There was also a critically important "continental" dimension to British grand strategy, overlooked by those whose gaze was turned outward to the West Indies, Canada, and India. Fighting a purely mar time war was perfectly logical during the Anglo-Dutch struggles of 1652-1654, 1665-1667, and 1672-1674, since commercial rivalry be- tween the two sea powers was at the root of that antagonism. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, however, when William of Orange secured the English throne, the strategical situation was quite trans The challenge to British interests during the seven wars which were to occur between 1689 and 1815 was posed by an essentially land-based power, France. True, the French would take this fight to the western hemisphere, to the Indian ocean, to Egypt, and elsewhere: but those campaigns, although important to London and Liverpool trad ers, never posed a direct threat to British national security. The latter would arise only the Dutch, the Hanoverians, and the Prussians, thereby leaving France supreme in west-central Europe long enough to amass shipbuilding resources capable of eroding British It not merely William III's personal union with the United Provinces, or later Hanoverian ties, which caused successive British govern ments to intervene militarily on the continent of Europe in these decades. There was also the compelling argument-echoing Elizabeth l's fears about Spain-that France's enemies had to be given assistance inside Europe, to contain Bourbon (and Napoleohic) ambitions and thus to preserve Britain's own long-term interests. A "maritime" and a