The privateers carried few guns, their object being to capture prizes, not to sink them. They sailed mostly in small squadrons, so making a considerable number of guns, and were rarely particular about using false colours. It was therefore comparatively easy for them successfully to attack weak convoys: some dealing with the warships and others making prizes; and the inefficiency laid to the blame of the English fleet in trade protection at that period was, in some measure, at any rate, due to a failure to appreciate the enormous difficulties. Duguay-Trouin himself records using the English flag to approach an English warship, and firing on her under these colours. The unhandy warships of those days, faced with light enemies, which they could never overhaul, had a tremendous task set them. That the Navy of William III era successfully defended anything against men like Duguay-Trouin and Jean Bart, is of far more moment and more to be wondered at than any failures. In this particular war the fast lightly-armed corsair reached its apotheosis at the hands of veritable experts to a degree impossible to-day, or for that matter, ever hereafter, unless aircraft prove able to act as “privateers” of the future--a role which, to date, has been entirely forgotten in all discussions as to the value of aircraft. [Illustration: ANTHONY DEANE.] In 1697, the peace of Ryswick was signed. According to Burchett, the net result of the war was the loss of fifty English warships and fifty-nine French ones. The historians generally indicate that the French were worn out with the struggle; but on the whole the English seem to have been well out of the war also. It was about this time that Peter the Great appeared in England, and engaged John Deane, brother of the famous naval architect, Sir Anthony, to go back to Russia with him to establish a navy. This is the first instance of the foundation or reorganisation of a foreign navy by this country. The experiment was by no means very successful; the bulk of the English naval officers taken over by Peter being men who, for various reasons, had been dismissed from the Royal Navy. Some proved incompetent, and all of them were quarrelsome. _WAR OF THE SUCCESSION._ The war of the Spanish Succession synchronised with the accession of Queen Anne, in 1702. In the interval following the peace of Ryswick the French fleet had had considerable attention paid to it. The principal innovation consisted in increasing the size without (as hitherto) increasing the armament in ratio. The French three-deckers were now built of 2,000 tons instead of 1,500 as formerly. The superior sailing qualities, ever a feature of French ships, were still further enhanced. In England, though shipbuilding had also been vigorously pursued, improvements commensurate with those of France were not made. English ships of the period were, generally speaking, overgunned.