choose to employ against the common enemy of their freedom and national independence.

SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS BETWEEN THE BATTLE OF PULTOWA, 1709, AND THE DEFEAT OF BURGOYNE AT SARATOGA, 1777.

A.D. 1713. Treaty of Utrecht Philip is left by it in possession of the throne of Spain. But Naples, Milan, the Spanish territories on the Tuscan coast, the Spanish Netherlands, and some parts of the French Netherlands are given to Austria. France cedes to England Hudson's Bay and Straits, the Island of St. Christopher, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland in America. Spain cedes to England, Gibraltar and Minorca, which the English had taken during the war. The King of Prussia and the Duke of Savoy both obtain considerable additions of territory to their dominions.

1715. Death of Queen Anne. The House of Hanover begins to reign in England. A rebellion in favour of the Stuarts is put down. Death of Louis XIV.

1718. Charles XII. killed at the siege of Frederickshall.

1725. Death of Peter the Great of Russia.

1740. Frederick II. King of Prussia. He attacks the Austrian dominions, and conquers Silesia.

1742. War between France and England.

1743. Victory of the English at Dettingen.

1745. Victory of the French at Fontenoy. Rebellion in Scotland in favour of the House of Stuart: finally quelled by the battle of Culloden in the next year.

1748. Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.

1756-1763. The Seven Years War, during which Prussia makes an heroic resistance against the armies of Austria, Russia, and France. England, under the administration of the elder Pitt (afterwards Lord Chatham), takes a glorious part in the war in opposition to France and Spain. Wolfe wins the battle of Quebec, and the English conquer Canada, Cape Breton, and St. John. Clive begins his career of conquest in India. Cuba is taken by the English from Spain.

1763. Treaty of Paris: which leaves the power of Prussia increased, and its military reputation greatly exalted.

"France, by the treaty of Paris, ceded to England Canada and the island of Cape Breton, with the islands and coasts of the Gulf and River of St. Lawrence. The boundaries between the two

nations in North America were fixed by a line drawn along the middle of the Mississippi, from its source to its mouth. All on the left or eastern bank of that river, was given up to England, except the city of New Orleans, which was reserved to France; as was also the liberty of the fisheries on a part of the coasts of Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The islands of St. Peter and Miquelon were given them as a shelter for their fishermen, but without permission to raise fortifications. The islands of Martinico, Guadaloupe, Mariegalante, Desirada, and St. Lucia, were surrendered to France; while Grenada, the Grenadines, St. Vincent, Dominica, and Tobago, were ceded to England. This latter power retained her conquests on the Senegal, and restored to France the island of Gorea, on the coast of Africa. France was put in possession of the forts and factories which belonged to her in the East Indies, on the coasts of Coromandel, Orissa, Malabar, and Bengal, under the restriction of keeping up no military force in Bengal.

"In Europe, France restored all the conquests she had made in Germany; as also the island of Minorca. England gave up to her Belleisle, on the coast of Brittany; while Dunkirk was kept in the same condition as had been determined by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. The island of Cuba,

with the Havannah, were restored to the King of Spain, who, on his part, ceded to England Florida, with Port-Augustine and the Bay of Penzacola. The King of Portugal was restored to the same state in which he had been before the war. The colony of St. Sacrament in America, which the Spaniards had conquered, was given back to him.

"The peace of Paris, of which we have just now spoken, was the era of England's greatest prosperity. Her commerce and navigation extended over all parts of the globe, and were supported by a naval force, so much the more imposing, as it was no longer counterbalanced by the maritime power of France, which had been almost annihilated in the preceding war. The immense territories which that peace had secured her, both in Africa and America, opened up new channels for her industry; and, what deserves specially to be remarked, is, that she acquired at the same time vast and important possessions in the East Indies.*

*Koch's "Revolutions of Europe."

CHAPTER XIII.

VICTORY OF THE AMERICANS OVER BURGOYNE AT SARATOGA, A. D. 1777.

Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The first four acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day,

TIME'S NOBLEST OFFSPRING IS ITS LAST.
BISHOP BERKELEY.

Or the four great powers that now principally rule the political destinies of the world, France and England are the only two whose influence can be dated back beyond the last century and a half. The third great power, Russia, was a feeble mass of barbarism before the epoch of Peter the Great; and the very existence of the fourth great power, as an independent nation, commenced within the memory of living men. By the fourth great power of the world I mean the mighty commonwealth of the western continent, which now commands the admiration of mankind. That homage is sometimes reluctantly given, and is sometimes accompanied with suspicion and ill-will. But none can