Other names could be mentioned, too. Neither masters nor mates were exempt from being impressed; and these rough, daring merchantmen, who fought as hard as they drank, who despised the enemy as heartily as they despised cowardice, were the very life-blood of the nation that was growing up to prosperous adolescence. England was just realising what was the meaning of the word sea. As Francis Bacon wrote in his essay: “To be master of the sea is an abridgment of a monarchy.... Surely, at this day, with us of Europe, the vantage of strength at sea (which is one of the principal dowries of this kingdom of Great Britain) is great; both because most of the kingdoms of Europe are not merely inland, but girt with the sea most part of their compass; and because the wealth of both Indies seems in great part but an accessory to the command of the seas.” It takes time for a nation to appreciate all that maritime progress connotes. We in this twentieth century have seen that it required the Great European War to enable the United States to realise this, and the present American mercantile shipping activity and development are the practical results of this appreciation. The Merchant Navy to a country is the basis on which her fighting Navy is built. It is the avenue along which her commerce must flow out and home. CHAPTER IX MERCANTILE SUPREMACY AT SEA The end of the seventeenth century saw the British Mercantile Fleet as the world’s leading traders. The disappearance of their Spanish and then Dutch rivals in sea commerce was brought about not by battle, but by the steady pressure of sea-power, as in the recent European War the continuous pressure of the Grand Fleet throttled the Germans. Just as the Battle of Jutland failed to bring about the downfall of our late enemies, so the defeat of the Armada did not succeed in breaking Spain; so, too, no single battle in the Anglo-Dutch wars brought the maritime progress of the great Dutch Republic to a dead stop. [Illustration: [_By courtesy Messrs. T. H. Parker._ CAPTAIN THOMAS FORREST. Navigator and Surveyor, who formed in 1770 for the H.E. India Company a new settlement at Balambangan.]