Those who accused William of neglecting the maritime force of England, knew little what they said, or cared little about its truth.[201] A soldier and a native of Holland, he naturally looked to the Spanish Netherlands as the theatre on which the battle of France and Europe was to be fought. It was by the possession of that country and its chief fortresses that Louis aspired to hold Holland in vassalage, to menace the coasts of England, and to keep the Empire under his influence. And if, with the assistance of those brave regiments, who learned, in the well-contested though unfortunate battles of that war, the skill and discipline which made them conquerors in the next, it was found that France was still an overmatch for the allies, what would have been effected against her by the decrepitude of Spain, the perverse pride of Austria, and the selfish disunion of Germany? The commerce of France might, perhaps, have suffered more by an exclusively maritime warfare; but we should have obtained this advantage, which in itself is none, and would not have essentially crippled her force, at the price of abandoning to her ambition the quarry it had so long in pursuit. Meanwhile the naval annals of this war added much to our renown; Russell, glorious in his own despite at La Hogue, Rooke, and Shovel kept up the honour of the English flag. After that great victory, the enemy never encountered us in battle; and the wintering of the fleet at Cadiz in 1694, a measure determined on by William's energetic mind, against the advice of his ministers, and in spite of the fretful insolence of the admiral, gave us so decided a pre-eminence both in the Atlantic and Mediterranean seas, that it is hard to say what more could have been achieved by the most exclusive attention to the navy.[202] It is true that, especially during the first part of the war, vast losses were sustained through the capture of merchant ships; but this is the inevitable lot of a commercial country, and has occurred in every war, until the practice of placing the traders under convoy of armed ships was introduced. And, when we consider the treachery which pervaded this service, and the great facility of secret intelligence which the enemy possessed, we may be astonished that our failures and losses were not still more decisive.