the Athenians, simply collected another fleet and tried again. Romans and Carthaginians almost always did the like; and it is only to the Roman operations against the Illyrian pirates that we can turn to find any conspicuous conflict between the grand war and the guerre de course.
In this conflict the seas about Illyria were infested with ships carrying on a general career of piracy—between which and the guerre de course the difference is not excessive, however different the motives may be. Apparently the whole piratical fleet numbered but twenty ships. Against these Rome dispatched two hundred and a considerable army. Each Illyrian base was invested and the ships in it captured or destroyed—in a word, the policy of 'stopping the earths' was carried out. It is worthy of note that Rome appears to have done little in the way of convoys, and nothing in the way of attempted suppression by the system of sending individual ships to 'protect trade routes.'
It is to the sailing ship days that we must look for all other instances—saving always the famous Alabama campaign, which will be dealt with further on. The most remarkable war from the amount of commercial interests involved was the Anglo-Dutch conflict of 1665–1667. Both sides had great commercial interests, indeed the destruction of commerce was an objective to both to a degree that has never been witnessed before or since, though it may one day come between England and Germany.
