trade in the South Seas sold at a thousand per cent of their face
value. It is a form of madness to which human greed is ever
liable. Walpole's financial insight condemned from the first the
wild outburst, and his common sense during the crisis helped to
stem the tide of disaster. The South Sea Bubble burst partly
because Spain stood sternly on her own rights and punished
British smugglers. During many years the tension between the two
nations grew. No doubt Spanish officials were harsh. Tales were
repeated in England of their brutalities to British sailors who
fell into their hands. In 1739 the story of a certain Captain
Jenkins that his ear had been cut off by Spanish captors and
thrown in his face with an insulting message to his government
brought matters to a climax. Events in other parts of Europe soon
made the war general. When, in 1740, the young King of Prussia,
Frederick II, came to the throne, his first act was to march an
army into Silesia. To this province he had, he said, in the male
line, a better claim than that of the woman, Maria Theresa, who
had just inherited the Austrian crown. Frederick conquered
Silesia and held it. In 1744 he was allied with Spain and France,
while Britain allied herself with Austria, and thus Britain and
France were again at war.

In America both sides had long seen that the war was inevitable.
Never had French opinion been more arrogant in asserting France's
right to North America than after the Treaty of Utrecht. At the
dinner-table of the Governor in Quebec there was incessant talk
of Britain's incapacity, of the sheer luck by which she had
blundered into the occupation of great areas, while in truth she
was weak through lack of union and organization. A natural
antipathy, it was said, existed between her colonies and herself;