰船之间的差异。”

倘若在这些原因之外，再加上那些使得把迎风展开的队形当成战斗队列的理由，那我们就算充分弄懂这个问题了。不过，此种推理过程在250年前和现在一样清晰，当时的人怎么花了那么久才弄明白呢？毫无疑问，原因部分在于，以前的种种传统——在那个时代，就是用桨帆船作战的传统——禁锢并搅混了人们的思维；而主要原因，则是人们太过懒惰，以至于无法找出当时形势的基本事实，并且无法以这些事实为基础，往上形成正确的作战理论。法国海军司令拉布鲁斯在1840年写下的话语，是一个不可多得的、敏锐地认识到形势发生了根本变化并且预计到了结果的例子，故极具启发意义。“由于有了蒸汽动力，”他写道，“舰船便能以很快的速度向各个方向移动；因此，人们可能、事实上也必然会像以前那样，用碰撞来取代抛射武器，并且打消掉进行巧妙机动的念头。撞角既有利于提高速度，同时又不会毁掉一艘船的航海功用。一旦某个大国采用了这种可怕的武器，其他国家便只能接受这种做法，忍受技不如人之痛了；这样一来，海战便会变成撞角对撞角的战斗。”尽管容忍毫无限制地使用法国海军所发明的撞角，把撞角当作当时最厉害的武器，但我们不妨把上面这段简短的论述，当成是对未来的战斗序列进行研究时应当加以解决的方式的一个例子。一位法国作家在评论拉布鲁斯的文章时称：

“从1638年建造‘皇冠’号之日起，到1665年这短短的27年，并不足以让我们的先辈从适用于桨帆船的战术横阵过渡到战术纵阵。我们自己都花了29年，从第一艘汽轮进入我国海军服役的1830年始，到通过建造‘索尔费里诺’号和‘马真塔’号而确定应用撞角战术的1859年，才在相反的方向实现了一次彻底的变革；因此，真理确实是不会轻易地被人们理解的……这种转变之所以并不是突然之间发生的，原因不但在于新的舰船需要时间才能建造和装备起来，而且说来可悲，最主要的原因还是这种新的驱动力所能带来的必然结果并未引起大多数的人注意。”

现在，我们再来看一看1666年6月那场名不虚传的“四日海战”；我们对于此战之所以需要特别注意，原因不仅在于双方投入作战的舰船数量众多，也不仅仅在于参战官兵具有非凡的耐力，使得一场白热化的海战持续进行了这么多天，还在于参战双方的海军总司令——蒙克和德·鲁伊特——都是两国在17世纪分别培养出来的最杰出的水兵，或者更准确一点来说，都是最杰出的海上指挥官。在英国海军史册上，蒙克的地位可能稍逊于布雷克；但世人却公认，德·鲁伊特不但是当时荷兰海军中最重要的人物，也是那个时代所有海军将领中的佼佼者。下面将要说明的内容，主要选自近一期《海洋和殖民杂志》中所发表的一封信件；这是一位曾在德·鲁伊特座舰上当志愿兵的荷兰绅士写给一位法国朋友的信，最近才被发现。此信赏心悦目，叙述清晰、可信——在记载很久以前那些战斗的史料中，通常是看不到如此上乘的材料的；而我们在《基申伯爵回忆录》中看到的内容，也证实了前者所述的主要细节，从而大大增加了此信的可信度——基申伯爵当时也是该舰队中的一名志愿兵，在他所属的那艘军舰被一艘火攻船摧毁之后，他被派到了德·鲁伊特的船上。遗憾的是，这两份材料中都使用了一些共同的说法，从而有损于这种额外的快感；将它们进行比较之后，结果表明我们不能认为这两份材料是彼此独立的。然而，二者还是存在着一些内在的不同点，使得这两种记述有可能是由不同的目击者记录下来的；可能是他们对各自的说法进行了比较和订正之后，才邮寄给朋友或者写在日记上的。

两支舰队的舰船数量分别是：英国大约有80艘，荷兰大约有100艘；不过，英国的许多舰船船体都比较大，在很大程度上弥补了兵力不平等所带来的劣势。战斗马上就要打响的时候，伦敦的英国政府却犯下了一个重大的战略错误。英王得知，一支小型的法国舰队正从大西洋上赶来，准备加入荷兰一方作战。他马上将舰队一分为二，由鲁珀特王子率20艘舰船向西迎击法军，余下的军舰则由蒙克统率，向东进击荷兰海军。

英国舰队当时有可能受到两面夹击，这种局面会对指挥官产生一种最为微妙的诱惑。像英王查理二世所做的那样，将自己的兵力一分为二来应对两方之敌，这种冲动往往是很强烈的；不过，除非自己拥有压倒性的优势兵力，否则这种做法就是错误的，会让两支兵力分别被敌人打败，正如我们将要看到的那样，在此战中确实出现了这样的结果。最初两天的战斗，给蒙克所率的那支兵力较强的舰队带来了灾难性的后果，所以他不得不撤向鲁珀特王子所率舰队；很有可能，是后者适时回师，才使得英军舰队免遭重大损失，或者说，至少没有让敌人将英国舰队堵在自己的港口里。140年后，在特拉法尔加海战爆发之前的比斯开湾海战这场激动人心的战略豪赌中，英国海军司令康华里又犯了与此一模一样的错误，将所率舰队分成了兵力对等的两支舰队，使它们之间相距遥远，无法彼此支援；当时，拿破仑把康华里的做法归结为一种显而易见的愚蠢。所以，这种教训世世代代都是相同的。

荷兰人本已借着顺向的东风，驶向了英国海岸，但后来风向却转为西南，天色阴暗下来，风力也增强了；于是，德·鲁伊特为了不让舰队被风吹得太远，就在敦克尔克和唐斯锚地之间泊了锚。接着，荷兰舰队便头朝西南泊在海面上，右翼为先锋；而按照正常顺序指挥着后卫舰队的特龙普一部，则位于左翼。由于某种原因，这支左翼舰队大部分都处于上风向，鲁伊特所率的中央舰队则处于下风向，而右翼或者说前锋舰队又处在中央舰队的下风向。这就是荷兰舰队在1666年6月11日白天的阵势；尽管没有明确说出来，但从史料记载的大意来看，当时荷兰舰队的秩序可能保持得并不好。

这天上午，同样处于泊锚状态的蒙克，看出了荷兰舰队处于下风向；尽管兵力数量远不如敌军，但他还是决定立即发起攻击，希望通过保持风向优势，自己能够尽力一搏，取得迄今为止的最佳战绩。因此，他沿着荷兰舰队阵线，右舷抢风摆阵，将右翼和中央舰队置于大炮射程之外，直至他横过来与左翼的特龙普舰队并排。当时，蒙克能够完全掌控的战舰有35艘；不过，其后翼却已散开，掉了队——纵列过长时，是经常会出现这种情况的。接下来，他便率领这35艘战舰，迎风满舵，朝特龙普舰队冲去——此时，特龙普的舰队已经砍断缆绳，沿同一方向张帆起航了；这样一来，交战的这两支舰队便都是朝着法国海岸，而海风则是侧着刮，使得英国人无法使用下层甲板上的火炮。荷兰人的后翼也脱离了中央舰队，虽说也随之进行了机动，但因处于下风位置如此遥远的地方，一时半会儿根本就无法投入战斗。就是在这段时间里，一艘大型的荷兰军舰因为脱离了自己所属的舰队而被敌军点着了火，烧了起来；这艘战舰，无疑就是基申伯爵服役的那条船。

随着向敦克尔克靠近，英国舰队散了开来，很可能全都散开了；因为在向北和向西返回的途中，英军原本的前锋舰队遇上了鲁伊特亲自指挥的荷兰中央舰队，并遭到了后者的痛击。这种噩运，本来是更有可能由后翼来承受的；它还表明，同时机动让整个舰队的摆阵顺序调转过来了；因此，参战舰船自然被落在了下风位置，从而使得鲁伊特能够追上它们。两艘英军旗舰在此失去了作战能力，遭到了重创；另一艘叫“敏捷”号的军舰，则在其年仅27岁的舰长牺牲之后，降下旗帜投降了。“值得高度赞赏的，”一位当代史学家曾如此说道，“是海军中将伯克利的殊死决心；尽管他脱离了舰队纵列，为敌舰所包围，无数手下都已牺牲，他的舰船动弹不得，敌人也从两侧纷纷登船，可他却继续孤身奋战，亲手杀死了数名敌人，并且拒绝投降；直到最后，他的咽喉被一颗子弹击中，他才退回船长室——后来，人们发现他死在船长室里，躺在一张桌子上，全身上下都被自己的鲜血染红了。”尽管这样做极具英雄气概，但结局更为幸运的，却是同样被拦截的另一位英军舰长；这位舰长的作战经历，虽说没有什么特别的启发意义，却值得我们引述，来生动地描述当时的场景——这些场景，在那个时代的激烈战斗中很快就被人们忘记了——也能给枯燥无味的战斗叙述过程，增添一丝丝情调。

“由于很快就完全失去了作战能力，所以敌军的一艘火攻船用锚钩住了它的右舷后部；然而，在该船副将那几乎令人难以置信的努力下，它竟然摆脱了——这位副将在火海中解开了敌舰的多爪锚，然后又毫发无损地回到了自己的船上。荷兰人一心想要置这艘运气不好的军舰于死地，便再次掷锚，钩住了它的左舷，并且比上一次钩得要牢固得多；船帆马上就着火了，船上的官兵都惊恐万分，其中差不多有50人跳下了海。舰长约翰·哈曼勋爵看到了这种混乱情况，便拔出剑来，跑到留在船上的人中间，威胁说谁敢带头弃船，谁敢不尽力灭火，便立即处死。这样一来，船员们便纷纷回到自己的岗位上，控制住了火势；但是，由于船上的缆索已经烧了好久，所以一根上桅横桁掉了下来，把约翰勋爵的一条腿砸断了。在危险变得越来越严重的过程中，敌军的第三艘火攻船又准备钩住这艘船，不过还没等它钩住，就被炮火击沉了。此时，荷兰的海军中将埃弗顿率军逼近，提出让该船投降；可约翰勋爵回答道：‘不，不，还没有到那一步，’然后就舷炮齐射，结果了这位荷兰指挥官，于是别的敌舰便纷纷转向逃走了。”

因此，我们一直关注的这种记述称，英国损失了两艘旗舰，其中有一艘是被火攻船烧毁的，这一说法就是合情合理的了。“英军的主舰继续左舷抢风航行，并且，”这位作者又说，“随着夜幕降临，我们看到，它自豪地带领着纵列舰队驶过了北荷兰和西兰两支小型舰队（实际上是后卫舰队，而原本应是前锋），这两支小型舰队由于都处在下风位置，所以从当天中午直到此时，一直都未能赶上敌人。”作为一种大战术，蒙克冒险进攻的意义是很明显的，并且与纳尔逊在尼罗河河口之战中采取的战术极为相似。他敏锐地捕捉到了荷兰战阵的弱点，然后如此这般地对一支兵力大大优于己方的敌军发起攻击，使得敌军中只有一部分能够参与作战；尽管英军的实际损失比敌方更为严重，但他们却获得了辉煌的声誉，从而必定在荷兰人心中留下了沉重的沮丧和怨恨之情。这位目击者继续描述道：“战事持续到了晚上10点钟，此时双方混战在一起，敌我难分，既有可能受到敌方的攻击，也有可能受到己方的攻击。有人会说，我方白天的胜利和英军的不幸，源于英国舰队过于分散，阵线拉得过长；倘若不是这样的话，我们绝不可能像此战中已经做到的那样，抄近路赶上它们。蒙克的失误，在于没有让所率舰船更好地抱成一团，”也就是说，让它们靠得更拢。这种说法是很公正的，但对蒙克的批评却是不公正的；如此之长的一列帆船，纵列中间出现缺口是在所难免的，而这也是蒙克主动出击时抓住的机会之一。

英军左舷抢风，迎着西风或西北风在岸边泊锚，第二天又返回继续战斗。此时，荷兰舰队已经排成正常序列左舷抢风、右翼领头，并且占了上风；而敌军则由于抢风航行能力较强、纪律也较严明，所以很快便夺得了风向上的优势。此日，英军投入了44艘舰船作战，荷兰则投入了大约80艘；正如前面已经说过的那样，许多英国舰船的船体都比较大。两支舰队相互对舷驶过，英军向风；但位于后翼的特龙普看到荷兰舰队的战阵摆得不成样子，其中的舰船排成了两、三列，互有重叠，从而挡住了彼此的火力，便指挥后翼舰队散开来，夺得了敌军前锋的上风；他之所以能够这样做，是因为舰队纵列拉得很长，还因为与荷兰舰阵平行的英军舰队是顺风航行。“就在此时，荷兰前锋舰队的两位海军将领拉开了彼此之间的距离，将自己的后卫暴露在英军面前。鲁伊特大吃一惊，试图阻止他们，却徒劳无用，所以觉得必须进行与之相同的机动，才能让他所率的舰队靠拢；不过，他在机动时保持了一定的秩序，让一些船只围在自己四周，之后，前锋舰队中便有一艘厌恶其顶头上司做法的军舰，加入了鲁伊特所率舰队。这样一来，特龙普便陷入了极大的危险之中，被英国人将他与他所率的舰队隔开来了（当然，首先是被他自己的行动，然后才是被前锋舰队的做法隔离开来的）；要不是鲁伊特看到形势紧急，迎风驶来支援，他就会被英军消灭了，”这样一来，前锋和中央舰队为了支援后翼而抢风回撤，加入了战斗。这让英军没法继续进攻特龙普了，否则就会被鲁伊特抢占上风；他们因为兵力大大不如对方，所以不能放弃上风。特龙普和先头部队中那几位下级将领的行为，虽说都表现出了不同程度的战斗精神，但都显示出荷兰的所有将领整体上缺乏服从命令的精神和军人的职业素质；而当时的英军，却并未出现此种迹象。

鲁伊特极其敏锐地感受到了其副将们的行为所暴露出来的问题，当“特龙普在这次局部行动之后，随即登上了他的旗舰。水兵们都向特龙普欢呼；可鲁伊特却说：‘现在可不是庆功的时候，而应当是悲痛的时候。’事实上，我们这一方的形势很不利，每支分舰队都是自行作战，毫无阵法可言，所有舰船都像羊群一样挤成一团，密得英军用40艘军舰就可以将他们完全包围起来。英军的秩序虽然极为井然，但不知何故，却没有充分利用这一优势。”至于其中的原因，无疑与经常阻碍帆船利用某种优势的原因是相同的——因为桅桁和索具受损而动弹不得，再说英军兵力太少，也不适于冒着风险果断行动。

这样一来，尽管不断受到英军的猛击，鲁伊特还是让其舰队重整了队形、排成了阵势；敌我两支舰队便再一次相向对舷而行，荷军处于下风位置，纵列末端便是鲁伊特的座舰。在经过英国舰队后翼的时候，他的座舰损失了主桅和主帆。一场局部交战过后，英军向西北方向的英国海岸避去，荷军则尾随追击；风向虽说仍是西南风，但风力却变小了。英军此时简直就是在撤退，而荷兰海军则追击了一整夜；鲁伊特的座舰因为受损严重而远远地落到了舰队后面，看都看不到了。

第三天，蒙克继续向西撤退。据英国史料记载，他焚毁了3艘失去了作战能力的舰船，提前遣走了那些受损极为严重的军舰，自己则率领那些虽说状况不同、却仍能作战的舰船断后；又据英国史料称，前者为28艘，后者为16艘。装备了90门火炮、属于英国舰队中船体最大、装备最精良军舰之一的“皇家王子”号，在戈勒普滩搁了浅，被特龙普俘虏了；但蒙克的撤退组织得相当稳当、相当有序，所以在其他方面并没有出现什么麻烦。这表明，荷兰军队的实力已经受损严重。傍晚时分，鲁珀特王子的舰队出现了；除了那些在战斗中受损的，英军舰队的所有舰船终于集结起来了。

接下来的第二天，海上又刮起了强劲的西南风，使得荷兰人占领了上风位置。英军此次并没有试图与敌军相向对舷航行，而是凭借其军舰的速度和灵巧，倒着驶向敌军。这样一来，参战船只全都是左舷抢风的那一纵列，英军则处于逆风位置。荷军火攻船的指挥非常糟糕，丝毫没有损伤英舰，而英军却烧毁了两艘敌舰。两支舰队就这样继续交火，轮流用舷炮猛攻对方，鏖战了两个小时，最后，英军舰队的大部分军舰都穿过了荷军的阵线。（3）此后，双方队形便都如一盘散沙了。“此时，”那位目击者说，“整个战场的景象令人称奇，因为无论是英军一方还是我方，所有军舰都是单独作战。但幸运的是，我方围在海军司令四周的那最大一部分舰船仍然是顺风，而同样追随其司令的英军最大一部分舰队则仍然处于逆风位置。这就是我方获胜而英军惨败的原因。我方海军司令率领着自己手下以及其他分舰队的35或40艘军舰，因为这些分舰队当时都七零八落，毫无队形可言。其余的荷兰舰船，则都不在他身边。前锋舰队的指挥官是范·内斯，他领着14艘舰船追击3或4艘英国军舰去了，这几艘英国军舰在满帆状态下，夺得了荷兰前锋舰队的上风位置。范·特龙普所率后翼分队则落入了下风，所以不得不一直跟在范·内斯后面（处于鲁伊特与英军主力的下风向），以便绕过英军的中央主力，重新与海军司令汇合。”德·鲁伊特与英军主力舰队进行了激烈的交锋，并且始终都是顺风攻击。特龙普率舰张起船帆，反超了范·内斯，然后再率领前锋舰队折回来；但由于之前一直都在折向英军主力的上风面，此时他已处于英军主力的下风向，所以无法再与处于上风向的鲁伊特汇合了。鲁伊特见此情景，便向周围的舰船发出信号，荷兰主力舰队便趁着当时风大，转成了顺风。“这样，一眨眼的工夫，我们就陷入了英军的包围之中；由于受到两面夹击，英军惊慌失措，眼睁睁地看着他们的整个阵形被战斗、被当时刮得正猛的大风打得七零八落。这是战斗最为激烈的时刻。我们看到，英军主帅的座舰落了单，脱离了他所率的舰队，只有一艘火攻船跟着。接着，他抢占了上风位置，穿过了北荷兰舰队，再次回到了向他集结过来的那15或20艘舰船的前头。”

这场伟大的海战就此结束了；从此战的某些方面来看，它也是有史以来在海上进行的最非凡的一场战斗。由于各种记载相互冲突，所以我们只能大致估计一下此战的结果。有一份相当公正的记载，称：“此战中，荷兰共和国折损了3名海军中将、2000名水兵和4艘战舰。英军的损失是，5000名水兵丧生、3000人被俘；此外，他们还损失了17艘军舰，其中有9艘是被胜利的荷兰一方俘虏了。”毫无疑问，英军的损失最为惨重；而出现这种惨败，无疑完全是由于最初的失误，不该将大量舰船派往另一个方向，以致削弱了整支舰队的力量。在有的时候，虽说是祸，也不得不派遣大型分队；但在此战中，却并不是非得如此。就算法国海军会前来支援，英国海军的正确做法，也应当是趁其盟军未到，而集中整支舰队的力量，给荷军以重击。这个教训，对于如今来说，跟过去一样适用。第二个教训，同样也适用于现在；这就是，必须建立起各种健全的军事制度，来向官兵灌输正确的军人情感、职业自豪感和纪律。英国人最初犯下的错误如此巨大，遭受的损失如此惨重，倘若不是蒙克的下属们斗志昂扬、技巧娴熟地执行他所制定的计划，倘若不是荷兰军队中鲁伊特的手下没有同样地支持他的话，那么，对于英军来说，后果无疑会严重得多。在英军进行机动的过程中，我们没有听说过有两位下属在关键时刻掉头逃跑的事情，也没听说过还有下属按捺不住、鲁莽地跑到敌方舰队另一侧这样的事情。他们的训练有素、他们的精密战术，在那时就已引起世人的注意了。法国的基申伯爵在目睹了这次“四日海战”之后，如此写道：

“英军在海战中的阵法之美，简直无与伦比。从来没有哪个纵队，有英国舰船所组成的纵列那样笔直；所以，他们能将所有的火炮都对准那些靠近的敌舰……他们就像是一列完全按照规则行动的铁骑，唯一的目标便是击退那些来犯之敌；而荷兰舰队在进军时，却像是一队争先恐后地离开队伍、并且各自单打独斗的散兵游勇。”

荷兰政府反对军费支出，没有尚武风气，并且长久以来因西班牙海军的衰落而轻易获得了多次胜利，所以任由该国的舰队堕落成为了一支仅仅是由武装商人所组成的乌合之众。在克伦威尔执政时期，该国海军形势达到了最严峻的地步。汲取了此次海战的教训之后，荷兰共和国虽说在一位明君的治下实施了许多改善之举，但还是没有取得全面的效果。

“在1666年，就像在1653年一样，”一位法国海军作家说，“战争的好运似乎一直都偏向于英国这一方。在两国所进行的三次大型海战中，英国获得了两次决定性的胜利；而第三次虽说是荷兰战胜，但结果也只是增加了英国海军的荣耀。这应归功于蒙克和鲁珀特的胆大心细、部分将领和舰长的才能以及他们手下海员和官兵的本领。荷兰共和国政府明智而坚定的努力，以及鲁伊特在经验和才能上都不可否认地拥有胜过所有敌手的优势，都无法弥补荷兰海军中部分将领的软弱或无能，也无法弥补他们的手下明显技不如人的劣势。”

正如之前所述，英国此时仍然留有克伦威尔铁腕治军、制度严明的痕迹；不过，这种影响正在日益弱化下去。第二次英荷战争爆发前，蒙克去世了，由皇室出身的鲁珀特很不恰当地代替了他的职位。宫廷的奢侈浪费，跟荷兰人的节俭一样，使得海军装备被削减了，而宫廷的腐败也像商人的漠不关心一样，使得海军丧失了纪律。6年之后，当两国舰队再度仇人相见的时候，这种影响就变得很明显了。

当时，各国海军都有一个众所周知的特点，需要顺带说一说，因为人们一向或者说通常都看不到这种特点的意义和价值。各支舰队和各艘军舰，通常都是交由陆军官兵、交由不熟悉海洋的军人来指挥，他们对如何操纵船只一无所知，所以驾驶舰船的职责，又是由另一类军官来负责。仔细分析这些事实便可看出，这种做法使得作战指令与舰船机动指令之间明显地割裂开来了。这才是问题的实质；无论舰船以何种动力驱动，其基本原理都是一样的。此种制度既不方便又无效率，这在当时和如今都是显而易见的，所以这些事实的逻辑性便逐渐将这两种职能集中到了一类官兵身上，结果便成了人们通常都理解的现代“海军将领”。（4）可惜的是，在这种融合的过程中，人们却让一些重要性较低的职能占据了优势；于是，海军将领便开始对自己能够灵巧驾驭舰船的能力更感自豪，而不是以自己能够提升舰船的军事效率为傲了。这种对兵法不感兴趣的恶果，在上升到操纵舰队的高度——因为军事技巧在这方面的内容最多，而过去也最需要对这方面进行研究——之后，便变得极为明显了；不过，在单艘舰船的操纵上也是看得到此种恶果的。所以，尤其是在英国海军中，就出现了海员比军人更加自豪的现象。英国的海军将领考虑得更多的，是那种让他们更像是商船船长的方面，而不是那些让他们更像一个军人的方面。在法国海军中，这种恶果没有那么普遍，很可能是因为法国政府，尤其是专门担任军官职务的贵族阶层，更具尚武精神所致。那些交往的全都是军人、所有朋友都把军职视为绅士唯一之终生职业的人，对于船帆、索具的考虑，是不可能超过他们对于枪炮或者舰队的关注的。而英国的军官阶层，出身却并不一样。情况比麦考利[9]在他的一句名言中所说的更加复杂：“查理二世治下之海军中，既有水兵也有绅士；但水兵并非绅士，绅士亦非水兵。”问题并非是海军中有还是没有这样的绅士，而是在当时的环境下，绅士是整个社会中杰出的军事中坚这一事实；英荷战争之后，普通水兵便带着那种不同于淳朴勇猛的军人风气和精神，逐渐开始将绅士挤出了军队。甚至是“威廉三世时的海军司令赫伯特和拉塞尔这样的名门子弟，”霍克勋爵的传记作者说，“实际上也都出身于普通水兵，而他们也只有采取吃苦耐劳的水兵那种粗暴的方式，才能坚持下去。”让法国人作为水兵低人一等的这种相同的民族性格，却让英国水兵变成了优秀的军人；不是在英勇方面，而是在本领方面。直到今天，仍然存在着这种相同的趋势；在拉丁国家的海军中，人们对于舰船机动能力的指挥并不如对其作战能力那么关注。法国人性格中勤奋好学和有条有理的一面，往往也使得法国的将领，去用合乎逻辑的方式思考和阐述战术上的一些问题，以便让自己做好准备，让自己并非仅仅像一个普通水兵，而是像一个真正的军人那样来指挥舰队。美国革命战争的结果表明，尽管有一段被政府忽视的可叹历史，但起初便是军人的那些人，虽然机遇方面跟普通水兵一样，但在战术技能方面却要高他们一筹，并且实际上在指挥舰队时也比他们更优秀。前面我们已经指出了那种错误的理论，它使得法国舰队不是去粉碎敌军，而是去实现某种间接目标；但这并不会影响到军人在战术技能方面比普通水兵优秀的事实，只不过他们的战术技能，是被用于去实现错误的战略目标罢了。荷兰所募海军官兵的主要来源，并不是必然存在的；因为，尽管一位英国海军历史学者在1666年称，荷兰舰队中的绝大部分舰长都是富裕的市镇官员之子，让他们服役是出于共和执政时期的种种政治原因，所以他们都毫无经验可言，但当时法国最卓越的海军司令杜肯在1676年评价荷兰舰长们的严谨与能力时，却对他们大加赞扬，而很瞧不起法国的舰长。从多种迹象来看，原因可能是：这些舰长通常都是商船上的海员，并没有什么原始的尚武精神；但国家和民众的狂热使得他们对玩忽职守者的惩处极为严厉，似乎迫使这些并不缺乏最大之个人勇气的将领，使之具有了军人的忠诚与服从命令所必需的素质。他们在1672年的记录，已与1666年的情况大为不同了。

在最终结束讨论“四日海战”之前，我们不妨再来引述一下另一位史学家所下的结论：“这场血腥的‘四日海战’或者‘加来海峡之战’就是这样，它是现代最令人难以忘怀的一场海战；事实上，它之所以值得纪念，并不是因为此战的结局，而是因为此战不同阶段的形势，是因为双方参战人员交火时的猛烈，是因为战争领袖们的胆识与本领，也是因为它给海战赋予了新的特征。跟其他任何一场海战相比，此战都更加清晰地标志着我们从以前的作战方式发展到17世纪末期的战术作战这一过程。我们第一次可以像在一张平面图上进行描绘那样，看清交战双方实施的主要运动。荷兰海军与英国海军似乎都获得了一本战术教材和一整套旗语；或者说，起码也各有一套全面而准确的书面指令，来取代这一套旗语。我们认为，每位海军将领如今都可以完全指挥其手下的小型分舰队；即便是海军总司令，在战斗中也可以任意指挥舰队中不同的下属部门了。将此战与1652年发生的那一场场战斗相比，一个浅显的事实就会明明白白地呈现在您的面前：在此期间，海军战术已经发生了一场革命。

这些，就是让1665年海战不同于1652年战争的一些变化。在1665年这个时代，海军将领仍然认为顺风是所率舰队的一大优势；但从战术角度来看，顺风不再是舰队的第一要务，我们也可以说，它不再是舰队唯一的大事了。如今，一位海军将领首先是希望尽可能长久地让舰队保持良好而紧凑的阵形，以便在战斗中能够协同不同分舰队的机动。看看鲁伊特，在‘四日海战’的最后，他克服了巨大的困难才抢占了英军舰队的上风位置，可为了让己方舰队被敌军分隔开来的那两个部分汇合到一处，他便毫不犹豫地牺牲了这一优势。在后来的北福兰海战中，荷兰各支分舰队间存在巨大的缺口，而后翼也一直在拉大它与中央舰队的距离，因此鲁伊特才会痛惜犯下了此种失误，将这种失误归结为自己战败的主要原因。他在自己的正式报告中正是这样痛惜的，甚至还指控特龙普（他是鲁伊特的仇人）叛国或临阵脱逃——这种指控并不公正，但它仍然表明，从那以后，把散开的船只重新集结成一支阵形完整、整齐划一的舰队，在战斗中就具有极其重要的意义了。”

这一评论指出了海军的总体目标和趋向，从这个方面来说还是很中肯的；不过，从中得出的结论，却并不全面。

尽管在“四日海战”中受到重创，但两个月后，英国海军却又出现在海上，让荷兰人惊愕不已；于是，8月4日，两军在北福兰海域又进行了一场激烈的海战，最终使得荷兰海军惨败，并退回了该国沿海地区。英军尾随追击，并且攻进了荷兰的一处港口，摧毁了一支庞大的商船队和一个比较重要的城镇。到了1666年末，双方都不想再战，因为战争极大地损害了两国的贸易、削弱了两国海军的实力，会让法国的海上实力趁机日益强大起来。两国开始议和；可查理二世因为对荷兰共和国不怀好意，确信路易十四日益想要攫取西属尼德兰的野心会打破现存的荷、法同盟，还倚仗着荷兰在海上遭受了重重失败，因而目空一切地提出了苛刻的要求。为了支撑并维护这种做法，他本来应当保持好英国舰队因为获胜而大大得以提升了的威望才是；可他却没有这样做，因为国内政策和宫廷奢侈浪费所导致的贫困，使得查理二世任由海军衰落下去了；大量舰船退了役；并且，他还欣然采纳了一种与其吝啬相应的意见——这种意见，由于在海军历史上的各个时期都有人提倡，所以在此我们应当加以注意和声讨才行。这种观点，蒙克曾经强烈反对过，那就是：

“由于荷兰海军的军需补给全都倚赖于贸易，所以破坏其贸易最能激怒荷兰人，故国王陛下应当致力于此事；如此一来，既可有效地让荷兰人威风扫地，同时跟迄今为止每年夏季都必须装备如此强大之舰队的做法相比，也会降低英国实力的消耗……出于这些原因，英王做出了一项致命的决定，让大多数军舰退役，而只留下少量护卫舰进行巡逻。”

由于英国有着此种节俭战争的理论，所以前一年间曾力促测试了泰晤士河水深的荷兰省大议长德·威特，便派德·鲁伊特率领一支由60或70艘战列舰组成的舰队驶入了该河；1667年6月14日，这支舰队深入到了格雷夫森德，击毁了查塔姆和梅德威河中的船只，并且占领了希尔内斯港。从伦敦都可看到熊熊燃起的火光，而荷兰舰队直至月底都一直占领着泰晤士河河口。在这次紧跟着大瘟疫和伦敦大火[10]而来、雪上加霜式的打击之下，查理二世同意并于1667年7月31日与荷兰签订了和约，史称《布雷达和约》。此次战争影响最为深远的结果，便是荷兰将纽约和新泽西割让给了英国，从而使得英国在北美洲南北两方的各个殖民地都连成了一片。

在沿着当时历史的总进程继续往下论述之前，我们不妨再来思考一下导致英国在1667年遭受如此惨败的那种理论；也就是说，维持海上战争主要是为了掠夺敌人商业贸易的理论。这种只是保持少量快速巡洋舰，认为民族的贪婪之心可以支撑并配备私掠船，而无需直接损耗国家财力的办法，有着节俭经常能够表现出来的种种虚假的吸引力。不可否认，这种方法也给敌国的财力和繁荣带来了巨大的损害；并且从某种程度上来说，尽管敌国的商船在战争期间可以不光彩地悬挂他国旗帜来进行自保，但法国人所称的这种“游击战”——用我们自己的话来说，就是这种破坏贸易的行为——就算本身很成功，也必定会让别国政府感到极其难堪，并且会让该国民众感到担忧的。然而，这样的战争是不能单独进行的，用军事术语来说，就是必须得到支援才行；由于本身很脆弱、很短暂，所以是不可能远离大本营去作战的。这种大本营要么必须是本国海港，要么就必须是本国势力所及的某处牢固的前沿基地，无论是在岸上还是在海上，无论是一个遥远的属国，还是一支强大的舰队。倘若没有这样的支援，巡洋舰只能匆匆离开母港一点点远的距离，并且其打击力度虽说令人伤脑筋，但不可能是致命性的。将荷兰商船封锁在港内，并让阿姆斯特丹的大街小巷长满杂草的，并不是1667年的这种政策，而是1652年克伦威尔那支强大的战列舰舰队。由于牢记着当时的遭遇，所以荷兰维持了大量的舰队，熬过了两次旷日持久的战争；尽管商业贸易损失巨大，但他们还是打起精神，承受住了英、法两国的联合攻击。40年后，路易十四因为无计可施，也不得不转向查理二世所采取过的那种政策，通过节俭来进行应对。那时，正是让·巴尔、福尔班、迪盖-特鲁安、杜·卡斯以及其他著名法国私掠者横行的时代。法国海军中的常规舰队，在伟大的“西班牙王位继承战”（1702～1712年）中，差不多都从海上撤了回来。那位法国海军史学家曾称：

“由于无力更新海军的武器装备，路易十四便增加了交通比较繁忙的海域，尤其是英吉利海峡和日尔曼海（我们会注意到，这两处海域都离法国本土不远）上巡洋舰的数量。在这些地方，巡洋舰往往能够拦截或者阻挠运送兵力的舰船，以及无数运送各种补给装备的护卫舰。在属于世界贸易和政治中心地带的这些海域，巡洋舰总是有事可做的。尽管由于没有大型友舰伴随护卫，它们遇到过种种困难，但它们给（法国和西班牙）两国人民的事业都带来了好处。这些巡洋舰在面对英、荷这两个列强时，须有好的运气、胆大以及本领才行。我国的水兵并不缺少这三个条件；可在当时，他们的上司和舰长都是些什么人哪！”

而另一方面，英国的史学家尽管承认英国人民和英国贸易受到了这些巡洋舰的重创，还时不时苦涩地反思当时的行政情况，却一再提起国家整体上日益繁荣兴旺的情况，尤其是该国商业贸易日益繁荣起来的事实。相反，在上一次发生于1689年至1697年间的战争中，当法国派出大量舰队与英国争夺海洋霸权的时候，结果是多么的截然不同啊！这位英国史学家在谈到那个时代的时候，如此说道：

“至于我国的商业贸易，可以确定的是，我们的损失非但要比法国大得多——因为我国的商船数量也多得多，所以这一点可想而知——而且也要比我们在以前任何一次战争中遭受的损失大得多……这在很大程度上源于法国人的警惕性，他们是用海盗的方式来进行战争的。毫无疑问，总的来说，我国的贸易业受创极其严重，因为我国的许多商家都破产了。”

对于这一时期，麦考利是这样说的：“在1693年的数月间，英国与地中海地区的贸易几乎完全中断了。一艘从伦敦或阿姆斯特丹出发的商船，要是不加保护，是不可能逃过法国私掠者的登船洗劫，安全抵达海格力斯之柱[11]的；而用军舰进行护卫，也没法轻易做到。”为什么呢？因为英国海军的舰船都正忙于监视法国海军，而分散它们对付巡洋舰和私掠船的力量，正是贸易破坏战所必需的支援。一位法国历史学家在谈到同一时期（1696年）的英国时，说：“金融形势糟糕透顶；资金紧缺，海损保险只有30%,《航海法案》几近废止，而英国商船也堕落到了必须悬挂瑞典和丹麦国旗才能航行的地步。”半个世纪过后，由于长期忽视了海军，法国政府便再一次被迫用巡洋舰来进行战争。结局呢？首先，那位法国历史学家称：“自1756年6月至1760年6月，法国私掠者从英国手中俘虏了超过2500艘商船。在1761年，尽管法国可以说没有一条战舰在海上，尽管英国俘虏了我国240艘私掠船，但其他私掠船还是俘获了812艘商船。不过，”他接着说，“英国商船运输业的巨大增长，解释了他们能俘获如此之多战利品的原因。”换句话说，虽说被俘船只数不胜数，并且这种形势必定导致巨大的个人损失，引发民众广泛的不满情绪，但英国所遭受的这些损失，并未真正阻碍到该国以及整个社会的日益繁荣。那位英国史学家在谈到同一时期的时候，说：“当法国贸易几乎完蛋的时候，英国

的商船队却遍布了整个世界。该国的贸易，年年都在增长；战争所耗费的资金，因为该国的工业生产而赚了回来。英国商人总共拥有8000艘商船。”此外，在说明通过对外征服而将巨额金币掳入了这个王国的情况，随后总结战争所带来的结果时，他又称：“英国的贸易逐年增长；而在进行一场旷日持久、血腥非凡而代价高昂的战争的同时，还能出现这样一种全国繁荣的景象，世界上其他任何一个民族都未曾有过。”另一方面，那位法国海军历史学家在谈到这些战争的早期阶段时，也称：“英国的舰队所向无敌，在各个海域都通行无阻。我国的私掠船和单打独斗的巡洋舰，由于没有舰队护航来压制层出不穷的敌军，所以并没有蹦跶多久。有20000名法国水手被俘，投入了英国的监狱。”但是，尽管在美国革命战争中，法国重新采取了柯尔贝尔的政策以及路易十四早期的政策，在海上保持了数量庞大的作战舰队，可后来的结果，却再一次跟图维尔所处的那个时代没什么两样。然而，《年鉴》[12]或是忘记了、或是并不知道1693年的情况，而只记得后来历次战争中的辉煌，却称：“英国商船第一次不得不悬挂他国旗帜来自保了。”最后，在结束这一部分讨论的时候，我们可以这样说：法国拥有了马提尼克岛这样一个强大而遥远的属国，能够以此为基地来用巡洋舰作战了；而在“七年战争”中，以及后来的法兰西第一帝国期间，这儿和瓜达鲁佩则是无数私掠者的避难所。“英国海军部的记载中，提高了‘七年战争’最初那几年中英国在西印度群岛的损失，称有1400艘商船被俘或被毁。”于是，英国舰队开始进击并攻陷了这两个岛；这给法国贸易所造成的损失，比法国巡洋舰给英国贸易所造成的损失更加巨大，还粉碎了法国整个巡航作战的体系；但在1778年战争中，因为有数量庞大的舰队防守着这两个岛，所以它们一直都没有受到威胁。

前面我们一直都在研究一种纯粹的巡航作战的效果，以及进行战争的主要资源；这种战争并不倚赖于强大的舰队，只是倚赖于此种战争理论上所针对的、敌国在某一具体方面的力量——即敌国的贸易和整体财力。证据似乎表明，即便是对于其自身的特定目标而言，此种战争模式也是结果不定、令人担忧的，不过并不是致命的；可以说，这种战争模式只是导致了不必要的苦难。然而，这一政策对于整个战争总体目标的影响——政策是达到这些总体目标的手段之一，亦是这一总体目标的附属品——是什么呢？再者，这种政策对实行此种政策的民众又会产生什么样的影响呢？由于历史证据会时时详尽地呈现于我们面前，所以此处只需概括性地说一说即可。在查理二世统治时期，这种政策对英国的影响我们已经看到了——沿海地区遭敌侵犯，商船几乎就在首都的眼皮子底下被烧毁。在西班牙王位继承战中，由于英国的军事目标是控制西班牙，而法国则是采取巡航作战的办法来破坏其贸易，所以无人可敌的英、荷舰队防守着伊比利亚半岛沿岸地区，封锁了土伦港，不但迫使法国援军翻越比利牛斯山脉，还通过打通海上的交通干线，抵消了法国在地理上距战场很近的这一优势。两国舰队攻陷了直布罗陀、巴塞罗那和米诺卡岛，并且与奥地利陆军合作，一点一点地攻陷了土伦。在“七年战争”中，英国舰队攻陷——或者说是协助攻陷——了法国和西班牙所有最重要的殖民地，并且经常袭扰法国的沿海地区。美国革命战争没给我们提供什么教训，因为双方舰队差不多是势均力敌的。让美国人印象最为深刻的下一个例子，便是1812年战争。大家都知道，我国的私掠船遍布于各个海域，并且由于我国海军规模很小，因此这场战争基本上、并且事实上也只是一场巡航战争。除了在五大湖区，我国在其他时候还有没有过两艘军舰协同作战的情况，都是值得怀疑的。此次，一个相距遥远、一直被人轻视的敌人出其不意地出击，给英国贸易造成了重创，或许英国已经完全承认了；而另一方面，美国的巡逻舰得到了法国舰队的强大支援，因为法国的舰队规模或大或小，都遍布于从安特卫普到威尼斯等法兰西帝国所掌控的诸多港口，牵制着英国舰队，使它们不得不留在那些地方进行封锁；但是，待法兰西帝国一垮台，英国舰队能够腾出手来之后，我国的沿海地区便处处受侵了——切萨皮克湾被英军入侵并控制，两岸都受到了蹂躏；英军还沿波托马克河而上，并在华盛顿烧杀掳掠。尽管有一些小型舰队在进行着全面的防御，但北部边境一直都处在一种惶惶不安的形势之下；这些小型舰队虽说绝对力量很弱，但相对来说还是比较强大的。而在南方，英军沿密西西比河长驱直入，新奥尔良也是好不容易才得以保住的。和谈开始后，英国人对于美国使节的态度，也并不是那种觉得自己祖国受到了无法容忍之魔鬼所威胁的人的态度。而在近来的美国内战中，像“阿拉巴马”号与“萨姆特”号这样的巡洋舰及其僚舰，却又恢复了破坏贸易的传统做法。从这是一种实现总体目标的方式，并且是建立在有一支其他方面都很强大的海军的基础之上来看，此种做法是很恰当的；但我们不要指望，这些舰船在面对一个海洋大国的时候，会再次立下赫赫战功。首先，这些巡航得到了美国一种强大决心的支持，它决意不但要封锁南方各个主要的贸易中心，还要封锁沿海的每一处港口，从而只留下少量舰船需要进行追击；其次，就算有10艘那样的巡洋舰来对付1艘南方舰船，它们也不可能阻挡住邦联舰队在南方海域突破封锁，因为邦联舰队可以从海上深入到南部的每一个地方；第三，战争给个人和国家的各行各业所带来的直接或间接的、无可否认的损害（至于在作者看来，航运行业有多么重要，这一点就无需赘述了），一点儿也没有影响或者妨碍到战事。这些损害，倘若不加上其他的损害，更多的只是令人恼火，而非削弱了其实力。另一方面，就算不承认规模庞大的南方邦联舰队的作用，这样做难道就会强有力地改变或者加速出现那种无论如何都是必然的下场吗？作为一个海洋大国，当时的南方取代了法国在我们前面所研究的那些战争中原有的地位，而北方联邦的形势则与那时的英国相似；并且，与在法国一样，南部邦联中受苦的并不是哪一个阶层，而是政府和整个国家。并不是俘虏一些舰船或者护航队——无论是多是少——就能打垮一个国家的财力；只有掌握了海上霸权，迫使敌人无法在海上立足或是让敌人在海上有如丧家之犬，或者通过控制大部分公共海域，封锁敌人沿海地区进行贸易往来的交通要道，才能打垮它。这种霸权，只能在拥有强大的海军之后才能实现，但因为中立国的国旗如今具有强大的豁免权，所以海军（在广阔的大海上）已经不再像过去那样有力量了。两个海洋国家之间发生战争的时候，其中拥有强大制海权、希望摧毁敌国贸易的那个国家，是不太可能试图将“有效封锁”这个词按照当时最适合其利益的方式来阐述的；它也是不太可能声称自己舰船的速度和部署可以从很远的地方、用比以前更少的舰船来实施有效封锁的。这样一个问题，并非取决于交战双方势力较弱的那一国，而是取决于中立国；它会引发交战国与中立国权利的争端；倘若交战国拥有一支无可匹敌的海军，那么它可能就会像英国一样，让别的国家承认它的观点，并且在它掌控制海权的时候，一直拒绝承认中立国所运物资受到保护的那条原则。

原注：

（1）写下上述内容以后，英国在1888年秋季的机动过程，已经证实了这种说法的正确性；事实上，并非任何一种这样的实验，都必须去证实一种不言自喻的事实。

（2）近来速射火炮和机关枪的发展，以及枪炮口径、射程和穿透力方面的发展，再现了进步周期中相同的这个阶段。

（3）这一结果，很可能仅仅是由于英国舰船具有较强的抗风能力。或许，说荷兰舰船漂到了下风位置并因而漂离了英军战线，可能更准确一点。

（4）人们经常误解了这种变化真正的重要性，因而得出了许多关于未来的错误结论。这种情况并不是新旧交替，而是一个军事组织中的某个军事要素，坚持它对于其他所有职能都拥有必要而且必然的掌控权力。

译者注：

[1] La Rochelle：拉罗谢尔。法国西南部海港，1627～1628年间法王路易十三率军与胡格诺派教徒在此发生战争，标志着法国天主教与新教之间的矛盾达到了顶峰，结果是法王路易十三和天主教徒大获全胜。

[2] Edict of Nantes:《南特敕令》。1598年法王亨利四世颁布的一道敕令，赋予胡格诺派教徒一定的政治权利，以保护法国新教。敕令承认了法国国内胡格诺教徒的信仰自由，并在法律上享有和公民同等的权利。它也是世界上第一份有关宗教信仰自由的敕令。亦译《南特法令》、《南特诏令》等。

[3] 范·特龙普（Cornelis Martinus Von Tromp,1629～1691）。荷兰军事家。第一次英荷战争期间，他因抗击英军表现出色，被晋升为海军少将。1665年第二次英荷战争爆发后，他任海军中将，不久又任荷兰海军总司令。1676年，他任丹麦荷兰联合舰队总司令，同瑞典人作战取得成功。1691年任荷兰共和国军队总司令，同年病死。

[4] 基佐（Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot,1787～1874）。法国政治家和该国第22任首相（1847～1848年在任）。

[5] league：里格。长度单位，1里格相当于大约3英里或3海里。在美国英语中亦可指“平方里格”,1平方里格相当于约4400英亩。

[6] Elector of Brandenburg：勃兰登堡选帝侯。选帝侯是德意志历史上的一种特殊现象，指那些拥有选举罗马国王和神圣罗马帝国皇帝权利的诸侯。这一制度由1356年的卢森堡王朝建立，当时确定了7个选帝侯，勃兰登堡即为其中之一。1806年，拿破仑解散了神圣罗马帝国，这种削弱王权的选侯权便失去了意义。

[7] 让·巴尔（Jean Bart,1650～1702）。著名的私掠船船长，被称为“爱国海盗”。后加入法国海军，在路易十四时期的许多战争中都立有战功，以机智勇敢而著称，官至海军少将。

[8] 莱布尼茨（G. W. Leibnitz,1646～1716）。德国数学家、哲学家和逻辑学家。1672年他被派到巴黎进行游说，以动摇路易十四对入侵荷兰及其他邻国的兴趣，并使之将精力转向埃及，但并未成功。他还与牛顿一起，被世人认为是微积分的奠基者。

[9] 麦考利（Thomas Babington Macaulay,1800～1859）。英国政治家、历史学家，曾担任英国战争大臣一职，著有《论英国历史》等论著，获封麦考利男爵一世。

[10] Great Fire of London：伦敦大火。1666年9月2日至5日伦敦发生的一场火灾，是英国历史上最严重的一次火灾，烧毁了许多建筑，其中包括著名的圣保罗大教堂。但此次大火，也结束了伦敦自1665以来的鼠疫疫情（即前文所称的“大瘟疫”）。

[11] Pillars of Hercules：海格力斯之柱，指直布罗陀。海格力斯是古希腊神话中宙斯与阿尔克墨涅所生之子，他力大无比，因完成天后赫拉所要求的12项任务而获得永生。这些任务中，有一项便是到西方牵回巨人革律翁的牛群；这是海格力斯往西出行最远的一次，其终点即是所称的“海格力斯之柱”。直布罗陀海峡两侧对峙的两座峭壁，被古人认为正是海格力斯此次西行的终点，故后人就用此名指代直布罗陀。

[12] The Annual Register:《年鉴》。一份历史悠久的年度出版物，创刊于1758年，起初主要是记录和分析每一年世界发生的一些重大事件、发展情况和趋势，如今内容更加翔实，前半部分主要是记录和分析世界各国、各地区的情况，后半部分多为综合性的文章，涉及到国际机构和组织、经济、环境、科学等各个方面。