1758-1763
The Peace of Paris
In accordance with the terms of the capitulation of Montreal,
the French military officers, with such of the soldiers as could
be kept together, as well as all the chief civil officers of the
colony, sailed for France in vessels provided by the conquerors.
They were voluntarily followed by the principal members of the
Canadian _noblesse_, and by many of the merchants who had
no mind to swear allegiance to King George. The peasants and poorer
colonists remained at home to begin a new life under a new flag.
Though this exodus of the natural leaders of Canada was
in good part deferred till the next year, and though the number
of persons to be immediately embarked was reduced by the desertion
of many French soldiers who had married Canadian wives, yet the
English authorities were sorely perplexed to find vessels enough
for the motley crowd of passengers. When at last they were all on
their way, a succession of furious autumnal storms fell upon them.
The ship that carried Lévis barely escaped wreck, and that which bore
Vaudreuil and his wife fared little better.[857] Worst of all was the
fate of the "Auguste," on board of which was the bold but
ruthless partisan, Saint-Luc de la Corne, his brother, his children,
and a party of Canadian officers, together with ladies,
merchants, and soldiers. A worthy ecclesiastical chronicler
paints the unhappy vessel as a floating Babylon, and sees in
her fate the stern judgment of Heaven.[858] It is true that New
France ran riot in the last years of her existence; but before
the "Auguste" was well out of the St. Lawrence she was so
tossed and buffeted, so lashed with waves and pelted with rain,
that the most alluring forms of sin must have lost their charm,
and her inmates passed days rather of penance than transgression.
There was a violent storm as the ship entered the Gulf; then a calm,
during which she took fire in the cook's galley. The crew and passengers
subdued the flames after desperate efforts; but their only food
thenceforth was dry biscuit. Off the coast of Cape Breton another gale
rose. They lost their reckoning and lay tossing blindly amid the tempest.
The exhausted sailors took, in despair, to their hammocks,
from which neither commands nor blows could rouse them,
while amid shrieks, tears, prayers, and vows to Heaven, the
"Auguste" drove towards the shore, struck, and rolled over
on her side. La Corne with six others gained the beach; and
towards night they saw the ship break asunder, and counted
a hundred and fourteen corpses strewn along the sand. Aided
by Indians and by English officers, La Corne made his way
on snow-shoes up the St. John, and by a miracle of enduring
hardihood reached Quebec before the end of winter.[859]
[Footnote 857: _Lévis à Belleisle, 27 Nov. 1760_.]
[Footnote 858: Faillon, _Vie de Mademoiselle Le Ber_, 363-370.]
[Footnote 859: _Journal du Voyage de M. Saint-Luc de la Corne_. This is his
own narrative.]
The other ships weathered the November gales, and landed
their passengers on the shores of France, where some of them
found a dismal welcome, being seized and thrown into the
Bastille. These were Vaudreuil, Bigot, Cadet, Péan, Bréard,
Varin, Le Mercier, Penisseault, Maurin, Corpron, and others
accused of the frauds and peculations that had helped to ruin
Canada. In the next year they were all put on trial, whether
as an act of pure justice or as a device to turn public indignation
from the Government. In December, 1761, judges commissioned
for the purpose began their sessions at the Châtelet, and a
prodigious mass of evidence was laid before them. Cadet, with
brazen effrontery, at first declared himself innocent, but ended
with full and unblushing confession. Bigot denied everything till
silenced point by point with papers bearing his own signature.
The prisoners defended themselves by accusing each other. Bigot
and Vaudreuil brought mutual charges, while all agreed in denouncing
Cadet. Vaudreuil, as before mentioned, was acquitted. Bigot was banished
from France for life, his property was confiscated, and he was condemned
to pay fifteen hundred thousand francs by way of restitution. Cadet was
banished for nine years from Paris and required to refund six millions;
while others were sentenced in sums varying from thirty thousand to
eight hundred thousand francs, and were ordered to be held in prison
till the money was paid. Of twenty-one persons brought to trial ten
were condemned, six were acquitted, three received an admonition,
and two were dismissed for want of evidence. Thirty-four failed to appear,
of whom seven were sentenced in default, and judgment was reserved in
the case of the rest.[860] Even those who escaped from justice profited
little by their gains, for unless they had turned them betimes into land
or other substantial values, they lost them in a discredited paper
currency and dishonored bills of exchange.
[Footnote 860: _Jugement rendu souverainement et en dernier Ressort dans
l'Affaire du Canada_. Papers at the Châtelet of Paris, cited by
Dussieux.]
While on the American continent the last scenes of the war
were drawing to their close, the contest raged in Europe with
unabated violence. England was in the full career of success;
but her great ally, Frederic of Prussia, seemed tottering to his
ruin. In the summer of 1758 his glory was at its height.
French, Austrians, and Russians had all fled before him. But
the autumn brought reverses; and the Austrian general, Daun,
at the head of an overwhelming force, gained over him a
partial victory, which his masterly strategy robbed of its
fruits. It was but a momentary respite. His kingdom was exhausted
by its own triumphs. His best generals were dead, his best soldiers
killed or disabled, his resources almost spent, the very chandeliers
of his palace melted into coin; and all Europe was in arms against him.
The disciplined valor of the Prussian troops and the supreme leadership
of their undespairing King had thus far held the invading hosts at bay;
but now the end seemed near. Frederic could not be everywhere at once;
and while he stopped one leak the torrent poured in at another.
The Russians advanced again, defeated General Wedell, whom
he sent against them, and made a junction with the Austrians.
In August, 1759, he attacked their united force at Kunersdorf,
broke their left wing to pieces, took a hundred and eighty
cannon, forced their centre to give ground, and after hours of
furious fighting was overwhelmed at last. In vain he tried to
stop the rout. The bullets killed two horses under him, tore his
clothes, and crushed a gold snuff-box in his waistcoat pocket.
"Is there no b---- of a shot that can hit me, then?" he cried
in his bitterness, as his aides-de-camp forced him from the
field. For a few days he despaired; then rallied to his forlorn
task, and with smiles on his lip and anguish at his heart
watched, manoeuvred, and fought with cool and stubborn desperation.
To his friend D'Argens he wrote soon after his defeat: "Death is sweet
in comparison to such a life as mine. Have pity on me and it; believe
that I still keep to myself a great many evil things, not wishing to
afflict or disgust anybody with them, and that I would not counsel
you to fly these unlucky countries if I had any ray of hope; Adieu,
mon cher!" It was well for him and for Prussia that he had strong allies in
the dissensions and delays of his enemies. But his cup was not
yet full. Dresden was taken from him, eight of his remaining
generals and twelve thousand men were defeated and captured
at Maxen, and "this infernal campaign," as he calls it, closed
in thick darkness.
"I wrap myself in my stoicism as best I can," he writes to
Voltaire. "If you saw me you would hardly know me: I am
old, broken, gray-headed, wrinkled. If this goes on there will
be nothing left of me but the mania of making verses and an
inviolable attachment to my duties and to the few virtuous
men I know. But you will not get a peace signed by my hand
except on conditions honorable to my nation. Your people,
blown up with conceit and folly, may depend on this."
The same stubborn conflict with overmastering odds, the
same intrepid resolution, the same subtle strategy, the same
skill in eluding the blow and lightning-like quickness in retorting
it, marked Frederic's campaign of 1760. At Liegnitz three
armies, each equal to his own, closed round him, and he put
them all to flight. While he was fighting in Silesia, the Allies
marched upon Berlin, took it, and held it three days, but
withdrew on his approach. For him there was no peace. "Why
weary you with the details of my labors and my sorrows?"
he wrote again to his faithful D'Argens. "My spirits have
forsaken me; all gayety is buried with the loved noble ones to
whom my heart was bound." He had lost his mother and his
devoted sister Wilhelmina. "You as a follower of Epicurus
put a value upon life; as for me, I regard death from the Stoic
point of view. I have told you, and I repeat it, never shall my
hand sign a humiliating peace. Finish this campaign I will,
resolved to dare all, to succeed, or find a glorious end." Then
came the victory of Torgau, the last and one of the most
desperate of his battles: a success dearly bought, and bringing
neither rest nor safety. Once more he wrote to D'Argens:
"Adieu, dear Marquis; write to me sometimes. Don't forget a
poor devil who curses his fatal existence ten times a day."
"I live like a military monk. Endless business, and a little consolation
from my books. I don't know if I shall outlive this war, but if I do
I am firmly resolved to pass the rest of my life in solitude in the
bosom of philosophy and friendship. Your nation, you see, is blinder
than you thought. These fools will lose their Canada and Pondicherry
to please the Queen of Hungary and the Czarina."
The campaign of 1761 was mainly defensive on the part of
Frederic. In the exhaustion of his resources he could see no
means of continuing the struggle. "It is only Fortune," says
the royal sceptic, "that can extricate me from the situation
I am in. I escape out of it by looking at the universe on the
great scale like an observer from some distant planet. All then
seems to be so infinitely small that I could almost pity my
enemies for giving themselves so much trouble about so very
little. I read a great deal, I devour my books. But for them
I think hypochondria would have had me in Bedlam before
now. In fine, dear Marquis, we live in troublous times and
desperate situations. I have all the properties of a stage hero;
always in danger, always on the point of perishing."[861] And in
another mood: "I begin to feel that, as the Italians say, revenge
is a pleasure for the gods. My philosophy is worn out by
suffering. I am no saint, and I will own that I should die content
if only I could first inflict a part of the misery that I
endure."
[Footnote 861: The above extracts are as translated by Carlyle in his
_History of Frederick II. of Prussia_.]
While Frederic was fighting for life and crown, an event
took place in England that was to have great influence on the
war. Walpole recounts it thus, writing to George Montagu on
the twenty-fifth of October, 1760: "My man Harry tells me
all the amusing news. He first told me of the late Prince of
Wales's death, and to-day of the King's; so I must tell you all
I know of departed majesty. He went to bed well last night,
rose at six this morning as usual, looked, I suppose, if all his
money was in his purse, and called for his chocolate. A little
after seven he went into the closet; the German _valet-de-chambre_
heard a noise, listened, heard something like a groan, ran in, and
found the hero of Oudenarde and Dettingen on the floor with a gash
on his right temple by falling against the corner of a bureau. He
tried to speak, could not, and expired. The great ventricle of the
heart had burst. What an enviable death!"
The old King was succeeded by his grandson, George III.,
a mirror of domestic virtues, conscientious, obstinate, narrow.
His accession produced political changes that had been preparing
for some time. His grandfather was German at heart, loved his
Continental kingdom of Hanover, and was eager for all measures that
looked to its defence and preservation. Pitt, too, had of late
vigorously supported the Continental war, saying that he would conquer
America in Germany. Thus with different views the King and the Minister
had concurred in the same measures. But George III. was English by
birth, language, and inclination. His ruling passion was the
establishment and increase of his own authority. He disliked Pitt, the
representative of the people. He was at heart averse to a war,
the continuance of which would make the Great Commoner necessary,
and therefore powerful, and he wished for a peace that would give
free scope to his schemes for strengthening the prerogative. He was
not alone in his pacific inclinations. The enemies of the haughty
Minister, who had ridden roughshod over men far above him in rank,
were tired of his ascendency, and saw no hope of ending it but by ending
the war. Thus a peace party grew up, and the young King became
its real, though not at first its declared, supporter.
The Tory party, long buried, showed signs of resurrection.
There were those among its members who, even in a king of
the hated line of Hanover, could recognize and admire the
same spirit of arbitrary domination that had marked their
fallen idols, the Stuarts; and they now joined hands with the
discontented Whigs in opposition to Pitt. The horrors of war,
the blessings of peace, the weight of taxation, the growth of
the national debt, were the rallying cries of the new party; but
the mainspring of their zeal was hostility to the great Minister.
Even his own colleagues chafed under his spirit of mastery;
the chiefs of the Opposition longed to inherit his power; and
the King had begun to hate him as a lion in his path. Pitt held
to his purpose regardless of the gathering storm. That purpose,
as proclaimed by his adherents, was to secure a solid and lasting peace,
which meant the reduction of France to so low an estate that she
could no more be a danger to her rival. In this he had the sympathy
of the great body of the nation.
Early in 1761 the King, a fanatic for prerogative, set his
enginery in motion. The elections for the new Parliament were
manipulated in his interest. If he disliked Pitt as the representative
of the popular will, he also disliked his colleague, the
shuffling and uncertain Newcastle, as the representative of a
too powerful nobility. Elements hostile to both were introduced into
the Cabinet and the great offices. The King'sfavorite, the Earl of Bute,
supplanted Holdernesse as Secretary of State for the Northern Department;
Charles Townshend, an opponent of Pitt, was made Secretary of War; Legge,
Chancellor of the Exchequer, was replaced by Viscount Barrington, who was
sure for the King; while a place in the Cabinet was also given to the Duke
of Bedford, one of the few men who dared face the formidable Minister.
It was the policy of the King and his following to abandon Prussia,
hitherto supported by British subsidies, make friends with Austria and
Russia at her expense, and conclude a separate peace with France.
France was in sore need of peace. The infatuation that had
turned her from her own true interest to serve the passions
of Maria Theresa and the Czarina Elizabeth had brought military
humiliation and financial ruin. Abbé de Bernis, Minister of Foreign
Affairs, had lost the favor of Madame de Pompadour, and had been
supplanted by the Duc de Choiseul. The new Minister had gained his
place by pleasing the favorite; but he kept it through his own ability
and the necessities of the time. The Englishman Stanley, whom Pitt
sent to negotiate with him, drew this sketch of his character: "Though
he may have his superiors, not only in experience of business,
but in depth and refinement as a statesman, he is a person
of as bold and daring a spirit as any man whatever in our
country or in his own. Madame Pompadour has ever been looked upon by
all preceding courtiers and ministers as their tutelary deity, under
whose auspices only they could exist, and who was as much out of
their reach as if she were of a superior class of beings; but this
Minister is so far from being in subordination to her influence that
he seized the first opportunity of depriving her not of an equality,
but of any share of power, reducing her to the necessity of applying
to him even for those favors that she wants for herself and her dependents.
He has effected this great change, which every other man
would have thought impossible, in the interior of the Court,
not by plausibility, flattery, and address, but with a high hand,
with frequent railleries and sarcasms which would have ruined any other,
and, in short, by a clear superiority of spirit and resolution."[862]
[Footnote 862: _Stanley to Pitt, 6 Aug. 1761_, in _Grenville
Correspondence_, I. 367, _note_.]
Choiseul was vivacious, brilliant, keen, penetrating; believing
nothing, fearing nothing; an easy moralist, an uncertain
ally, a hater of priests; light-minded, inconstant; yet a kind of
patriot, eager to serve France and retrieve her fortunes.
He flattered himself with no illusions. "Since we do not
know how to make war," he said, "we must make peace;"[863]
and he proposed a congress of all the belligerent Powers at
Augsburg. At the same time, since the war in Germany was
distinct from the maritime and colonial war of France and
England, he proposed a separate negotiation with the British
Court in order to settle the questions between them as a
preliminary to the general pacification. Pitt consented, and
Stanley went as envoy to Versailles; while M. de Bussy came
as envoy to London and, in behalf of Choiseul, offered terms
of peace, the first of which was the entire abandonment of
Canada to England.[864] But the offers were accompanied by the
demand that Spain, which had complaints of its own against
England, should be admitted as a party to the negotiation, and
even hold in some measure the attitude of a mediator. Pitt
spurned the idea with fierce contempt. "Time enough to treat
of all that, sir, when the Tower of London is taken sword in
hand."[865] He bore his part with the ability that never failed him,
and with a supreme arrogance that rose to a climax in his
demand that the fortress of Dunkirk should be demolished, not
because it was any longer dangerous to England, but because
the nation would regard its destruction "as an eternal monument
of the yoke imposed on France."[866]
[Footnote 863:
Flassan, _Diplomatie Française_, V. 376 (Paris, 1809).]
[Footnote 864: See the proposals in Entick, V. 161.]
[Footnote 865:
Beatson, _Military Memoirs_, II. 434. _The Count de Fuentes
to the Earl of Egremont, 25 Dec. 1761_, in Entick, V. 264.]
[Footnote 866:
On this negotiation, see _Mémoire historique sur la Négociation
de la France et de l'Angleterre_ (Paris, 1761), a French Government
publication containing papers on both sides. The British
Ministry also published such documents as they saw fit, under the
title of _Papers relating to the Rupture with Spain_. Compare
Adolphus, _George III._, I. 31-39.]
Choiseul replied with counter-propositions less humiliating
to his nation. When the question of accepting or rejecting
them came before the Ministry, the views of Pitt prevailed
by a majority of one, and, to the disappointment of Bute and
the King, the conferences were broken off. Choiseul, launched
again on the billows of a disastrous war, had seen and provided
against the event. Ferdinand VI. of Spain had died, and
Carlos III. had succeeded to his throne. Here, as in England,
change of kings brought change of policy. While negotiating
vainly with Pitt, the French Minister had negotiated secretly
and successfully with Carlos; and the result was the treaty
known as the Family Compact, having for its object the union
of the various members of the House of Bourbon in common
resistance to the growing power of England. It provided that
in any future war the Kings of France and Spain should act
as one towards foreign Powers, insomuch that the enemy of
either should be the enemy of both; and the Bourbon princes
of Italy were invited to join in the covenant.[867] What was more
to the present purpose, a special agreement was concluded on
the same day, by which Spain bound herself to declare war
against England unless that Power should make peace with
France before the first of May, 1762. For the safety of her
colonies and her trade Spain felt it her interest to join her
sister nation in putting a check on the vast expansion of
British maritime power. She could bring a hundred ships of war
to aid the dilapidated navy of France, and the wealth of the
Indies to aid her ruined treasury.
[Footnote 867:
Flassan, _Diplomatie Française_, V. 317 (Paris, 1809).]
Pitt divined the secret treaty, and soon found evidence of
it. He resolved to demand at once full explanation from
Spain; and, failing to receive a satisfactory reply, attack her
at home and abroad before she was prepared. On the second
of October he laid his plan before a Cabinet Council held at
a house in St. James Street. There were present the Earl of
Bute, the Duke of Newcastle, Earl Granville, Earl Temple,
and others of the Ministry. Pitt urged his views with great
warmth. "This," he exclaimed, "is the time for humbling the
whole House of Bourbon!"[868] His brother-in-law, Temple, supported
him. Newcastle kept silent. Bute denounced the proposal,
and the rest were of his mind. "If these views are to be followed,"
said Pitt, "this is the last time I can sit at this board. I was
called to the administration of affairs by the voice of the people;
to them I have always considered myself as accountable for my conduct;
and therefore cannot remain in a situation which makes me responsible
for measures I am no longer allowed to guide." Nothing could be more
offensive to George III. and his adherents.
[Footnote 868: Beatson, II. 438.]
The veteran Carteret, Earl Granville, replied angrily: "I
find the gentleman is determined to leave us; nor can I say I
am sorry for it, since otherwise he would certainly have compelled
us to leave him. But if he is resolved to assume the office of
exclusively advising His Majesty and directing the operations of the
war, to what purpose are we called to this council? When he talks of
being responsible to the people, he talks the language of the House
of Commons, and forgets that at this board he is responsible only
to the King. However, though he may possibly have convinced himself
of his infallibility, still it remains that we should be equally
convinced before we can resign our understandings to his direction,
or join with him in the measure he proposes."[869]
[Footnote 869: _Annual Register, 1761_, p. 44. Adolphus, _George III._,
I. 40. Thackeray, _Life of Chatham_, I. 592.]
Pitt resigned, and his colleagues rejoiced.[870] Power fell to
Bute and the Tories; and great was the fall. The mass of the
nation was with the defeated Minister. On Lord Mayor's Day
Bute and Barrington were passing St. Paul's in a coach, which
the crowd mistook for that of Pitt, and cheered lustily; till
one man, looking in at the window, shouted to the rest: "This
isn't Pitt; it's Bute, and be damned to him!" The cheers
turned forthwith to hisses, mixed with cries of "No Bute!"
"No Newcastle salmon!" "Pitt forever!" Handfuls of mud were showered
against the coach, and Barrington's ruffles were besmirched with
it.[871]
[Footnote 870: Walpole, _George III._, I. 80, and note by Sir Denis Le
Marchant, 80-82.]
[Footnote 871: _Nuthall to Lady Chatham, 12 Nov. 1761_, in _Chatham
Correspondence_, II. 166.]
The fall of Pitt was like the knell of doom to Frederic of
Prussia. It meant abandonment by his only ally, and the loss
of the subsidy which was his chief resource. The darkness
around him grew darker yet, and not a hope seemed left;
when as by miracle the clouds broke, and light streamed out
of the blackness. The bitterest of his foes, the Czarina Elizabeth,
she whom he had called _infâme catin du Nord_, died, and was
succeeded by her nephew, Peter III. Here again, as in England and
Spain, a new sovereign brought new measures. The young Czar, simple
and enthusiastic, admired the King of Prussia, thought him the
paragon of heroes, and proclaimed himself his friend. No sooner
was he on the throne than Russia changed front. From the foe of
Frederic she became his ally; and in the opening campaign of 1762
the army that was to have aided in crushing him was ranged on his
side. It was a turn of fortune too sharp and sudden to endure.
Ill-balanced and extreme in all things, Peter plunged into
headlong reforms, exasperated the clergy and the army, and
alienated his wife, Catherine, who had hoped to rule in his
name, and who now saw herself supplanted by his mistress.
Within six months he was deposed and strangled. Catherine,
one of whose lovers had borne part in the murder, reigned
in his stead, conspicuous by the unbridled disorders of her
life, and by powers of mind that mark her as the ablest of
female sovereigns. If she did not share her husband's enthusiasm
for Frederic, neither did she share Elizabeth's hatred of him.
He, on his part, taught by hard experience, conciliated instead of
insulting her, and she let him alone.
Peace with Russia brought peace with Sweden, and Austria
with the Germanic Empire stood alone against him. France
needed all her strength to hold her own against the mixed
English and German force under Ferdinand of Brunswick in
the Rhine countries. She made spasmodic efforts to seize upon
Hanover, but the result was humiliating defeat.
In England George III. pursued his policy of strengthening
the prerogative, and, jealous of the Whig aristocracy, attacked
it in the person of Newcastle. In vain the old politician
had played false with Pitt, and trimmed to please his young
master. He was worried into resigning his place in the Cabinet,
and Bute, the obsequious agent of the royal will, succeeded
him as First Lord of the Treasury. Into his weak and unwilling hands
now fell the task of carrying on the war; for the nation, elated
with triumphs and full of fight, still called on its rulers for
fresh efforts and fresh victories. Pitt had proved a true prophet,
and his enemies were put to shame; for the attitude of Spain forced
Bute and his colleagues to the open rupture with her which the great
Minister had vainly urged upon them; and a new and formidable war was
now added to the old.[872] Their counsels were weak and half-hearted;
but the armies and navies of England still felt the impulsion that
the imperial hand of Pitt had given and the unconquerable spirit that
he had roused.
[Footnote 872:
_Declaration of War against the King of Spain, 4 Jan. 1762._]
This spirit had borne them from victory to victory. In Asia
they had driven the French from Pondicherry and all their
Indian possessions; in Africa they had wrested from them
Gorée and the Senegal country; in the West Indies they had
taken Guadeloupe and Dominica; in the European seas they
had captured ship after ship, routed and crippled the great
fleet of Admiral Conflans, seized Belleisle, and defeated a bold
attempt to invade Ireland. The navy of France was reduced
to helplessness. Pitt, before his resignation, had planned a
series of new operations, including an attack on Martinique,
with other West Indian islands still left to France, and then
in turn on the Spanish possessions of Havana, Panama, Manila, and
the Philippines. Now, more than ever before, the war appeared in
its true character. It was a contest for maritime and colonial
ascendency; and England saw herself confronted by both her great
rivals at once.
Admiral Rodney sailed for Martinique, and Brigadier
Monckton joined him with troops from America. Before the
middle of February the whole island was in their hands; and
Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent soon shared its fate. The
Earl of Albemarle and Admiral Sir George Pococke sailed in
early spring on a more important errand, landed in June near
Havana with eleven thousand soldiers, and attacked Moro Castle,
the key of the city. The pitiless sun of the tropic midsummer
poured its fierce light and heat on the parched rocks where the men
toiled at the trenches. Earth was so scarce that hardly enough could
be had to keep the fascines in place. The siege works were little
else than a mass of dry faggots; and when, after exhausting toil,
the grand battery opened on the Spanish defences, it presently took
fire, was consumed, and had to be made anew. Fresh water failed,
and the troops died by scores from thirst; fevers set in, killed
many, and disabled nearly half the army. The sea was strewn with
floating corpses, and carrion-birds in clouds hovered over the populous
graveyards and infected camps. Yet the siege went on: a formidable
sally was repulsed; Moro Castle was carried by storm; till at length,
two months and eight days after the troops landed, Havana fell into
their hands.[873] At the same time Spain was attacked at the antipodes,
and the loss of Manila and the Philippines gave her fresh cause to
repent her rash compact with France. She was hardly more fortunate
near home; for having sent an army to invade Portugal, whichwas in
the interest of England, a small British force, under Brigadier
Burgoyne, foiled it, and forced it to retire.
[Footnote 873: _Journal of the Siege, by the Chief Engineer, in Beatson_,
II. 544. Mante, 398-465. Entick, V. 363-383.]
The tide of British success was checked for an instant in
Newfoundland, where a French squadron attacked St. John's
and took it, with its garrison of sixty men. The news reached
Amherst at New York; his brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Amherst,
was sent to the scene of the mishap. St. John's was retaken, and
its late conquerers were made prisoners of war.
The financial condition of France was desperate. Her people
were crushed with taxation; her debt grew apace; and her
yearly expenditure was nearly double her revenue. Choiseul
felt the need of immediate peace; and George III. and Bute
were hardly less eager for it, to avert the danger of Pitt's return
to power and give free scope to their schemes for strengthening the
prerogative. Therefore, in September, 1762, negotiations were resumed.
The Duke of Bedford was sent to Paris to settle the preliminaries,
and the Duc de Nivernois came to London on the same errand. The
populace were still for war. Bedford was hissed as he passed through
the streets of London, and a mob hooted at the puny figure of Nivernois
as he landed at Dover.
The great question was, Should Canada be restored? Should
France still be permitted to keep a foothold on the North
American continent? Ever since the capitulation of Montreal
a swarm of pamphlets had discussed the momentous subject.
Some maintained that the acquisition of Canada was not an
original object of the war; that the colony was of little value
and ought to be given back to its old masters; that Guadeloupe
should be kept instead, the sugar trade of that island being worth far
more than the Canadian fur trade; and, lastly, that the British colonists,
if no longer held in check by France, would spread themselves over
the continent, learn to supply all their own wants, grow independent,
and become dangerous. Nor were these views confined to Englishmen.
There were foreign observers who clearly saw that the adhesion
of her colonies to Great Britain would be jeopardized by the extinction
of French power in America. Choiseul warned Stanley that they "would
not fail to shake off their dependence the moment Canada should be
ceded;" while thirteen years before, the Swedish traveller Kalm declared
that the presence of the French in America gave the best assurance to
Great Britain that its own colonies would remain in due subjection.[874]
[Footnote 874: Kalm, _Travels in North America_, I. 207.]
The most noteworthy argument on the other side was that
of Franklin, whose words find a strange commentary in the
events of the next few years. He affirmed that the colonies
were so jealous of each other that they would never unite
against England. "If they could not agree to unite against
the French and Indians, can it reasonably be supposed that
there is any danger of their uniting against their own nation,
which it is well known they all love much more than they
love one another? I will venture to say union amongst them
for such a purpose is not merely improbable, it is impossible;"
that is, he prudently adds, without "the most grievous tyranny
and oppression," like the bloody rule of "Alva in the Netherlands."[875]
[Footnote 875: _Interest of Great Britain in regard to her Colonies_
(London, 1760)
Lord Bath argues for retaining Canada in _A Letter addressed
to Two Great Men on the Prospect of Peace_ (1759). He is answered
by another pamphlet called _Remarks on the Letter to Two Great
Men_ (1760). The _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1759 has an ironical
article styled _Reasons for restoring Canada to the French_; and
in 1761 a pamphlet against the restitution appeared under the
title, _Importance of Canada considered in Two Letters to a Noble
Lord_. These are but a part of the writings on the question.]
If Pitt had been in office he would have demanded terms
that must ruin past redemption the maritime and colonial
power of France; but Bute was less exacting. In November
the plenipotentiaries of England, France, and Spain agreed
on preliminaries of peace, in which the following were the
essential points. France ceded to Great Britain Canada and
all her possessions on the North American continent east of
the River Mississippi, except the city of New Orleans and a small
adjacent district. She renounced her claims to Acadia, and gave up
to the conqueror the Island of Cape Breton, with all other islands
in the Gulf and River of St. Lawrence. Spain received back Havana,
and paid for it by the cession of Florida, with all her other
possessions east of the Mississippi. France, subject to certain
restrictions, was left free to fish in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and
off a part of the coast of Newfoundland; and the two little islands
of St. Pierre and Miquelon were given her as fishing stations on
condition that she should not fortify or garrison them. In the West
Indies, England restored the captured islands of Guadeloupe, Marigalante,
Désirade, and Martinique, and France ceded Grenada and the Grenadines;
while it was agreed that of the so-called neutral islands, St. Vincent,
Dominica, and Tobago should belong to England, and St. Lucia to France.
In Europe, each side promised to give no more help to its allies in the
German war. France restored Minorca, and England restored Belleisle;
France gave up such parts of Hanoverian territory as she had
occupied, and evacuated certain fortresses belonging to Prussia,
pledging herself at the same time to demolish, under the
inspection of English engineers, her own maritime fortress
of Dunkirk. In Africa France ceded Senegal, and received
back the small Island of Gorée. In India she lost everything
she had gained since the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle; recovered
certain trading stations, but renounced the right of building
forts or maintaining troops in Bengal.
On the day when the preliminaries were signed, France
made a secret agreement with Spain, by which she divested
herself of the last shred of her possessions on the North
American continent. As compensation for Florida, which her
luckless ally had lost in her quarrel, she made over to the
Spanish Crown the city of New Orleans, and under the name
of Louisiana gave her the vast region spreading westward
from the Mississippi towards the Pacific.
On the ninth of December the question of approving the
preliminaries came up before both Houses of Parliament.
There was a long debate in the Commons. Pitt was not present,
confined, it was said, by gout; till late in the day the
House was startled by repeated cheers from the outside. The
doors opened, and the fallen Minister entered, carried in the
arms of his servants, and followed by an applauding crowd.
His bearers set him down within the bar, and by the help of
a crutch he made his way with difficulty to his seat. "There
was a mixture of the very solemn and the theatric in this apparition,"
says Walpole, who was present. "The moment was so well timed, the
importance of the man and his services, the languor of his emaciated
countenance, and the study bestowed on his dress were circumstances
that struck solemnity into a patriot mind, and did a little furnish
ridicule to the hardened and insensible. He was dressed in black
velvet, his legs and thighs wrapped in flannel, his feet covered with
buskins of black cloth, and his hands with thick gloves." Not
for the first time, he was utilizing his maladies for purposes
of stage effect. He spoke for about three hours, sometimes
standing, and sometimes seated; sometimes with a brief burst
of power, more often with the accents of pain and exhaustion.
He highly commended the retention of Canada, but denounced
the leaving to France a share in the fisheries, as well as other
advantages tending to a possible revival of her maritime
power. But the Commons listened coldly, and by a great majority approved
the preliminaries of peace.
These preliminaries were embodied in the definitive treaty
concluded at Paris on the tenth of February, 1763. Peace between
France and England brought peace between the warring nations of the
Continent. Austria, bereft of her allies, and exhausted by vain efforts
to crush Frederic, gave up the attempt in despair, and signed the treaty
of Hubertsburg. The Seven Years War was ended.