interests. As we know in later years, Pitt declared he would not allow "a nail or a horseshoe" to be manufactured in North America. But he also suggested with pride and prophetic insight that Canada would contain 15,000,000 men "when fully peopled". And this shows that he appreciated the advantages of population as well as of trade, and in this sense went farther than some of his friends in the City. Over the German war Pitt seems to have had the City with him throughout, but he did not always carry all the public. An extremely able pamphlet by Mauduit-Considerations on the present German warappeared in 1760. It was an anti-Pitt pamphlet, said to have been written under the influence of Lord Hardwicke,1 which ran into many editions. It attacked Pitt's famous dictum of "conquering America in Germany", arguing that the continental war drained our resources, while the colonial increased them. The argument was specious, for it assumed that the German war could be isolated from the colonial struggle, and that our containing operations in Europe did not assist our aggressive operations in America. But it shook Pitt considerably, and at the beginning of 1761 he seemed to be willing to discuss with the King, and with others, the abandoning of the German war. This concession could only have been because of its unpopularity. Towards the end of 1761, however, Pitt strenuously argued for the continuance of war in Europe, and in this attitude the City was with him. Prohibition of manufactures in the colonies, prohibition of Newfoundland fisheries to France, were imperatively demanded by the popular and City connections of Pitt. And it was this system of complete monopoly which was fatal both to his internal and external policy. For Pitt could not have substantially modified either demand and retained either his power or his popularity. As regards the West Indies and the German war he saw deeper and further than any contemporary, and took a more independent course. He was alone in understanding how strategic and commercial aims subserved one another.

Far the most powerful defence of the Government was made by Lord Shelburne, who had become President of the Board of Trade in the Government,2 though he was afterwards to take Pitt as a political model. He began by arguing that territory was "secondary" and "subservient to the interests of commerce, which is now the great object of ambition". In proportion as exports and imports increased in a country, so would the number of sailors and ships, and thus wealth was the best defence of a nation. France and Spain could not

1 This is Horace Walpole's assertion, but it seems doubtful.

2 Shelburne MSS, vol. CLXV, Lord Shelburne's Speech 1762 (evidently on 9 Dec.). It seems to be the notes rather than the text of the speech, and is not signed by Shelburne. It is not given in Hansard, and was not found by Lord Fitzmaurice, Shelburne, 1, 137. There can, however, be no doubt of its authenticity, for it is similar in substance to the "Report of the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations on Division of ceded Provinces and Islands" signed by Shelburne as President of the Board, 8 June 1763. See Brit. Mus., Add. MSS, 35913, ff. 230 seqq.

SHELBURNE'S DEFENCE OF THE PEACE

505

well apprehend more evil than they have already sustained, for the capitals of Paris and Madrid were not threatened. So we must make concessions "to make Peace tolerable to our Enemies".

The first object we had obtained was America. "The total exclusion of the French from Canada and of the Spaniards from Florida gives Great Britain the universal empire of that extended coast."1 We had gained also "new fields of commerce" with the Indians, and supplies of manufactures to 70,000 "Acadians" (French Canadians), we had likewise obtained security for the immense white population of our own colonists. The British exports to the American mainland had greatly increased of late, and the import of naval stores from thence was of great importance, for it might be developed so as to supersede the materials previously obtained from the Baltic, and thereby add to our security. The concessions made by France in the Newfoundland fisheries would enable us to maintain 4000 more seamen than before. Thus the possession of the whole continent of North America assured us an abundance of population and commerce and therefore of sailors and of ships.

On the other hand, even if we acquired more of the West Indian isles, we should not gain. We exported only £1,000,000 to them at present, and imported £2,000,000, thus losing on the balance. In this view Guadeloupe was a "trifling object", particularly as more sugar could be grown in British islands, and the benefit of such cultivation was doubtful. "Wherever sugar grows population decreases", and therefore "our sugar isles weaken and depopulate our Mother Country, sugar requiring moist[ure] and heat [which] are the causes of putrefaction." "On the contrary the Northern Colonies increase population and of course the consumption of our manufactures, pay us by their trade with foreigners...thereby giving employment to millions of inhabitants in Great Britain and Ireland, and are of the utmost consequence to the wealth, safety and independence of these Kingdoms, and must continue so for ages to come." There was more than one flaw in this vigorously reasoned and able apology. Thus security disappeared on the mainland if some of the Northern Colonies revolted, as more than one pamphlet had hinted they might do. Shelburne's only suggestion in that direction was that the possession of Florida would enable descents to be made on the Spanish fleet from Vera Cruz or on the Spanish islands. In this respect Pitt's insight cut deeper. It was difficult to formulate or apply schemes of defence on the mainland, and so possession of strategic points in the West Indies was really more important. In the islands, defence rested mainly on the fleet of the mother country; on colonial legislatures which could at need be coerced; and on a

1 He explained later that the French settlement of New Orleans was so unwholesome, and the navigation of the Mississippi so difficult, that no danger was to be apprehended in that quarter.

general defence policy which could be absolutely controlled by the Admiralty in London. Further concessions could in fact have been extorted from Spain and France. The maladroitness and haste of Bute had made the whole question of compensation for new captures very difficult. For Havana we did not receive full value. For the brilliant capture of Manila, which took place after the Preliminaries of Peace were arranged, no equivalent or compensation was ultimately given. Its occupation, if known in time, would have been a formidable card in British hands to demand the retention either of Cuba or of St Lucia. Here again the haste to make peace injured England's interests. The demand for more strategic security in the West Indies was Pitt's method of meeting the menace offered by the union of the Bourbons. Against this alliance in the future no provision had been made, as Cumberland pointed out to the King. Had Pitt's advice been followed, and St Lucia or Cuba secured, it is certain that the task of the French fleet in the American War of Independence would have been rendered more difficult. It is even arguable whether the naval disasters, which led to the surrender of Yorktown, could have occurred. Thus strategic security in the West Indies was sacrificed to the interests of the American mainland. And diplomatic security was equally sacrificed in Europe, for Bute abandoned his allies in Germany in order to make peace. Pitt saw the danger of such isolation in Europe and strove, directly he returned to power in 1766, to renew our alliance with Prussia and also with Russia. His efforts were vain, and one cause of British disasters in the War of Independence was the fact that Bute's policy had left us without a single ally in Europe. It is a curious reflection on the Peace of Paris that it was assailed by the greatest of all our colonial statesmen on the ground that it sacrificed British interests, both in the West Indies and in Germany, to those of the American mainland. Such a policy implied indeed an abiding trust in the loyalty of British settlers in North America. And the man who had this confidence, the man who cared nothing for Hanover, who gloried in the name of Briton, who gambled on the loyalty of America, was His Majesty, King George III.

CHAPTER XVIII

SEA POWER AND EXPANSION, 1660-1763

UNDER

NDER the manifestations of national energy and growth hitherto considered there is one factor fundamental to all. Sea power alone could enable the race first to spread overseas and then to uphold vital connection with the new settlements. The former of these processes is brought about mainly by victorious war. The second raises questions of commerce, finance, law and naval and international policy, all of which, however, rest finally on the former. But sea power also depends on national spirit, good organisation and skill in leadership. With these essentials we are here chiefly concerned, so far as they conduced to the spread and the maintenance of the British Empire.

Under the Commonwealth and Protectorate, England had rediscovered her naval strength. Like other revolutionary governments, that of Cromwell had to exploit all possible resources, and was the first to develop a national and professional ocean-going Navy. Well-found, well-manned, well-armed, homogeneous in design, and handled with a view to a vigorous offensive, that Navy had worsted the larger but heterogeneous and half-mercantile fleets of the Dutch Republic. Already the English admirals were feeling their way towards the line-ahead formation, for which uniformity in design and drill was essential; and behind this tactical advantage lay that invaluable strategic asset, England's position athwart the chief lines of Dutch commerce, which enabled her to enforce a strangling economic blockade. Thus, the final issue could not be doubtful. The almost self-contained island, possessing a professional Navy, could wear down, first the fleets, then the commerce, then the vital strength even of a brave maritime people too dependent on the sea. Equally clear were the imperial issues. The same force, exerted against the wide-flung and ill-cohering dominions of Spain, easily won Jamaica, establishing a base in the heart of Spain's jealously guarded Caribbean preserve. Thus the English, having won security at home and vantage posts overseas, could view without grave anxiety the rapid growth of the French marine.

Is it surprising that Charles II and James II set great store by the Navy, and that Parliament, at the beginning of the Second Dutch War, granted a royal aid "for the preservation of His Majesty's ancient and undoubted sovereignty and dominion in the seas"? The range of action of the King's ships was also extended by the acquisition of Tangier and Bombay as part of the dowry of Charles II's bride, Catherine of Braganza; for the former place, when protected

by a mole, commanded the entrance to the Mediterranean and countered the efforts of Louis XIV to make of that sea a French lake;1 while the fine natural harbour of Bombay promised support both for the neighbouring British posts and for the East India Company's commerce in those waters. The pretensions of France and, still more, the arrogant exclusiveness of the Dutch in the East Indies brought about acute friction; and in 1663 Charles was applauded when, without declaring war, he ordered Sir Robert Holmes to attack Dutch posts in West Africa and on the Hudson River. The success of this raid, and the ease with which New Amsterdam (New York) and other posts were not only conquered but held, revealed the fragility of the Dutch colonial fabric, reared on a narrow trade monopoly and little real colonisation. The Second Dutch War (1665–7) also proved again the strategic and economic weakness of the United Provinces, whose oceanic trade and North Sea fisheries could readily be cut off by the British Navy. For all their stout attacks on us in home waters and almost complete renunciation of oceanic trade, the Dutch could not gain maritime supremacy; and meanwhile they were drained of their life-blood.

Very different was the strategy of the French, now for a time allied to the United Provinces; for while the Dutch pressed us hard in the North Sea and did little elsewhere, the French held back in the major operations but urged on la guerre de course, especially in the West Indies, where they drove English settlers from St Christopher. Finally Harman's powerful relieving squadron beat the French under the guns of Martinique and then raided French and Dutch colonies; but that diversion of force weakened our home defence; and, still more, the rottenness of Charles's administration exposed us to de Ruyter's telling blow at the Thames and Medway. Even so, the exhaustion of the Dutch led to the Peace of Breda (July 1667) which, besides restoring the English part of St Christopher, assured Surinam to the Dutch and New York and New Jersey to the British-a proof that even amidst Caroline decadence, our people could hold their own against the Dutch and French united. The disgrace came in the Third Dutch War when Charles II and Louis XIV in unscrupulous alliance failed to overcome the heroic Dutch.

Meanwhile, individuals had shown that English spirit had not decayed. In 1668-9 two explorers, Radisson and Groseillers, employed for the time by Prince Rupert, with Gillam of Boston as their navigator, renewed the old quest for the North-West Passage, and during the search for it around Hudson Bay established the post of Fort Charles. Thereupon their patrons, including Prince Rupert, obtained a charter founding the Hudson's Bay Company (2 May 1670),

Harris, F. R., Life of E. Mountague, first Earl of Sandwich, 1, 197, 204, 11, 82, 154-9, 165-9; Routh, E. M. G., Tangier, passim; Tedder, A. W., Navy of the Restoration, chap. iv.