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CHANGE IN BRITISH RELATIONS WITH AFRICA chosen, and in 1783 an Act was passed by which the Gambia was revested in the Company of Merchants trading to Africa, which was to receive an annual grant for its upkeep.1 The administration of the forts and settlements in the Gambia and on the Gold Coast by the Company of Merchants continued until the slave trade was abolished in 1807.

In the history of our relations with Africa the years 1784 to 1787 may be taken as the end of the period in which the promotion of the slave trade was considered the raison d'être of the English connection. The literature concerning Africa that was published in England indicates the change. Up to 1787 the bulk of the printed matter about the subject was concerned with arguments as to the best means of promoting the slave trade, or eulogies on its importance, and little else, but after 1787 there is far more variety in the topics of books or articles on Africa. The settlement for freed negroes at Sierra Leone founded in 1787, the argument about the justice of the slave trade after the beginning of the abolition campaign in the same year, and the beginning of modern scientific exploration, with the foundation in 1788 of the Society for the Promotion of the Exploration of the African interior, introduced a new age in the British connection with Africa.

1 23 George III, c. 65.

CHAPTER XVI

THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR

THE decade after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle witnessed staggering changes in Britain's fortunes. Five quiet years, which bequeathed to history their catchwords of "no Jews, no wooden shoes" and "give us back our eleven days", yielded at Pelham's death (March 1754) to a time of brisker motion. It seemed in 1755 that Newcastle, his brother and successor, had secured for Britain and Hanover enough sponsors among the Powers to warrant an aggressive defensive against the French. Next year, however, Newcastle's house of cards fell down, and at midsummer 1757 a seemingly ruined country turned as a last resort to William Pitt. Before the following year was out, the seas at least were safe and Hanover defended, while the Americans were expressing with the aid of 60,000 gallons of rum their relief from the Canadian menace. In every continent the stage was already set for the classic triumph of 1759. Pitt, anti-Bourbonism incarnate, had made the history of Britain seem his own.

The Seven Years' War (1756-63), indeed, which for Britain may be said to have substantially begun in April 1755, contrasts with that of the Austrian Succession (1740-8) as Pitt with Carteret, his master. Each war began as a struggle for power in the New World, and each was swiftly complicated by the conflicts of the Old. But while in each, as the history of Hanover may show, the interests of Europe proved decisive, Pitt's world-embracing vision was never dimmed by the tradition of the scribes. The threat of French invasion, all-potent in 1744 and 1756, was not suffered to disturb his plans in 1759. The people's minister thus made conquests that the people would not resign, and while imperial history recalls but faintly the peace of 1748, it commemorates no prouder trophy than the peace of 1763.

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The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, indeed, was a "mere end of war because your powder is run out", a conscious breathing-space for the unsolved problem, "France or Britain"? While Newcastle dreaded bankruptcy, Lady Yarmouth had neither the will nor the power to play the Pompadour, and her royal lover was regarded as a miser. Sober estimates in the 'fifties credited George II with a hoard of £15,000,000,4 while France, with a tradition of international 1 Hertz, G. B., British Imperialism in the eighteenth century, passim.

2 Williams, B., The Life of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, 1, 52. 3 Carlyle, T., History of Frederick the Great, bk xvi, chap. iii.

• Wyndham, H. P., The diary of the late George Bubb Dodington, 29 May 1754 and 3 Sept. 1755

FRANCO-BRITISH ANTAGONISM

461

munificence to support, failed to subscribe a royal loan in half a year of peace.1 Such sordid considerations might impel the French to postpone a rupture, and Louis' preference for the excitement of dismissing ministers to the labour of selecting good ones2 helped to make his policy feeble, short-sighted and unpatriotic. But Britain, none the less, remained the enemy-a heretic and unmonarchic state, the leader of Europe against Louis XIV, the patron of militant Germany, and, alike in the Netherlands and by sea, the unsleeping gaoler of France; a Power always intent to divide the Bourbons, to filch away French commerce, and to cripple French dominion overseas. Thirteen years after the so-called peace and six after the renewal of strife, Stanley and Choiseul "at last agreed that the real sources of the war had been the leaving the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle imperfect and incomplete". No agreement in 1748, however, could do more than palliate the symptoms of so deep-seated a disease. A truce, even an entente between France and Britain, merely gave them time for fresh growth and tacit preparation. Only the subjugation of one or a revolution in the conception of nations as natural rivals could end their recurrent feud. And France at least was too vast, rich and well-peopled to share the fate of Portugal, Spain and Holland.

But although the Peace of 1748 had been powerless to harmonise France and Britain, it had silently registered the solution of two other great questions which the war had no less been waged to solve. Austria, it was clear, survived, and Prussia had made good her bold intrusion into the inner circle of great States. These plain facts must obviously affect Britain in the future only less powerfully than her unappeased antagonism to France. For her it had become a commonplace that France was "the only state which either Europe in general or England in particular can be endangered by".4 Against France she naturally sought aid from Germany, that body composed of some two hundred fragments but with a Habsburg emperor at its head. That this simple and natural arrangement, the very fulcrum of the balance of power, should give place to a dualism whereby Germany, as a counterpoise to France, was well-nigh abolished-such a revolution seemed to Newcastle and his colleagues almost beyond belief. Their perplexities were increased by the fact that Hanover lay defenceless against Prussia, with her 130,000 well-trained troops and her fortress of Wesel, convenient to admit the French across the Rhine. They found it hard to believe that, with the interest of Britain and the liberties of Europe to serve, Austria and Prussia could not be brought, as of old, into an alliance.5 Maria Theresa and her 1 F.O., France, 250, Paris, 23 April 1755.

2 Mémoires du Duc de Choiseul, 1719-85, pp. 134, 141.

a F.O., France, 251, Paris, 8 June 1761.

[Mauduit, I.], Considerations on the present German war (5th edn, London, 1761), p. 13. • Ruville, A. von, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, 1, 384 seqq.

ministers, none the less, had the best of reasons for the "absurd peevishness" with which they placed the eventual recovery of Silesia before all other objects. Silesia had been the Habsburgs' best province. Its loss not merely damaged their prestige both in Germany and throughout their heterogeneous empire but constituted a grave strategic threat both to Prague and to Vienna. More weighty still was the shock which the rape of Silesia gave to the moral basis upon which all States rested and dynastic Austria most of all. “The Prussian soldier and his atheist theory", it has even been maintained,2 "had compassed the first mere conquest of European territory which had been achieved by any European power" since Europe had been Christian. If Silesia remained Prussian, European anarchy would begin.

His Most Christian Majesty, indeed, the Habsburgs' hereditary foe, was as little moved as was the British public by such refinements. To the one Prussia formed an efficient if untrustworthy ally, while the other could not regret Protestant success in a domestic quarrel between Germans. Since Silesia had become Prussian, the interest on the Silesian loan had been paid, a duty which Austria had consistently neglected. Prussia's remaining neighbours, however, viewed her rise with less indifference. Augustus, Elector of Saxony and King in Poland, could not be unaware that Saxony and Polish Prussia ranked next to Silesia on the list of Prussian desiderata. Elector George of Hanover distrusted and detested his nephew Frederick on every ground. Sweden, a distracted Power threatened with dissolution, feared for her remnant of Pomerania. In Russia, Elizabeth, a daughter of Peter the Great, now reigned (1741–62). Indolent and dissolute as she was, her deepest feelings were outraged by Frederick's life and tongue, and she never lacked energy when it was a question of removing such an obstacle to the advance of Russia as this satirist of herself and standing offence to God. Such were the clouds on Prussia's horizon which made it possible to argue that of all possible allies for Britain Frederick was the worst, since he must bring with him the enmity of all Europe.

In 1748, therefore, a British servant of George II had two chief problems to consider, a German and a French. The rise in Germany of a Power inherently aggressive, spending five-sixths of its revenue upon armaments, and fettered neither by geography nor by morality in its advance, rendered further aggression or counter-aggression certain, whether Frederick lived or died. No less certain was the renewal of the strife between France and Britain. Conscious of what we had gained by the destruction of the French marine and the dissipation of the Stuart threat, we could await without dismay the

1 F.O., Prussia, 65, Mitchell, Berlin, 24 June 1756.

2 Belloc, H., Marie Antoinette, p. 8.

3 Satow, Sir E., The Silesian loan and Frederick the Great, p. 2.

THE PROBLEM OF ALLIANCES

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outbreak of such a struggle, if only it was uncomplicated by the intrusion of other Powers. On and across the seas our superiority was enough for victory. On land, however, our inferiority was no less marked. And on land we were painfully vulnerable both in the Netherlands, which were vital to the nation, and in Hanover, which was vital to the King. So long as George II remained alive, British policy must be swayed by that separate interest which prompted the words "Your America, your lakes, your Mr Amherst might ruin you or make you rich, but in all events I shall be undone".1 The famous constitutional formula of the Princess of Wales, "The King may sputter and make a bustle, but" [when the ministers say it is necessary for his service] "he must do it" might hold for domestic politics but not for British-Hanoverian. We were, therefore, indeed become 'an insurance office for Hanover", and with such risks as France and Prussia impending, the premium would be a high one.

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In the Netherlands, indeed, we reckoned upon help from the Emperor, who owned them, and from the Dutch, to whom it was a vital interest that they should not be French. Austria, however, might contend with some reason that, since the defence of these provinces was vital to the Sea Powers, and since the commerce of Ostend and of Antwerp was restricted for their advantage, they should regard it as their privilege to do the work themselves. Austrian pride was outraged by the renewed stipulation in 1748 for a chain of forts to be garrisoned by the Sea Powers and to defend the Austrian Netherlands against France. If, therefore, France and Prussia remained allies, a future Silesian war meant for Austria either the detachment of an enormous garrison to hold the Netherlands or, at the peace, the sacrifice for their redemption of what she might have conquered nearer home.

The connection between France and Prussia, indeed, was so embarrassing to Austria that it might well prompt her to reconsider the policy traditional since Charles V. Why should the House of Habsburg continue to regard itself as bound by fate to struggle always and everywhere against the House of Bourbon? The crime of France against the Pragmatic Sanction seemed as nothing in comparison with that of Prussia, and at Aix-la-Chapelle the deepest wounds had been inflicted not by France but by Britain. If post-war France were anywhere aggressive, it was beyond the seas, in regions with which Austria had no concern. In Kaunitz, moreover, Austria now possessed a statesman capable of new ideas, and one who by 1749 had already framed a project of entente with France. That France would consent seemed indeed to many as improbable as that Austria would ever

1 Williams, 1, 384.

2 Dodington, Diary, 8 Feb. 1753.

3 Cf. Rousset, Recueil historique d'actes, etc. 1, 37 seqq.; and Koch et Schöll, Histoire abrégée des traités de paix, n, 420.

Koser, R., König Friedrich der Grosse, 1, 474.

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