Aims of Louis XIV. Colonial wars. Payne, try in Europe. Her population was almost three times that of England. Her army rose steadily from one hundred thousand in 1650 to half a million at the beginning of the next century. Her navy could hold its own against the English or the Dutch. By the centralization of the government under Richelieu, all these resources were placed at the absolute disposal of the king. Great as were the resources of Louis XIV, they were outstripped by his ambition. From the beginning of his rule in 1660 till his final defeat in 1713, he was ceaselessly planning to extend his power. Schemes of continental aggrandizement were accompanied by attempts to develop the French colonial empire. The direction which Louis gave to the policy of France outlived him, and for half a century after the death of the Great Monarch the French were still struggling to attain the double goal of continental supremacy and colonial expansion. From the continental point of view the occasion for the wars of the eighteenth century was usually dynastic. There was the war of the Spanish succession, and the war of the Austrian succession, and the Seven Years' War between Frederick II of Prussia and Maria Theresa. England took part in all these great contests, but her object was uniformly the extension of colonial and commercial power, her interest was wholly determined by her rivalry with France. This is shown in the invariable accompaniment of fighting in America, in the King William's War and the Queen Anne's War, and the French and Indian wars of the colonists. At the close of the seventeenth century the efforts of Colpp. 80-82, 83, bert, the great French minister, had placed France in the 85, 87. foremost rank of colonial powers. She had established herself in India, in Africa, and in the West Indies. Her hold upon the American continent seemed far more assured than England's. She controlled the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, the two great waterways of America, and Canada, Acadia, and Louisiana were in her possession. The English colonies were blocked by the Spanish on the south, on the France in The Second Hundred Years' War 413 north, and toward the west, by the French. In 1701 Philip of Anjou accepted the Spanish crown, and Louis declared with truth, "The French and Spanish nations are so united that they will henceforth be only one." To the ambition and enterprise of the French was now joined Spain's vast colonial power. England's fears were aroused at the dangers that menaced her commercial and colonial importance, and she made ready to resist the encroachments of her great rival. The Second Hundred Years' War. The declaration of war in 1689 opened a century-long duel between the French and the English. It has been well called, a Seeley, Treaty of Utrecht, 1713. Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748. Peace of Second Hundred Years' War. Sixty-four out of the one hundred and twenty-six years that divide the Revolution from the battle of Waterloo were spent in war. England took part in seven great contests, and all either began as wars with France or speedily became such. The contending forces met not only on European battle-fields, but in Acadian forests, on the heights above Quebec, before the rude fortresses that controlled the remote valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi, on the plains of India. For half a century England's success in the duel with France was almost unbroken. Each peace saw her position strengthened. By the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 she secured the Hudson Bay Territory, Acadia or Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland in the New World, and Minorca and Gibraltar in the Mediterranean. The long peace of Walpole's ministry was for both England and France a time of recuperation. In 1744 they renewed the struggle for empire under cover of the Austrian Succession War, but the conflict was a drawn battle, the successes of the English in America were counterbalanced by the achievements of Dupleix, agent of the French Company in India. In 1748 the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle put an end to the war in Europe, but elsewhere there was scarcely any cessation of hostilities. In India, Dupleix continued, with splendid energy, to develop his plans for the expulsion of the English and the establishment of a great French empire, while in America the efforts of the French to secure the connection between the Mississippi valley and Canada led to the outbreak of a colonial war. 66 In 1756 England and France grappled in a final struggle. The war opened disastrously for the English, but it ended in their complete triumph. "Our bells," wrote Horace Walpole, are worn threadbare with ringing for victories." The Peace of Paris in 1763 marked the culminating point Paris, 1763. of England's success. By it she acquired the French possessions in America and many of the West Indian islands, and secured her hold in India. In the race for empire, England had distanced all her rivals. Colonial Policy of the Eighteenth Century 415 The causes for the defeat of France are not far to seek. The French people showed little inclination to emigrate, and the French settlements were rather military and trading-posts, than true colonies. Despotism, moreover, such as characterized the France of Louis XIV, was not favorable to the growth of colonies, no matter how beneficent in intention. And, above all else, France was attempting too much. Not even her splendid resources were equal to the double task of building up a great state at home and a great empire abroad. The Colonial Policy of the Eighteenth Century. Before twenty years were passed France had ample revenge for the humiliation of the Peace of Paris. By statesmen of the eighteenth century, a colony was regarded not as an extension of national territory - an opportunity for national expansion but as a piece of property, an estate to be exploited in the interest of the country owning it. Spain, Portugal, and Holland treated their foreign possessions as mere sources of supply for gold and silver, tropical fruits and spices. England's colonies produced none of these, but they might be made a market for home products, and a source of raw material for the rising manufactures of the mother country. "The only use of American colonies or West Indian islands," said Lord Sheffield, "is the monopoly of their consumption and the carriage of their produce." In conformity with this doctrine, the English government imposed restrictions on colonial trade which were calculated to insure its profits to the home country. All exports must be sent to England and all trade must be carried on in English vessels. Colonial industries were discouraged, the smelting of iron and the exportation of woollen goods being actually forbidden. It is true that many of these restrictions were not rigorously enforced and a few became practically obsolete through disuse. Walpole succeeded in obtaining some relaxation of the laws, and he openly connived at the brisk smuggling trade that had sprung up in the colonies. Green, Payne, 102-104. Payne, 106, 107, 123-125. Green, Green, pp. 776-782, 785, 786. Bright, III, 1095, 1096, IIIO. Source-Book, Treaty of Versailles, 1783. Bright, III, 1113, 1114. But in financial matters Walpole was far in advance of his time, and under the administration of Grenville a change came. Grenville was honest and conscientious, but of a narrow, legal turn of mind. Smuggling was a breach of the law, and he sent English men-of-war to suppress it. He held that England had the right to tax her colonies, and he refused to consider the expediency of exercising the right. His measures were resisted in America. Resistance met with compulsion. The outcome was war and independence. Europe and the American War. In the American war England was handicapped by the three thousand miles of sea that lay between her and her rebellious subjects, moreover, she made the mistake of despising the men who opposed her. Furthermore, she was forced to pay the price of her past successes on the Continent. Jealousy of England was one of the controlling forces of European politics after the Peace of Paris. By 1780 England was involved in war with France, Spain, and Holland, and, under the leadership of Catharine of Russia, the northern powers had banded together in an armed neutrality to resist the commercial claims of the English. England strove in vain to obtain aid from Russia, offering to cede Minorca in return for troops. Her isolation in Europe was complete and she was forced to give way. The failure of the French and Spanish to capture Gibraltar and the destruction of the French fleet by Rodney off Dominica were all that saved her colonial empire from annihilation. By the treaty of Versailles (1783), that closed the war, England was forced to recognize the independence of the American colonies. To Spain she gave back Minorca and Florida, to France most of her settlements and colonies in India and Africa and the West Indies. Friends and foes alike believed with Lord Shelburne that England's sun had set. The East India Company. The generation which saw England stripped of the best of her colonies in the New World witnessed the founding of her great empire on the |