were already securely laid in the characteristics of her colonists and
the strength of her fleets. In strictly European affairs her wealth,
the outcome of her sea power, made her play a conspicuous part during
the same period. The system of subsidies, which began half a century
before in the wars of Marlborough and received its most extensive
development half a century later in the Napoleonic wars, maintained
the efforts of her allies, which would have been crippled, if not
paralyzed, without them. Who can deny that the government which with
one hand strengthened its fainting allies on the continent with the
life-blood of money, and with the other drove its own enemies off the
sea and out of their chief possessions, Canada, Martinique,
Guadeloupe, Havana, Manila, gave to its country the foremost role in
European politics; and who can fail to see that the power which dwelt
in that government, with a land narrow in extent and poor in
resources, sprang directly from the sea? The policy in which the
English government carried on the war is shown by a speech of Pitt,
the master-spirit during its course, though he lost office before
bringing it to an end. Condemning the Peace of 1763, made by his
political opponent, he said: "France is chiefly, if not exclusively,
formidable to us as a maritime and commercial power. What we gain in
this respect is valuable to us, above all, through the injury to her
which results from it. You have left to France the possibility of
reviving her navy." Yet England's gains were enormous. Her rule in
India was assured, and all North America east of the Mississippi in
her hands. By this time the onward path of her government was clearly
marked out, had assumed the force of a tradition, and was consistently
followed. The war of the American Revolution was, it is true, a great
mistake, looked at from the point of view of sea power; but the
government was led into it insensibly by a series of natural blunders.
Putting aside political and constitutional considerations, and looking