The real interest of the war centres round the struggle at sea between the fleets of England and France. It was the first tilt in the dread tourney, which occupies the whole of the eighteenth century, which extends from Beachy Head to Trafalgar, and has given England her vast imperial position. The conquest of England and Scotland gave to William III. the navy of England to use against Louis XIV. The continued loyalty of Ireland to James II. made the command of the sea necessary to Louis, for without it he could not hope to maintain James in Ireland for a moment against the whole power of England. The issue of the struggle in Ireland depended therefore wholly upon the issue of the naval war. The great victory of Tourville over the English fleet off Beachy Head in July 1690 made the French for nearly two years masters of the Channel, and more than counteracted the effect of the battle of the Boyne, by enabling Louis to pour French troops and stores into Ireland, and even threaten the invasion of England itself. The defeat of Tourville by Russell off La Hogue put a final end of this dream of French ambition. All thought of invasion had to be laid aside, and Ireland left to the tender mercies of the cruel conqueror. France had to acknowledge the superiority of the English at sea, to acquiesce in the capture and annexation of its colonies in the East and West Indies, to submit to the absorption of its trade by its dominant rival, and to content itself with the impotent but lucrative revenge of the legalised piracy of privateering. [Sidenote: =Exhaustion of France, 1698.=]