ABSTRACT
The mercantile empires of Western Europe were essentially based upon the ability to project military power. The colonisation of Latin America by Spain and Portugal, of South and Southeast Asia by the British, French and Dutch, and of Africa by many European powers, all depended, at root, on naval power. Frequently this was used to compete against other colonising powers, and local militias were often adequate to impose and maintain colonial order; but the ultimate power was military, and the means of deploying it was almost invariably naval.
