We have heard, too, of the defeat and death of General Braddock in the same parts. Still better do we remember the struggle between Dupleix and Clive in India, the defence of Arcot, and the deeds which led to the founding of our Indian empire. All these events were part of a desperate struggle for supremacy between England and France, and yet most of them took place after the Treaty of Aixla-Chapelle in 1748 and before the commencement of the next war in 1756. We have then one great conflict lasting from 1744, or a little earlier, to the Peace of Paris in 1763, through a period of about twenty years. It ended in the most disastrous defeat that has ever in modern times been suffered by France except in 1870, a defeat which in fact sealed the doom of the house of Bourbon. But fifteen years later, and just within the lifetime of the great statesman who had guided us to victory, England and France were at war again. France entered into relations with our insurgent colonies, acknowledged their independence, and assisted them with troops. Once more, for five years, there was war by land and sea between England and France. But are we to suppose that this was a wholly new war, and not rather a sort of afterswell of the great disturbance that had so recently been stilled? It was not for a moment concealed or disguised that France now, in our hour of distress, took vengeance for what she had suffered from us. This was her revenge for the loss of Canada, namely, to create the United States. In the words which on a later occasion became so celebrated, "She called a new world into existence to redress the balance of the old." Thus these three great wars are more closely connected together than they might appear to be. But how closely connected they are we shall not see until we ask ourselves what the ground of quarrel was, and whether the same ground of quarrel runs under all of them. At first sight it appears to be otherwise. For the war of England and France does not at any time stand out distinct and isolated, but is mixed up with other wars which are going on at the same time. Such immense complex medleys are characteristic of the eighteenth century. What, for instance, can the capture of Quebec have to do with the struggle of Frederick and Maria Theresa for Silesia? In such medleys there is great room for historical mistake, for premature generalization. What is really at issue may be misunder stood; as, for instance, when we remark that in the Seven Years' War the Protestant powers of Europe were ranged on one side, we should go very far astray if we tried to make out that it was Protes tantism that prevailed in India or in Canada over the spirit of Catholicism. What I have undertaken to show is that the extension of England into the New World and into Asia is the formula which sums up for England the history of the eighteenth century. I point out now that the great triple war of the middle of that century is neither more nor less than the great decisive duel between England and France for the possession of the New World. It was scarcely per ceived at the time, and has been seldom remarked since; but the secret of that second Hundred Years' War between England and France, which fills the eighteenth century, was that they were rival candidates for the possession of the New World, and the triple war which fills the middle of the century is, as it were, the decisive campaign in that great worldstruggle. We did not take possession of the New World simply because we found it empty, and had more ships than other nations by which we might carry colonists into it. Not, indeed, that we conquered it from another power which already had possession of it. But we had a competitor in the work of settlement, a competitor who in some respects had got the start of us, namely, France. The simple fact about North America is this, that about the same time that James I. was giving charters to Virginia and New England, the French were founding further north the two settlements of Acadie and Canada; and, again, about the time that William Penn got his charter for Pennsylvania from Charles II., the Frenchman, Lasalle, by one of the greatest feats of discovery ever achieved, made his way from the Great Lakes to the sources of the Mississippi, and putting his boats upon the stream descended the whole vast river to the Gulf of Mexico, laying open a great territory, which immediately afterwards became the French colony of Louisiana. Such was the rela tion of France and England in North America at the time when the Revolution of 1688 opened what I have called the second Hundred Years' War of England and France. England had a row of thriv ing colonies lying from north to south along the eastern coast, but France had the two great rivers, the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi. A political prophet | produce a war; and it is only in those comparing the prospects of the two col onizing powers at the time of our Revolution, and indeed much later, might have been led by observing what an advantage the two rivers gave to France, to think that in the future North America would belong to her rather than to England. three wars of the middle of the eighteenth century that they fight quite visibly and evidently for the New World. In the earlier wars of William III. and of Anne, other causes are more, or certainly not less, operative, for the New World quarrel is not yet at its height. But now it is most curious to observe And again in the later wars, that is the further that not only in America France two that followed the French Revolution, and England in that age advanced side the question of the New World is again by side, but in Asia also. The conquest falling into the background, because of India by English merchants seems a France has fairly lost her hold both upon unique and abnormal phenomenon, but America and India, and can now do no we should be mistaken if we supposed more than make despairing efforts to rethat there was anything peculiarly En- gain it. But in those three wars, between glish, either in the originality which con- 1740 and 1783, the struggle as between ceived the idea, or in the energy which England and France is entirely for the carried it into execution. So far as an New World. In the first of them the idea of conquering India was deliberately issue is fairly joined; in the second conceived at all, it was conceived by France suffers her fatal fall; in the third Frenchmen; Frenchmen first observed she takes her signal revenge. This is the that it was possible, and saw the manner first grand chapter in the history of in which it could be done; Frenchmen first set about it, and advanced some way towards accomplishing it. In India, indeed, they had the start of us much more decidedly than in North America; in India alone we had at the outset a sense of inferiority in comparison with them, and fought in a spirit of hopeless self-defence. And I find when I study the English conquest of India that we were inspired neither by ambition, nor yet by mere desire to advance our trade, but that from first to last, that is, from the first efforts of Clive to the time when Lord Wellesley, Lord Minto, and Lord Hastings estab. lished our empire over the whole vast peninsula, we were actuated by fear of the French; behind every movement of the native powers we saw French intrigue, French gold, French ambition, and never until we were masters of the whole country got rid of that feeling that the French were driving us out of it, which had descended from the days of Dupleix and Labourdonnais. This consideration, then, that both in America and in Asia France and England stood in direct competition for a prize of absolutely incalculable value explains the fact that France and England fought a second Hundred Years' War. This is the ultimate explanation. But the true ground of discord was not always equally apparent, even to the belligerents them selves, and still less to the rest of the world. For as in other ages so in that; occasional causes of difference frequently arose between such near neighbors, causes often sufficient in themselves to We Greater Britain, for it is the first great But in our wars with Louis XIV. before and in our wars with the French Revolution afterwards, it will be found on examination that much more than might be supposed the real bone of contention between England and France is the New World. Let us look first at the wars of William and Anne. The colonial question had been growing in magnitude throughout the seventeenth century, while the other burning question of that age, the quarrel of the two Churches, had been falling somewhat into the background. Thus when Cromwell made war on Spain it is a question whether he attacked her as the great Catholic power or as the great monopolist of the New World. In the same age the two great Protestant States, England and Holland, who ought in the interest of religion to have stood side by side, are found waging furious war upon each other as rival colonial powers. Now it was by the great discovery and settlement of Louisiana in 1683 that France was brought into the forefront of colonial powers, and within six years of that event the Hundred Years' War of England and France began. and at the same time by stirring Tippoo Sooltan to war with the East India Company. And he actually carries out this plan, so that the whole struggle is transferred from the British Channel into the boundless spaces of Greater Britain, and when the Irish shortly afterwards rise they find to their bitter disappointment that France cannot spare them Bonaparte, but only General Humbert with eleven hundred men. When this war was brought to an end by the Treaty of Amiens in 1802 the results of it were such as to make that treaty a great epoch in the history of the English empire. In the first place Egypt In the first war of the series, however, the colonial question is not very prominent. But it is prominent in the second, which has been called the War of the Spanish Succession. We must not be misled by this name. Much has been said of the wicked waste of blood and treasure of which we were guilty when we interfered in a Spanish question with which we had no concern, or terrified our selves with a phantom of French ascendency which had no reality. How much better, it has been said, to devote ourselves to the civilizing pursuits of trade! But read in Ranke how the war broke out. You will find that it was precisely trade that led us into it. The Spanish is finally evacuated by France, in other succession affected us because France threatened by establishing her influence in Spain to enter into the Spanish monopoly of the New World, and to shut us irrevocably out of it. Accordingly the great practical results of this war to England were colonial and commercial, namely, the conquest of Acadie and the Asiento compact, which for the first time made England on the great scale a slavetrading power. Still more true is it of our wars with the French Revolution and with Napoleon that the possession of the New World was among the grounds of quarrel. As in the American War France avenges on England her expulsion from the New World, so under Napoleon she makes Titanic efforts to recover her lost place there. This indeed is Napoleon's fixed view with regard to England. He sees in England never the island, the European State, but always the world-empire, the net-work of dependencies and colonies and islands covering every sea, among which he was himself destined at last to find his prison and his grave. Thus when in 1798 he was put in charge for the first time of the war with England, he begins by examining the British Channel, and no doubt glances at Ireland. But what he sees does not tempt him, although a few months afterwards Ireland broke out in a terrible rebellion, during which if the conqueror of Italy had suddenly landed at the head of a French army, undoubtedly_he would have struck a heavier blow at England than any she has yet suffered. But no, his mind is occupied with other thoughts. He is thinking how France once seemed on the point of conquering India, until England drove her out; accordingly he decides and convinces the Directory that the proper way to carry on war with England is by occupying Egypt, words Bonaparte's grand scheme of attack against our Indian empire has failed. His ally Tippoo Citoyen Tipou as he was called had been defeated and slain some time before, and General Baird had moved with an English force up the Red Sea to take part with General Hutchinson in the final defeat of the French in Egypt. In the colonial world at the same time England remained mistress of Ceylon and Trinidad. But the last war, that which lasted from 1803 to 1815, was this in any sense a war for the New World? It does not at first sight appear to be so; and very naturally, because England from the beginning had such a naval superiority that Napoleon could never again succeed in making his way back into the New World. But yet it was so, as I find after a closer examination. In the first place look at the origin and cause of it. It was at the outset a war for Malta. By the treaty of Amiens England had engaged within a given time to evacuate Malta, and this for certain reasons, which this is not the place to discuss, she afterwards refused to do. Now why did Napoleon want her to leave Malta, and why did she refuse to do so? It was because Malta was the key of Egypt, and she believed, certainly not without strong reasons, that Bonaparte would in a moment reoccupy Egypt, and that the struggle for India would begin again. Thus the war was ultimately for India, and further I find that though by the retention of Malta we did effectually and once for all ward off this attack, yet we did not ourselves know how successful we had been. We still believed India to be full of French intrigue; we believed the Mahratta and Afghan princes and the Persian shah to be puppets worked by the French, as indeed they had many French officers in their service. I imagine that ROBIN. From Temple Bar. CHAPTER XXXVIII. MADE thoughtful by the contents of Mr. Cameron's letter, it did not seem strange that for the rest of the evening Christopher should be unusually silent. He did not tell Robin he felt so weary that mere ordinary speaking was an effort to him. In his own mind he set down this sense of fatigue to his late indisposition. "That attack has pulled me down," he said, "and made me weaker than I thought myself." the great Mahratta War of 1803 seemed to Lord Wellesley to be a part of the war with France, and that Sir Arthur Welles- BY MRS. PARR, AUTHOR OF “ADAM AND EVE" ley believed that at Assaye and Argaum he struck at the same enemy as afterwards at Salamanca and Waterloo. On the other hand we can trace throughout Napoleon's desperate effort to break through the toils with which England has enveloped him. He tries for a time to make something of Louisiana, and then sells it to the United States in order that at least England may not get possession of it. He takes possession of Portugal and Spain in order to compensate himself in South and Central America for what France has lost in North America, and Colonel Malleson tells us, in his "Later Struggles of France in the East" what a destructive privateering war the French were able to keep up in the Indian Ocean from their island of Mauritius long after their naval power had been destroyed at Trafalgar. It was by the English conquest of this island and by its retention at the peace that the Hundred Years' War of England and France for the New World came to an end. These are the facts which show that the eighteenth century ought always to be thought of as the period of the world-wide expansion of England. They show at the same time that this proposition is much more pregnant then might at first sight appear. At first sight it seems to mean merely that the acquisition of Canada and that of India are greater events in intrinsic importance than other more conspicuous events nearer home, such as Marlborough's victories, or Chatham's politics, or the national struggle with Napoleon. It really means that the expansion of England is at the bottom of one class of events just as much as of the other. At first sight it may seem to mean that the European policy of England in that century is of less importance than its extraEuropean policy. But it really means that the European policy and the extra-European policy are but different aspects of the same great national development. So much has been shown; much more might be shown. For this single concep. tion brings together not only the European with the colonial affairs, but also the military struggles with the whole peaceful expansion of the country, with that industrial and commercial growth which during the same century exceeded in England all previous example. But enough — jam tempus equum fumantia solvere colla. J. R. SEELEY. There had been a time in Christopher's life when his weakly health, except so far as it interfered with his comfort, was a matter of very little concern to him; the world had not held out many attractions, and he was not disturbed in the least to think he might possibly be called on to leave it early. But since Robin had been his wife, and more particularly since this renewal of a good understanding between them, Christopher had been conscious of a desperate clinging to life, of building on the future, counting on long years to come, to be spent by Robin and him to. gether. "I feel rather tired," he said at length, noticing that Robin had put down her book and was looking at him. "Still you don't seem disposed to move." "Get along," she said, giving him a shake; "you go up-stairs, and I'll tell them about calling us, and giving us our breakfast early." Naturally a light sleeper, Robin was surprised to find Christopher already asleep when she went into the room, and so soundly that he did not hear her enter. He seemed to continue sleeping until morning, when, between three and four, he was awakened by a fit of shivering, increasing in violence, and becoming so severe, that Robin implored him to let her send for a doctor. No; he thought it would pass; it was but a return of his cold. If she would put some more clothes on the bed, and, as soon as they were stirring, ask for some hot tea, he thought he should be better. But in spite of all that Robin could do, her suggestions and remedies were of no avail; a terrible pain in the side seized The next day Christopher was announced to be suffering from a severe attack of pneumonia and pleurisy following on his previous indisposition. The doctor viewed the case gravely. "He has caught cold again; got another chill," he said. And Robin feared he had; but, unacquainted with illness as she was, a cold, which he frequently caught and always recovered from, gave her no serious alarm. "He'll soon be all right again, don't you think?" "Oh, I quite hope so. Why? Were you thinking of sending for some one to help you?" The wish was put warily. No; I can do all the nursing he wants. But he had thought of going to see his father." "Ah! I'm afraid he will have to put that off for some little time now. Would it not be as well to ask his father to come and see him?" "Not at present, I think; we shouldn't care to." And seeing there was actually at present no necessity, the doctor did not urge it further. The next day, however, Christopher was worse. Then his mind began to wander; and Robin, frightened beyond measure at a symptom always distressing to those around, sent off a telegram to Mr. Blunt: "Come directly this reaches you. Christopher is very ill." Again and again Mr. Blunt read these words over. The sight of them seemed to paralyze him; he was seized with the certainty that his son was dying—perhaps even dead before now. What should he do? When did the next train go? Already he had summoned a servant and sent him to seek information. The next train was the 5.50, there was none before; it was now three o'clock. Three hours to wait! How should he endure them? The suggestions that went coursing through his mind seemed like to madden him. From the servant Mr. Cameron learned the cause of the summons, and with ready sympathy at once obeyed it. How strangely altered seemed their relative positions since they last met! then Mr. Blunt's hectoring and bluster had completely cowed the sensitive organization of the curate; his loud voice jarred upon him and drove him to silence. Now it was Mr. Cameron who spoke, Mr. Blunt who listened, banging on every word of assurance and encouragement the other gave him. Skilled in administering comfort, Mr. Blunt found himself gaining courage; he was another being since Mr. Cameron had come. But what would happen when he left him? There was still to be bridged over that two hours' journey in the train, and the drive from the station. Oh, the delay was sickening! "Shall I go up with you? Would you like it?" Mr. Blunt almost broke down under the weight of his gratitude; it was the very thing he had been longing for, but had not dared to ask. Those who never put themselves out to accommodate others, when wanting favors for themselves are apt to overestimate their obligation. It was nothing to Mr. Cameron to accompany him to London. He would have made the same offer, only more readily, to the poorest parishioner. "Then pick me up at my lodgings as you go past," he said; and away he rushed to run in at the rectory, so that they might know for what reason he had gone away. "I'll walk down with you," said Georgy; and there she was standing when Mr. Blunt drove up, ready with cheery words and good wishes to start them on their way. "And tell Mrs. Christopher if she wants any help to send for me; I'm a first-rate hand at sick-nursing, you know." Who, at parting, shall say what their next meeting may be? Mr. Blunt and Robin had never seen each other since that day when Christopher had come between them; then, furious, exasperated, their thoughts had been centred on themselves, their anger on "Go to Mr. Cameron," he said at each other. Now, when, with noiseless length, in desperation. "Ask him to steps and knees that trembled under him, come to me. Say I want him." Mr. Blunt found himself at the door of He had meant to send word that Chris-the sick-room out of which Robin had topher was ill, but was unable to speak his son's name. At the moment when he was going to mention it, his voice had failed him. come, both he and she seemed to have merged their individuality. For her, he was Christopher's father: for him, she was Christopher's wife. Had he taken |