Considering the number of battles and the desperate nature of them, it is perhaps curious to note the relatively small amount of damage done. With the advent of the porthole and the consequent multiplication of guns a hundred and fifty years before, it had seemed that any naval engagement must result in swift mutual destruction. Much the same kind of idea obtained as when at the end of 1910 a squadron of Dreadnoughts almost instantly obliterated a target five miles off. But as in the Armada fights, so in this First Dutch War, an immense amount of fighting was done with comparatively, and relatively to what might have been anticipated, small harm on either side. This result is partly to be attributed to the fact that defence increased with offence. The warship proper was designed to stand hammering, and every increase in size, involving increased gun-carrying capacity, involved also increased strength of construction. Something may also be put down to the very inferior artillery then in use, and the great deal of boarding which took place. There is some reason to believe that Cromwell, with his complete recognition of the advantages of naval power, with his assiduous energy in the creation of a strong fleet, recognised--as perhaps both Buckingham and Phineas Pett had done before--the advantages of the “big ship.” Yet under his rule no appreciable advance in size took place. Nor, for that matter, did it take place any time within a hundred and fifty years later on. The reason is interesting. It was purely a matter of trees. The length of a ship was circumscribed by the height of trees; other dimensions by similar hard facts. The beam was dependent on the ship’s length; while the draught was governed by the harbours and docking facilities. It is doubtful whether any man ever sought to solve the problem of an invincible navy with more energy than Oliver Cromwell; yet under his rule nothing in the way of improvement was evolved at all comparable with the step taken with the _Royal Sovereign_ under the weaker Charles Stuart--Buckingham régime. The limitations of the tree proved the limitations of the ship. When Cromwell died, his record was left in numbers. The Navy at his death consisted of 157 ships. His architectural improvements were but a new form of bottoms.[16] Oliver Cromwell had not been long dead when the Navy--then under Monk--decided to restore the Monarchy. It sailed to Holland, embarked Charles II and James, Duke of York, and established Charles on the throne without opposition. Monk is popularly regarded as a political time-server. But in his change of sides he made one very important stipulation: that Charles was to pledge himself to the upkeep of the fleet. The fleet accomplished the Restoration. The bulk of evidence is that it did so with little regard for any issue other than the naval one. _THE SECOND DUTCH WAR._