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impossible even a trial of the experiment. It was plain, for example, that the plan aimed to have the colonies assume a much greater portion of the cost of their own defense than they had ever done, and they demurred. What was the use of spending their own money when the English tax payers might carry the burden? Furthermore, the notion of delegating to any authority any measure of control over taxation was contrary to American political theory. The center of the colonial constitutional system was the local legislature, and it required a revolution in more senses than one before the idea of a central government could even be tolerated. The colonial legislatures refused to ratify this part of the work of the Albany Congress, and by so doing they refused to take the most obvious step in the direction of adequate defense. As a result, concerted action became practically out of the question, and had it not been for the work of the British government, the French would have been able to clinch their hold on the Ohio. The Americans were willing to accept protection, but not to assume the burden of defending themselves.

The British government never took any formal action on the Albany Plan, but in August, 1754, the Board of Trade submitted a plan of its own. This called for meetings of commissioners from the various colonies, to be appointed by the governors. These commissioners were to look after matters of interest to the colonies as a whole, especially this very question of defense. It, like the Albany Plan, remains simply a historical curiosity.

These plans are interesting in connection with the story of American growth, because their failure shows how far removed the colonists were, in 1754, from any idea of union and a central government. The later theory of “states' rights" had roots reaching back almost to the beginning of the English plantations.

The refusal of the American governments to provide the machinery for common action made it necessary for the English Cabinet to meet the French menace. Its program called for the capture of Forts Duquesne, Niagara, and Crown Point, and the elimination of French adherents in Nova Scotia. At the same time, the navy was to be used to prevent French reinforcements from reaching Canada. Admiral Boscawen's failure in this part of the campaign came dangerously near to presenting the French with the Ohio. As it was, the English suffered a series of reverses in the early part of the war sufficient to discourage any ordinary group of government officials.

THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR

The first of these defeats was that of General Braddock. The slow-moving British force, trying to conduct the campaign after the manner approved in Europe, was caught in a lively forest battle with the French and Indians. Braddock himself was killed; quantities of supplies were destroyed; and of the force of nineteen hundred men, less than five hundred came through uninjured. The

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ty-five! The defeat opened up to Indian attacks the whole frontier back of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, along a line three hundred fifty miles in length. Not a single British settler or trader remained west of the mountains, and Indian raiding parties burned, scalped, and massacred almost at will. To make matters worse, in the summer of 1755, the English and colonial attacks on Crown Point and Niagara also failed. Small wonder the French were enthusiastic over their successes. The English colonists outnumbered them fifteen to one, but because of colonial inability to get together, the French forces were far superior.

All this had taken place before there was any regular declaration

of war between France and England. This was finally made May 18, 1756. In Europe the actual proclamation of hostilities was preceded by one of the most interesting "diplomatic revolutions" in all history. The French government, alarmed at the menacing rise of Prussia— and according to rumor, mortally offended because Frederick the Great had named his lap dog "Madame du Pompadour "-joined its traditional enemy, Austria, and also Russia and Poland, against Prussia and England. The war that followed, the Seven Years' War, stretched from North America and the West Indies across Europe to India.

The formal declaration of war did not put an end to the series of reverses in North America. In 1756, the English lost Oswego, and in 1757, an expedition against Louisburg failed dismally. About the same time, the French seized Fort William Henry, on Lake George.

At that point William Pitt came to the rescue. Convinced that he alone could save England, this conceited, irascible, gouty genius, who could never get along with any of his colleagues, took full charge of the Cabinet and of the war. In spite of his unlovable personality he had the knack of inspiring others with some of his own energy and enthusiasm. Under his driving power, not unlike that of Roosevelt or Lloyd George in more recent years, the English began to push the French back. Pitt appointed new generals, among whom were Amherst and Wolfe, and by 1758, the value of the new management was demonstrated. Louisburg was taken, next Duquesne, and finally Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario, all in this one year. The capture of Fort Frontenac broke the main line of communication between Canada and the French posts in the West, and, as a result, the whole chain of forts in the Ohio valley had to yield. By the end of 1758, French power in the West was definitely broken. In 1759, Wolfe won lasting fame for himself by the maneuver which led to the capture of Quebec, the strongest of all the French positions in the New World. The capture of Montreal in 1760, broke the power of the French in Canada, as that of Fort Frontenac had already done in the West. In that year, so far as North America was concerned, the Seven Years', or French and Indian War, was over.

In the West Indies and in Europe hostilities continued until 1763. Spain entered the War in 1762, and the English thereupon took advantage of the chance to seize Cuba. Pitt, the great "organizer of victory," hampered by the peace policy of the new king, George

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III, and full of wrath at what he regarded as the bungling of the king's chief adviser, the Earl of Bute, had resigned in 1761. After the usual amount of preliminary jockeying the war was finally brought to an end by the Peace of Paris. Under this treaty, England secured Canada, and all the French possessions east of the Mississippi River. She likewise received the West Indian Islands of Tobago, Dominica, Grenada, and St. Vincent. From Spain, England got the Floridas, East and West, in exchange for Cuba. Louisiana, France handed over to Spain.

The Peace of Paris marked the end of the long contest between Great Britain and France for the control of North America; and the promising beginnings of a French empire in that part of the world were all swept away. The reasons for the failure are to be found partly in the lack of resources in France itself, and partly in the motive back of her colonial policy. As a nation, France lacked the man power to build up populous colonies, and also the industrial strength to keep them going. Besides, the aim of the French in North America was not farming, but furs. The development of any extensive agricultural colonies would inevitably have driven the fur-trade back, because its prosperity was greatest in a virgin country. Without agriculture as a foundation, it was difficult to build large settlements in the climate that prevailed in most of the French possessions. As for the French colonists themselves, there were few who came consciously and purposely to settle down in the new world, as did many of the English. They were adventurers, traders, fishermen, or missionaries, lacking in the spirit-back of the English settlements. There was perhaps more of the romantic and spectacular in the French experiments than in the prosaic English farming communities or plantations, but something more than romance was required to meet the kind of competition which the English were prepared to offer in the Ohio valley.

CHAPTER XIII

ANGLO-AMERICAN RELATIONS, 1755-1763

Here and there, in the long-drawn-out drama of the history of mankind, there are to be found certain striking episodes which have profoundly affected the following centuries, such as the decline of the Roman Empire, or the discovery of the new world. In this select group should be placed the Seven Years' War. The expulsion of the French from North America, by itself, was an event unusual for its significance in the subsequent history of the world; so too was the great increase in the size of the British Empire. But more important even than these was the effect of the war on the relations between the British government and the original British colonies. Down to 1760 the colonists had felt the need of British protection against the almost constant danger of a French attack. This feeling of dependence, rather than any evident sense of loyalty, had kept the Americans within bounds. Once the French menace disappeared, the chief bond between colonies and Empire suddenly, and obviously, snapped. During the war, and especially after it was over, both British and Americans devoted considerably more thought than ever before to the nature of the imperial connection. The imperial system had never been wholly satisfactory, but the activities of the Americans from 1754 to 1763 convinced almost every Englishman who knew anything about the colonies that a thorough overhauling was necessary. By 1760, therefore, the Cabinet was considering certain changes in its colonial policy. Thus it happened that instead of looking upon England as a help, many Americans began to consider her as an outside power, one that prevented the colonies from developing freely and naturally, in their own way. It was the effect of the attempted alteration in British policy upon the colonial state of mind that led directly to the Revolution.

COLONIAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SEVEN
YEARS' WAR

Among the problems of the British government which had remained unsolved ever since the seventeenth century, one of the most im

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