"Shall half the World be England's for industrial purposes, ... or shall it be Spain's for arrogant-torpid, sham-devotional purposes contrary to every Law?" is the way Carlyle put the question in his history of Frederick the Great, and he adds: "The incalculable Yankee Nation itself, biggest Phenomenon (once thought beautifullest) of these Ages,--this too ... lay involved." In the middle of the century, while the prolonged struggle was culminating, privateering as a method of warfare reached its zenith. The Thurots and De Cocks of France and the Wrights of England swarmed over the seas, gathering fortune and a sort of fame not soon to be forgotten. They captured thousands of ships--literally, and if the truth be told, the French got more ships than the Wrights did. But during the period preceding the declaration of open war in 1756 the English privateers were alone especially active and successful. They brought in 300 ships manned by 10,000 men, and the ships were confiscated and the men imprisoned. Still more important to this story, however, is the fact that many Dutch as well as French ships were looted by the English. While the assaults upon the French were justified because they avenged similar assaults made by French privateers, and because enough French sailors to man a fleet of battleships were thereby sequestered, there was no such excuse for looting the Dutch. Nevertheless, by the real standards of international law of that century (not the avowed standards), these captures were justified on the ground of necessity in connection with the end for which the war was waged with such "fierce, deep-breathed doggedness"--commercial supremacy. For when war was raging, the ships of neutral nations were permitted by ordinary international usage to carry on their commercial operations unmolested. The Dutch, being neutrals, gained rapidly in the carrying trade of the world. They even had hope that they might attain the proud position they had occupied in the early part of the seventeenth century. The situation looked ominous to the English. If they were to retain the supremacy which good fighting in Cromwell's time had given them, it was absolutely necessary to destroy, or at least check, in some way, the growing prosperity of the Dutch. It was to this end that English privateers (even fishermen in open boats, armed with clubs) were encouraged in looting Dutch merchantmen. To give color of law to this form of piracy, the "Rule of 1756" was provided. Under this rule, which was merely a dictum of the English crown, neutral ships were forbidden to enter any trade in time of war from which they were commonly excluded in time of peace. For example, the Dutch were excluded from the trade between France and the French colonies in time of peace; when war was declared, the French were glad to have Dutch ships in the trade, but England declared she would confiscate every Dutch ship found in it.