Meanwhile, though Frederick the Great was very hard pressed, his western flank was guarded by a mixed British•Hanoverian-Ger man army ably commanded by the Duke of Bruns-wick Great Britain. meanwhile harried the coasts of France, completed her conquests of French colonies as well as those of Spain, when she drew the sword fOr France. Thus the British race reaped the full reward fore seen by Pitt. That statesman had the gift of choosing the right men •, and his sagacity dis cerned in a young officer, Wolfe, the con queror of Canada. The manner in which Wolfe captured the Heights of Abraham (13 Sept.
1759) is too well known to need description.
Quebec and ultimately the whole of Canada were the fruits of a victory, which itself re sulted from the ability of the mistress of the seas to attack when, where, and in what force she chose.
After the accession of George III to the throne, and of the Bute Ministry to power, the Anglo-Prussian alliance lapsed; but the war with France continued. By the (third) Bour bon Family Compact, Spain made common cause with her neighbor; but the British navy overbore all opposition at sea; and in February 1763, the Peace of Paris put an end to what had now become merely a maritime and colonial war. France ceded Canada, Cape Breton Is land, Prince Edward Island, together with Grenada, Saint Vincent, Dominica. and Tobago, as well as Senegal in Africa. Spain ceded Florida, but received from France as indemnity the great district of Louisiana. Great Britain restored to France several of her conquests in the East and West Indies, also to Spain parts of Cuba. Save that France handed back Minorca to England, the changes in Europe•very slightly affected the Island Power; but she em erged, from what had been at first merely a continental war, the greatest of the world powers.
The completeness of her triumph brought its Nemesis. The American War of Independence furnished France with the longed-for opportu nity for revenge. She declared war formally against England in 1778 after her volunteers had long been helping the colonists. Sodn the maritime policy of her rival leagued together the northern powers in the League of the Armed Neutrals. The war, however, having been described in the article UNITED SrArEs AMERICAN REVOLUTION, it is unnecessary to comment on it here, or to advert to the influ ence which sea power exerted on the decisiv..
event, the surrender of Cornwallis- at Yorktown (19 Oct. 1781). By the Treaty of Versailles (3 Sept 1783), France recovered Senegal, sev eral West India islands, acquired extended fishery rights on (the French Shore* of New foundland, and gained Tobago. Of all the wars between England and France that of 1778-83 was most completely colonial in character and in its results. Never before had France dealt her rival so serious a blow ; but it recoiled on herself ; for the ideas of liberty and civic equality which her soldiers learned in the land of Washington were now carried back to the mother country with results fatal to the Bour bon monarchy.
The Revolutionary War (1793-1802), stands apart from the previchs struggles in that it was at the outset largely, though by no means wholly, a war of opinion. It turned mainly on the question whether the French Republic could with impunity set aside the rights of the Dutch republic over the navigation of the lower part of the River Scheldt, which Great Britain by the treaty of 1788 had undertaken to guarantee. The French in their resolve to make Antwerp a great port, persisted in ignoring that treaty; and matters were in a very strained state be tween England and France, when the execu tion of Louis XVI at Paris, 21 Jan. 1793, made all hope of compromise impossible. The French on 1 Feb. 1793, declared war against Great Britain and Holland. These powers therefore joined the first coalition (Austria, Prussia, Empire,* Sardinia and Naples) ; but the jeal ousy of Austria and Prussia, the incompe tency of the allied leaders and the enthusiasm and energy of the French soon drove the allies out of their territory. A British force was de feated at Hondschoote near Dunkirk, and had to retire toward Ostend (September 1793). To months later Admiral Hood's bluejackets and their Spanish and Neapolitan allies were driven from redoubts near Toulon; mainly owing to the skilful dispositions of Bonaparte, and had to abandon that seaport. The cam paigns in Flanders languished owing to the paucity of the British forces, which had to leave the Low Countries early in 1795. In that year Prussia came to terms with France.