An Introduction to the History of Western Europe Part 56

[Sidenote: Settlements of the French and English in North America.]

In North America the chief rivals were England and France, both of which succeeded in establishing colonies in the early part of the seventeenth century. Englishmen successively settled at Jamestown in Virginia (1607), then in New England, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. The colonies owed their growth to the influx of refugees,--Puritans, Catholics, and Quakers,--who exiled themselves in the hope of gaining the right freely to enjoy their particular forms of religion.[371]

Just as Jamestown was being founded by the English the French were making their first successful settlement in Nova Scotia and at Quebec.

Although England made no attempt to oppose the French occupation of Canada, it progressed but slowly. In 1673 Marquette, a Jesuit missionary, and Joliet, a merchant, discovered the Mississippi River. La Salle sailed down the great stream and named the new country which he entered Louisiana, after his king. The city of New Orleans was founded near the mouth of the river in 1718, and the French established a chain of forts between it and Montreal.

England was able, however, by the Treaty of Utrecht, to establish herself in the northern regions, for France thereby ceded to her Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the borders of Hudson Bay. While the number of English in North America at the beginning of the Seven Years'

War is supposed to have been over a million, the French scarcely exceeded a twentieth of that number. Yet careful observers at the time were by no means sure that France was not destined to dominate the new country, rather than England.

[Sidenote: Extent of India.]

The rivalry of England and France was not confined to the wildernesses of North America, occupied by half a million of savage red men. At the opening of the eighteenth century both countries had gained a foothold on the borders of the vast Indian empire, inhabited by two hundred millions of people and the seat of an ancient and highly developed civilization. One may gain some idea of the extent of India by laying the map of Hindustan upon that of the United States. If the southernmost point, Cape Comorin, be placed over New Orleans, Calcutta will lie nearly over New York City and Bombay in the neighborhood of Des Moines, Iowa.

[Sidenote: The Mongolian emperors of Hindustan.]

A generation after Vasco da Gama landed in Calicut,[372] a Mongolian conqueror, Baber,[373] had established his empire in India. The dynasty of Mongolian rulers which he founded had been able to keep the whole country under its control for toward two centuries; then their empire had fallen apart in much the same way as that of Charlemagne had done.

Like the counts and dukes of the Carolingian period, the emperor's officials, the subahdars and nawabs (nabobs), and the rajahs--i.e., Hindu princes temporarily subjugated by the Mongols--had gradually got the power in their respective districts into their own hands. Although the emperor, or Great Mogul, as the English called him, continued to maintain himself in his capital of Delhi, he could no longer be said to rule the country at the opening of the eighteenth century when the French and English were seriously beginning to turn their attention to his coasts.

[Sidenote: English and French settlements in India.]

In the time of Charles I (1639), a village had been purchased by the English East India Company on the southeastern coast of Hindustan, which grew into the important English station of Madras. About a generation later the district of Bengal was occupied and Calcutta founded. Bombay was already an English station. The Mongolian emperor of India at first scarcely deigned to notice the presence of a few foreigners on the fringe of his vast realms. But before the end of the seventeenth century hostilities began between the English East India Company and the native rulers which made it plain that the foreigners would be forced to defend themselves.

The English had not only to face the opposition of the natives, but that of a European power as well. France also had an East India Company, and Pondicherry, at the opening of the eighteenth century, was its chief center with a population of sixty thousand, of which two hundred only were Europeans. It soon became apparent that there was little danger from the Great Mogul; moreover, the Portuguese and Dutch were out of the race. So the native princes and the French and English were left to fight among themselves for the supremacy.

[Sidenote: England victorious in the struggle for supremacy in America.]

206. Just before the general clash of European rulers known as the Seven Years' War came in 1756, the French and English had begun their struggle for control in both America and India. In America the so-called French and Indian War began in 1754 between the English and French colonists.

General Braddock was sent from England to capture Fort Duquesne, which the French had established to keep their rivals out of the Ohio valley.

Braddock knew nothing of border warfare, and he was killed and his troops routed. Fortunately for England, France, as the ally of Austria, was soon engaged in a war with Prussia that prevented her from giving proper attention to her American possessions. A famous statesman, the elder Pitt, was now at the head of the English ministry. He was able not only to succor the hard-pressed king of Prussia with money and men, but also to support the militia of the thirteen American colonies. The French forts at Ticonderoga and Niagara were taken in 1759. Quebec was won in Wolfe's heroic attack, and the following year all Canada submitted to the English. England's supremacy on the sea was demonstrated by three admirals, each of whom destroyed a French fleet in the same year that Quebec was lost to France.

[Sidenote: Dupleix and Clive in India.]

In India conflicts between the French and the English had occurred during the War of the Austrian Succession. The governor of the French station of Pondicherry was Dupleix, a soldier of great energy, who proposed to drive out the English and firmly establish the power of France over Hindustan. His chances of success were greatly increased by the quarrels among the native rulers, some of whom belonged to the earlier Hindu inhabitants and some to the Mohammedan Mongolians who had conquered India in 1526. Dupleix had very few French soldiers, but he began the enlistment of the natives, a custom eagerly adopted by the English. These native soldiers, whom the English called Sepoys, were taught to fight in the manner of Europeans.[374]

[Sidenote: Clive defeats Dupleix.]

But the English colonists, in spite of the fact that they were mainly traders, discovered among the clerks in Madras a leader equal in military skill and energy to Dupleix himself. Robert Clive, who was but twenty-five years old at this time, organized a large force of Sepoys and gained a remarkable ascendency over them by his astonishing bravery.

Dupleix paid no attention to the fact that peace had been declared in Europe at Aix-la-Chapelle, but continued to carry on his operations against the English. But Clive proved more than his equal and in two years had established English supremacy in the southeastern part of India.

[Sidenote: Clive renders English influence supreme in India.]

[Sidenote: The 'Black Hole' of Calcutta.]

[Sidenote: Battle of Pla.s.sey, 1757.]

At the moment that the Seven Years' War was beginning, bad news reached Clive from the English settlement of Calcutta, about a thousand miles to the northeast of Madras. The subahdar of Bengal had seized the property of some English merchants and imprisoned one hundred and forty-five Englishmen in a little room, where most of them died of suffocation before morning. Clive hastened to Bengal, and with a little army of nine hundred Europeans and fifteen hundred Sepoys he gained a great victory at Pla.s.sey over the subahdar's army of fifty thousand men. Clive then replaced the subahdar of Bengal by a man whom he believed to be friendly to the English. Before the Seven Years' War was over the English had won Pondicherry and deprived the French of all their former influence in the region of Madras.

[Sidenote: England's gains in the Seven Years' War.]

When the Seven Years' War was brought to an end in 1763 by the Treaty of Paris, it was clear that England had gained far more than any other power. She was to retain her two forts commanding the Mediterranean, Gibraltar, and Port Mahon on the island of Minorca; in America, France ceded to her the vast region of Canada and Nova Scotia, as well as several of the islands in the West Indies. The region beyond the Mississippi was ceded to Spain by France, who thus gave up all her claims to North America. In India, France, it is true, received back the towns which the English had taken from her, but she had permanently lost her influence over the native rulers, for Clive had made the English name greatly feared among them.

[Sidenote: Beginning of trouble with the American colonies.]

207. England, with the help of her colonists, had thus succeeded in driving the French from North America and in securing the continent, with the exception of Mexico, for the English race. She was not, however, long to enjoy her victory, for no sooner had the Peace of Paris been signed than she and her American colonies became involved in a dispute over taxation, which led to a new war and the creation of an independent English-speaking nation, the United States of America.

[Sidenote: The Stamp Act and its repeal.]

It seemed right to England that the colonies should help pay the expenses of the late war, which were very heavy, and also support a small standing army of English soldiers. Parliament therefore pa.s.sed the Stamp Act in 1765, which required the colonists to pay for stamps to be used on legal doc.u.ments. The Americans declared that Parliament had no right to tax them, since they were not represented in that body. The opposition to the stamp tax was so great that Parliament repealed the act, but with the explicit a.s.sertion that it nevertheless had the right to tax the colonies as well as to make laws for them.

[Sidenote: Opposition to 'taxation without representation.']

The effort to make the Americans pay a very moderate import duty on tea produced further trouble in 1773. The young men of Boston seditiously boarded a tea ship in the harbor and threw the cargo into the water.

Burke, perhaps the most able member of the House of Commons, urged the ministry to leave the Americans to tax themselves, but George III (1760-1820) and Parliament as a whole could not forgive the colonists their opposition. They believed that the trouble was largely confined to New England and could be easily overcome. In 1774 acts were pa.s.sed prohibiting the landing and shipping of goods at Boston, and the colony of Ma.s.sachusetts was deprived of its former right to choose its judges and the members of the upper house of its legislature. These appointments were now placed in the hands of the king.

[Sidenote: The Continental Congress.]

[Sidenote: Outbreak of war.]

[Sidenote: Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.]

Such measures, instead of bringing Ma.s.sachusetts to terms, so roused the apprehension of the rest of the colonists that a congress was summoned, and met at Philadelphia. This decided that all trade with Great Britain should cease until the grievances of the colonies had been redressed.

The following year the Americans made a brave stand against British troops at Lexington and in the battle of Bunker Hill. The new Congress decided to prepare for war and raised an army which was put under the command of George Washington, a Virginia planter who had gained some distinction in the late French and Indian War. Up to this time the colonies had not intended to secede from the mother country, but the proposed compromises came to nothing, and in July, 1776, Congress declared that "these United States are, and of right ought to be, free and independent."

[Sidenote: The United States seeks and receives aid from France.]

This occurrence naturally excited great interest in France. The outcome of the Seven Years' War had been most lamentable for that country, and any trouble which came to her old enemy England could not but be a source of congratulation to the French. The United States regarded France as her natural ally and immediately sent Benjamin Franklin to Versailles with the hope of obtaining the aid of the new French king, Louis XVI. The king's ministers were doubtful whether the colonies could long maintain their resistance against the overwhelming strength of the mother country. It was only after the Americans had defeated Burgoyne at Saratoga in 1777, that France concluded a treaty with the United States in which the independence of the new republic was recognized. This was tantamount to declaring war upon England. The enthusiasm for the Americans was so great in France that a number of the younger n.o.bles, the most conspicuous of whom was Lafayette, crossed the Atlantic to fight in the American army.[375]

[Sidenote: Close of the war, 1783.]

[Sidenote: England acknowledges the independence of the United States.]

In spite of the skill and heroic self-sacrifice of Washington, the Americans lost more battles than they gained. It is extremely doubtful if they would have succeeded in bringing the war to a favorable close, by forcing the English general, Cornwallis, to capitulate at Yorktown (1781), had it not been for the aid of the French fleet. Before the war was terminated by the Peace of Paris (1783), Spain had joined in the hostilities, and the Spanish and French fleets laid siege to Gibraltar.

Their floating batteries were finally destroyed by the red-hot shot of the British, and the enemies of England gave up further attempts to dislodge her from this important station. The chief result of the war was the recognition by England of the United States, whose territory was to extend to the Mississippi River. To the west of the Mississippi, the vast territory of Louisiana still remained in the hands of Spain.

[Sidenote: Results in Europe of wars between Treaty of Utrecht and Peace of Paris.]

208. The results of the European wars during the sixty years which elapsed between the Treaty of Utrecht and the Peace of Paris may be summarized as follows. In the northeast two new powers, Russia and Prussia, had come into the European family of nations. Prussia had greatly extended her territory by gaining Silesia and West Poland. She and Austria were, in the nineteenth century, to engage in a struggle for supremacy in Germany, which was to result in subst.i.tuting the present German empire under the headship of the Hohenzollerns for the Holy Roman Empire, of which the house of Hapsburg had so long been the nominal chief.

[Sidenote: Origin of the 'eastern question.']

The power of the Sultan was declining so rapidly that Austria and Russia were already considering the seizure of his European possessions. This presented a new problem to the European powers, which came to be known in the nineteenth century as the "eastern question." Were Austria and Russia permitted to aggrandize themselves by adding the Turkish territory to their possessions, it would gravely disturb the balance of power which England had so much at heart. So it came about that, from this time on, Turkey was admitted in a way to the family of western European nations, for it soon appeared that some of the states of western Europe were willing to form alliances with the Sultan, and even aid him directly in defending himself against his neighbors.

[Sidenote: England's colonial possessions.]

England had lost her American colonies, and by her perverse policy had led to the creation of a sister state speaking her own language and destined to occupy the central part of the North American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific. She still retained Canada, however, and in the nineteenth century added a new continent in the southern hemisphere, Australia, to her vast colonial empire. In India she had no further rivals among European nations, and gradually extended her influence over the whole region south of the Himalayas. In 1877 Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India as the successor of the Grand Mogul.

[Sidenote: France under Louis XV, 1715-1774.]

As for France, she had played a rather pitiful role during the long reign of Louis XIV's great grandson, Louis XV (1715-1774). She had, however, been able to increase her territory by the addition of Lorraine (1766) and, in 1768, of the island of Corsica. A year later a child was born in the Corsican town of Ajaccio, who one day, by his genius, was to make France the center for a time of an empire rivaling that of Charlemagne in extent. When the nineteenth century opened France was no longer a monarchy, but a republic; and her armies were to occupy in turn every European capital, from Madrid to Moscow. In order to understand the marvelous transformations produced by the French Revolution and the wars of Napoleon, we must consider somewhat carefully the conditions in France which led to a great reform of her inst.i.tutions in 1789, and to the founding of a republic four years later.