The Evolution of an Empire: A Brief Historical Sketch of England by Parmele, Mary Platt, 1843-1911

[Sidenote: British Dominion in India, 1757. Battle of Quebec, 1760.]

Two years later a quarrel over the boundaries of their American colonies brought the French and English into direct conflict. Gen. Wolfe, the English Commander, was killed at the moment of victory in scaling the walls of Quebec. Montcalm, the French commander, being saved the humiliation of seeing the loss of Canada (1760), by sharing the same fate.

The dream of French Empire in America was at an end; and with the cession of Florida by Spain, England was mistress of the eastern half of the Continent from Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. So since the days of Elizabeth, and from seed dropped by her hand, an Eastern and a Western Empire had been added to that island Kingdom, whose highest dream had been to get back some of her lost provinces in France. Instead of that it was to be her destiny to girdle the Earth, so that the Sun in its entire course should never cease to shine upon British Dominions.

[Sidenote: John Wesley.]

Side by side with the aspiration which uplifts a nation, there is always a tendency toward degradation, which can only be arrested by the infusion of a higher spiritual life. Strong alcoholic liquors had taken the place of beer in England (to avoid the excessive tax imposed upon it) and the grossest intemperance prevailed in the early part of this reign. John Wesley introduced a regenerative force when he went about among the people preaching "Methodism," a pure and simple religion. Not since Augustine had the hearts of men been so touched, and a new life and new spirit came into being, better than all the prosperity and territorial expansion of the time.

Walpole had passed from view long before the stirring changes we have alluded to. A new hand was guiding the affairs of State; the hand of William Pitt.

CHAPTER XII.

At the close of the Seven Years' War, England had driven the French out of Canada,--her ships which had traversed the Pacific from one end to the other, (Capt. Cook) had wherever they touched, claimed islands for the Crown; she had projected into the heart of India English institutions and civilization.

Mistress of North America, and of the Pacific Isles, and future mistress of India, she had left in comparative insignificance those European States whose power was bounded by a single Continent. And all this,--in the reign of the puniest King who had ever sat upon her throne! As if to show that England was great not through--but in spite of, her Kings.

[Sidenote: George III. 1760-1820.]