THE WAR AND FLUCTUATIONS IN MARITIME INTERCOURSE 673
maritime resources of Great Britain are more substantial and a
real than those of France and Spain united.” The attempt
of the Dutch to carry on their trade, according to the newly
defined rights of neutrals, involved them in ruinous losses.
The surrender of the island of S. Eustatius was a very serious
disaster, as many ships and valuable stores were seized by the
English? and the Dutch East India Company received a shock
from which it never recovered’. Anxious as the times were to their
for the merchants, England was able to give as hard blows as Toueme
she received, and her rivals were the principal sufferers.
When England at length acknowledged the independence
of the United States, and the treaty of Versailles with the
other belligerents was signed in 1783, many valuable islands Though
and places of trade were restored to Spain and to France. Eotland,
Spain obtained Minorca and the Philippines, as well as as
Florida; while England only received the Bahamas, and 1783,
rights for the timber trade in Honduras. France was less
fortunate, though her commercial stations in the East Indies
were secured to her; she obtained the island of Tobago,
which then yielded the best supplies of cotton, and she
insisted on a more favourable interpretation of the disputed
rights in the Newfoundland fisheries. England was at no
pains to retain her recent acquisitions or enlarge her responsi-
bilities, and apart altogether from the loss of her Colonies,
the territorial readjustments were not in her favour; but her
maritime superiority stood out more markedly than ever.
The Dutch had suffered irreparable losses both in the East
and West; the maritime resources of France had been strained
to man the navy; and the development of shipping by the
Americans had received a severe check, England emerged
18
ul
t Sparks, Writings of George Washington, vii. 69. Washington continues with
an interesting remark: “In modern wars the longest purse must chiefly determine
the event. I fear that of the enemy will be found to be so. Though the govern-
ment is deeply in debt and of course poor, the nation is rich, and their riches afford
a fund, which will not be easily exhausted. Besides their system of public credit
is such that it is capable of greater exertions than that of any other nation.”
? Lecky, op. cit. 1v. 166.
3 Beer, Allgemeine Geschichte des Welthandels, 1m. 225.
t During the years of the war there was an extraordinary revival of ship-
building in English yards; the Americans did not fare so well as they had done,
when they were deprived of the advantage afforded to their commerce by
the British Navigation Acts. Macpherson, Iv. 10 n.
