alive and they were so changed "that their own mothers would not have known them."1 When Clive returned he was met with a cry for vengeance. He gathered his troops, recovered Calcutta, and ended by fighting that great battle of Plassey, 1757, which was the means of permanently establishing the English empire in India on a firm foundation. (See map opposite.) 545. The Seven Years' War in Europe and America, 1756–1763. Before the contest had closed by which England won her Asiatic dominions, a new war had broken out. In the fifth year, 1756, of the New Style 2 of reckoning time, the aggressive designs of Frederick the Great of Prussia caused such alarm that a grand alliance was formed by France, Russia, Austria, and Poland to check his further advance. Great Britain, however, gave her support to Frederick, in the hope of humbling her old enemy France, who, in addition to her attempts to oust the English from India, was also making preparations on a grand scale to get possession of America. Every victory, therefore, which the British forces could gain in Europe would, by crippling the French, make the ultimate victory of the English in America so much the more certain; for this reason we may look upon the alliance with Frederick as an indirect means employed by England to protect her colonies on the other side of the Atlantic. These colonies now extended along the entire coast, from the Kennebec River, in Maine, to the borders of Florida. The French, on the other hand, had planted colonies at Quebec and Montreal, on the St. Lawrence; at Detroit, on the Great Lakes; at New Orleans and other points on the Mississippi. They 1 Macaulay's "Essay on Clive." 2 The New Style was introduced into Great Britain in 1752. Owing to a slight error in the calendar, the year had, in the course of centuries, been gradually losing, so that in 1752 it was eleven days short of what the true computation would make it. Pope Gregory corrected the error in 1582, and his calendar was adopted in nearly every country of Europe except Great Britain and Russia, both of which regarded the change as a CC popish measure." But in 1751, notwithstanding the popular outcry, September 3, 1752, was made September 14, by an act of Parliament, and by the same act the beginning of the legal year was altered from March 25 to January 1. The popular clamor against the reform is illustrated in Hogarth's picture of an Election Feast, in which the People's party carry a banner, with the inscription, "Give us back our eleven days." 1727-1760] THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR 337 had also begun to build a line of forts along the Ohio River, which, when completed, would connect their northern and southern colonies, and thus secure to them the whole country west of the Alleghenies. They expected to conquer the East as well, to erase Virginia, New England, and all other English colonial titles from the map, and in their place to put the name New France. During the first part of the war, the English were unsuccessful. In an attempt to take Fort Duquesne, General Braddock met with a crushing defeat (1756) from the combined French and Indian forces, which would indeed have proved his utter destruction had not a young Virginian named George Washington saved a remnant of Braddock's troops by his calmness and courage. Not long afterwards, a second expedition was sent out against the French fort, in which Washington led the advance. The garrison fled at his approach, the English colors were run up, and the place was named Pittsburg, in honor of William Pitt, later, Lord Chatham, Secretary of State, but virtually Prime Minister (§ 534) of England. 1 About the same time, the English took the forts on the Bay of Fundy, and drove out several thousand French settlers from Acadia, or Nova Scotia. Other successes followed, by which they obtained possession of important points. Finally, Canada was won from the French by Wolfe's victory over Montcalm, at Quebec, 1759, where both gallant soldiers verified the truth of the words, "The paths of glory lead but to the grave," which the English general had quoted to some brother officers the evening before the attack. This ended the war. Spain now ceded Florida to Great Britain, so that, when peace was made in 1763, the English flag waved over the whole eastern half of the American continent, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. 1 See "Leading Facts of American History," in this series, § 142. 2" The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, The paths of glory lead but to the grave." GRAY, "Elegy" (1750) "I would rather be the author of that poem," said Wolfe," than to have the glory of beating the French to-morrow." Wolfe and Montcalm were both mortally wounded and died within a few hours of each other. Thus, within a comparatively few years, England had gained an empire in the east (India) (§ 544) and another in the west (America). Six years later (1769) Captain Cook explored and mapped the coast of New Zealand, and next the eastern coast of the island continent of Australia. Before the middle of the following century both these countries were added to the possessions of Great Britain. Then, as Daniel Webster said, her "morning drum beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours," literally circled "the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England." 546. Moral Condition of England; Intemperance; Rise of the Methodists, 1738. But grand as were the military successes of the British arms, the reign of George II was morally torpid. With the exception of a few public men like Pitt, the majority of the Whig party (§ 479) seemed animated by no higher motive than selfinterest. It was an age whose want of faith, coarseness, and brutality were well portrayed by Hogarth's pencil and Fielding's pen. For a long time intemperance had been steadily on the increase; strong drink had taken the place of beer, and every attempt to restrict the traffic was met at the elections by the popular cry, No gin, no king." The London taverns were thronged day and night, and in the windows of those frequented by the lowest class, placards were exhibited with the tempting announcement, " Drunk for a penny; dead drunk for twopence; clean straw for nothing." On the straw lay men and women in beastly helplessness. Among the upper classes matters were hardly better. It was a common thing for great statesmen to drink at public dinners until one by one they slid out of their seats and disappeared under the table; and Sir Robert Walpole, the late Prime Minister of England (§§ 534, 538), said that when he was a young man his father would say to him as he poured out the wine, "Come, Robert, you shall drink twice while I drink once, for I will not permit the son in his sober senses to be witness of the intoxication of his father." 1 Such was the condition of England when a great religious revival began, 1738. Its leader was John Wesley. A number of years 1 Coxe's "Memoirs of Walpole" and Lecky's " England." |