Before the contest had closed by which England won her Asiatic
dominions, a new war had broken out. In the fifth year, 1756, of the
New Style[2] of reckoning time, the aggressive designs of Frederick
the Great of Prussia caused such alarm that a grand alliance was
formed by France, Russia, Austria, and Poland to check his further
advance. Great Britain, however, gave her support to Frederick, in
hope of humbling her old enemy France, who, in addition to her
attempts to oust the English from India, was also making preparations
on a grand scale to get possession of America.
[2] The New Style was introduced into Great Britain in 1752. Owing to
a slight error in the calendar, the year had, in the course of
centuries, been gradually losing, so that in 1752 it was eleven days
short of what the true computation would make it. Pope Gregory
corrected the error in 1582, and his calendar was adopted in nearly
every country of Europe except Great Britain and Russia, both of which
regarded the change as a "popish measure." But in 1751,
notwithstanding the popular outcry, September 3, 1752, was made
September 14, by an act of Parliament, and by the same act the
beginning of the legal year was altered from March 25 to January 1.
The popular clamor against the reform is illustrated in Hogarth's
picture of an Election Feast, in which the People's party carry a
banner, with the inscription, "Give us back our eleven days."
Every victory, therefore, which the British forces could gain in
Europe would, by crippling the French, make the ultimate victory of
the English in America so much the more certain; for this reason we
may look upon the alliance with Frederick as an indirect means
employed by England to protect her colonies on the other side of the
Atlantic. These colonies now extended along the entire coast, from
the Kennebec Riber, in Maine, to the borders of Florida.
The French, on the other hand, had planted colonies at Quebec and
Montreal, on the St. Lawrence; at Detroit, on the Great Lakes; at New
Orleans and other points on the Mississippi. They had also begun to
build a line of forts along the Ohio River, which, when completed,
would connect their northern and southern colonies, and thus secure to
them the whole country west of the Alleghenies. They expected to
conquer the East as well, to erase Virginia, New England, and all
other English colonial titles from the map, and in their place to put
the name New France.
During the first part of the war, the English were unsuccessful. In
an attempt to take Fort Duquesne, General Braddock met with a crushing
defeat (1756) from the combined French and Indian forces, which would
indeed have proved his utter destruction had not a young Virginian
named George Washington saved a remnant of Braddock's troops by his
calmness and courage. Not long afterwards, a second expedition was
sent out against the French fort, in which Washington led the
advance. The garrison fled at his approach, the English colors were
run up, and the place was named Pittsburg, in honor of William Pitt,
later, Lord Chatham, Secretary of State, but virtually Prime Minister
(S534) of England.
About the same time, the English took the forts on the Bay of Fundy,
and drove out several thousand French settlers from Acadia, or Nova
Scotia. Other successes followed, by which they obtained possession
of important points. Finally, Canada was won from the French by
Wolfe's victory over Montcalm, at Quebec, 1759.[1] where both gallant
soldiers verified the truth of the words, "The paths of glory lead but
to the grave,"[2] which the English general had quoted to some brother
officers the vening before the attack. This ended the war.
[1] See "Leading Facts of American History," in this series, S142.
[2] "The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour;
The paths of glory lead but to the grave."
Gray, "Elegy" (1750)
"I would rather be the author of that poem," said Wolfe, "than to have
the glory of beating the French to-morrow." Wolfe and Montcalm were
both mortally wounded and died within a few hours of each other.
Spain now ceded Florida to Great Britain, so that, when peace was made
in 1763, the English flag waved over the whole eastern half of the
American continent, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. Thus,
within a comparatively few years, England had gained an empire in the
east (India) (S544) and another in the west (America).
Six years later (1769) Captain Cook explored and mapped the coast of
New Zealand, and next the eastern coast of the island continent of
Australia. Before the middle of the following century both these
countries were added to the possessions of Great Britain. Then, as
Daniel Webster said, her "morning drum beat, following the sun and
keeping company with the hours," literally circled "the earth with one
continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England."
546. Moral Condition of England; Intemperance; Rise of the Methodists,
1738.
But grand as were the military successes of the British arms, the
reign of George II was morally torpid. With the exception of a few
public men like Pitt, the majority of the Whig party (S479) seemed
animated by no higher motive than self-interest. It was an age whose
want of faith, coarseness, and brutality were well protrayed by
Hogarth's pencil and Fielding's pen.
For a long time intemperance had been steadily on the increase; strong
drink had taken the place of beer, and every attempt to restrict the
traffic was met at the elections by the popular cry, "No gin, no
king." The London taverns were thronged day and night, and in the
windows of those frequented by the lowest class placards were
exhibited with the tempting announcement, "Drunk for a penny; dead
drunk for twopence; clean straw for nothing." On the straw lay men and
women in beastly helplessness.
Among the upper classes matters were hardly better. It was a common
thing for great statesmen to drink at public dinners until one by one
they slid out of their seats and disappeared under the table; and Sir
Robert Walpole, the late Prime Minister of England (S534, 538), said
that when he was a young man his father would say to him as he poured
out the wine, "Come, Robert, you shall drink twice while I drink once,
for I will not permit the son in his sober senses to be witness of the
intoxication of his father."[1]
[1] Coxe's "Memoirs of Walpole" and Lecky's "England."
Such was the condition of England when a great religious revival
began, 1738. Its leader was John Wesley. A number of years earlier,
while a tutor at Oxford, he and his brother Charles, with a few
others, were accustomed to meet at certain hours for devotional
exercises. The regularity of their meetings, and of their habits
generally, got for them the name of "Methodists," which, like "Quaker"
and many another nickname of the kind, was destined to become a title
of respect and honor.
At first Wesley had no intention of separating from the Church of
England, but labored only to quicken it to new life; eventually,
however, he found it best to begin a more extended and independent
movement. The revival swept over England with its regenerating
influence, and was carried by Whitefield, Wesley's lifelong friend,
across the sea to America. It was especially powerful among those who
had hitherto scoffed at both Church and Bible. Rough and hardened men
were touched and melted to tears of repentance by the fervor of this
Oxford graduate, whom neither threats nor ridicule could turn aside
from his one great purpose of saving souls.
Unlike the Church, Wesley did not ask the multitude to come to him; he
went to them. In this respect his work recalls that of the "Begging
Friars" of the thirteenth century (S208), and of Wycliffe's "Poor
Priests" in the fourteenth (S254). For more than thirty years he rode
on horseback from one end of England to the other, making known the
glad tidings of Christian hope. He preached in the fields, under
trees which are still known by the expressive name of "Gospel Oaks";
he spoke in the abandoned mining pits of Cornwall, at the corners of
the streets in cities, on the docks, in the slums; in fact, wherever
he could find listening ears and responsive hearts.
The power of Wesley's appeal was like that of the great Puritan
movement of the seventeenth century (SS378, 417). Nothing more
effective had been heard since the days when Augustine and his band of
monks set forth on their mission among the barbarous Saxons (S42).
The results answered fully to the zeal that awakened them. Better
than the growing prosperity of extending commerce, better than all the
conquests made by the British flag in the east or west, was the new
religious spirit which stirred the people of both England and
America. It provoked the National Church to emulation in good works;
it planted schools, checked intemperance, and brought into vigorous
activity whatever was best and bravest in a race that when true to
itself is excelled by none.