Chapter 9 Chapter 7 The Expansion of Western Europe: The Dutch, French, and British Phases, 1600-1763

From 1600 to 1763, the Northwest European powerhouses Holland, France and the United Kingdom caught up with and surpassed Spain and Portugal.This development has primary significance for the entire world.It makes Northwest Europe the most influential and dynamic region in the world.The countries of Northwest Europe controlled the world politically, militarily, economically and to some extent culturally until 1914.Their practices and institutions became models for peoples everywhere. World hegemony in northwestern Europe was not actually achieved until after 1763.However, 1600 to 1763 was the period in which the foundations for this hegemony were laid.It was during these years that the British gained their first foothold in India, the Dutch drove the Portuguese out of the East Indies, the Northwest European powers set up trading posts on the coast of Africa, and the English and French became Master of North America on the upper side of the Rand, he also controlled much of the trade in the Iberian colonies south of the Rio Grande.

This chapter examines the origins of Northwest European primacy and the struggle for leadership between the Netherlands, France, and Great Britain—a struggle that culminated in Britain's emergence as the world's dominant colonial power in 1763. Northwestern Europe did not rise from complete obscurity to leadership in Continental trade and overseas ventures.As mentioned in the previous chapter, the foundation was laid in the late Middle Ages as the economic center of Europe shifted northward from the Mediterranean basin and the main merchant shipping routes moved from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.In addition to its economic advantages, Northwestern Europe also has a social structure and cultural climate that are particularly sensitive to economic interests.The nobles of Holland, England, and even France far from viewed business with disdain, they were always willing to take part in any commercial venture that might be profitable.In addition, the North had much greater class mobility as merchants and financiers joined the nobility in the same way that gentlemen participated in commerce. In 1726 Daniel Defoe commented: "The trade of England has produced gentlemen, and has filled the country with gentlemen, for the children of merchants, or at least their grandsons, begin with the noblest and oldest Be true gentlemen, statesmen, councillors, privy councilors, judges, bishops, and nobles, like those of your family." The social conception reflected in this commentary and the undiscriminatory Hidalgo spirit that greatly contributed to the decline of Iberia Quite the opposite.

Finally, Northwest Europe was helped by price-wage-rent differentials. In the 16th and 17th centuries, prices in Britain rose by 256%, while wages only rose by 145%.The land rent in northwestern Europe also lagged behind the price seriously. In 1549, a British squire complained that the landowners were becoming impoverished because "most of the land in this kingdom still maintains the previous land rent."That is to say, of the three main constituents of society—the laborer, the landowner, and the business owner—the business owner is the one who makes the highest profits during these centuries of inflation.These profits were reinvested in mining ventures, industrial enterprises, and commercial operations. As a result, the economy of Northwest Europe grew at an unprecedented rate.The famous British economist John Maynard Keynes once described the period from 1550 to 1650 as follows: "Never in the annals of the modern world has there been such a persistent, Such a rare opportunity. In these golden years, modern capitalism was born."The birth of modern capitalism in Northwest Europe explains why the Northwest European states came to dominate world affairs ahead of Spain and Portugal—a position they maintained until the outbreak of World War I.

The countries of northwestern Europe are naturally jealous of these profitable empires of Spain and Portugal.However, they long refrained from encroaching on the spheres of these empires, not out of respect for papal bulls, but out of fear of Iberian influence.So the British and French turned to the North Atlantic, beyond the reach of Iberia. In 1496, the year that Columbus returned on his second voyage west, England's Henry VII sent John Cabot on a voyage toward the North Atlantic where Cabot discovered a silver mine that turned out to be even stronger than the Spaniards'. Valuable resource: He found fish.The ocean around Newfoundland is rich in fish—fish, probably the most important commodity in European trade in the 15th and 16th centuries, was the main food that people relied on in winter and the food stipulated in fasting days throughout the year.

However, it was the Portuguese who first developed the Newfoundland shoals, and a large number of cod soon flowed into Portugal.The French and English soon followed the Portuguese, and by the first decade of the 16th century, fishermen from Brittany, Normandy, Cornwall, Devon and Somerset were making frequent trips to the Newfoundland shoals.With the increase in fishing vessels, the nature of the trade has changed, from the direct sale of "fresh" fish to the sale of much larger quantities of "dried" fish on the market at longer intervals.During the summer months, fishermen set up makeshift shelters on land to dry and mend their nets, and to smoke and salt their catch.Fishing operations reached a large scale and thus exerted great influence on Europe in at least two respects.At that time, many people in Europe lived near starvation for part of the year; the regular and enormous supply of cod represented a windfall for such a continent.In addition, the Newfoundland fishing grounds have produced successive generations of highly trained seafarers capable of sailing the high seas.The ships that later explored the Arctic and searched for a Northeast or Northwest Passage, the expeditions that began to colonize North America, the British and Dutch fleets that fought the Spanish and Portuguese fleets—all of which were basically deployed from Newfoundland. Seafarers from the rigorous school of Shoal Fishing.

The littoral states of Northwest Europe are not content with just catching cod.They were still thirsty for spice, but they were not ready to challenge Portugal's control of the waterway around the Cape of Good Hope.So they began a long series of futile expeditions in search of a northeast or northwest passage to the east.They reasoned that since the tropics had surprisingly proved to be passable, so should the Arctic. In 1553, an expedition of three sailing ships left England with the express purpose of sailing to China via the Northeast Passage.Sir Hugh Willoughby, the leader of the expedition, brought with him an open letter from Edward VI in Latin, Greek and several other languages, which stated: "Discovery and trade are the sole purposes of the expedition".The letter was addressed to "Kings, Monarchs, and other rulers who live in the Northeastern region of the world near the mighty Chinese Empire."

The three ships dispersed during the gale, and two of them, led by Willoughby, reached the Barents Sea.The ship was frozen there for the winter, and none of the crew survived, probably dying of scurvy.The following summer, Russian fishermen found the boat, the body and Willoughby's diary.The last entry in the diary is notable as a memorial to the sacrifices and tragedies that European expansion entailed: During this time, one remaining ship, under Richard Chancellor, reached the mouth of the Dvina River in the White Sea.The "colony" that Willoughby had sought in vain was found here.After a long bargain with the locals, Chancellor and some of his crew set out in winter on a horse-drawn sleigh and embarked on an amazing journey from the White Sea to Moscow.This is a historic trip.Chancellor learned of the power and wealth of the Russian Tsar Ivan IV (the Thunder Emperor).The latter is also happy to establish direct contact with a Western European country for the first time. In 1555, British merchants founded the Moscow Company to take advantage of this new trade opportunity.

Other attempts to explore the Northeast Passage have always ended in a wall of ice.Thus, interest shifted to the possibility of discovering a Northwest Passage.The search for the Northwest Passage began with three voyages by the Englishman Martin Frobicher between 1576 and 1578.Frobio worked hard to organize these voyages, because he believed that the discovery of the Northwest Passage was "the only unfinished business in the world. If a person of excellent intelligence can accomplish it, it will be famous all over the world. good luck".On his third voyage back, he loaded his ship with black stones which he thought were gold-bearing ores.When the stones were found worthless and abandoned in Dartford Harbour, his hopes of fame and fortune evaporated.

Frobisher was followed by a long string of explorers, including John Davies (expedition 1585-1587), Henry Hudson (expedition 1607-1611), Robert Bylott and William Baffin (expedition between 1615 and 1616).They are all British, because in the early expeditions, the search for the Northwest Passage was basically the British business.None of them managed to reach the Pacific Ocean.It would be three centuries before the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen crossed the ice-filled sea that wraps the northern tip of the North American continent.Still, the work of early explorers did bear fruit.They discovered the Hudson Strait and Hudson Bay, which interconnected and provided a back door into the most fur-rich region of the American continent.This knowledge later allowed the British to compete in an area that would have been dominated by the French had they not known it.

The failure of the Nordics to find a new sea route to the east drove them to invade the Iberian sphere of influence.As Portugal's eastern possessions were still very strongly protected, the northerners attacked Spain's weakest American colonies first.From the beginning of their intermittent wars with the House of Habsburg (from the accession of Charles V in 1516 to the signing of the peace of Cato-Cambrezzi in 1559), the French have used La Rochelle as their base in their campaigns against South America. Piracy and privateer cruises on the North Shore.The damage done by the French raiders was considerable. In 1556, Captain François Leclerc—the Spaniards called him Pie de Palo (“the one-legged navigator”)—attacked Havana with 10 ships, sacked the city, and completely destroyed everything in the harbor. ship.

The British interlopers, who were present in Spanish America at the time, attempted to trade on a peaceful, commercial basis.What they wanted to do was not to plunder, but to take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the inability of weakened Spanish industry to meet the needs of the colonies.The two commodities most in demand in the Spanish colonies were cloth and black slaves, the former being produced by the British and the latter being available in West Africa.Sir John Hawkins' famous voyage has already been mentioned.Hawkins earned fame and a fortune as the founder of the British slave trade because he was shrewd enough to recognize what might have happened in such a situation, and at the same time bold enough to act in defiance of legal qualms. In 1562 he made his first voyage; he found slaves in Sierra Leone and shipped them to Hispaniola (Haiti) for hides and sugar.Profits were so high that Queen Elizabeth and several of her Privy Council officers also secretly invested in his second voyage.He followed the same steps as before, and returned, loaded with silver, as the richest man in England. The Spanish ambassador in London strongly protested the illegal trade.Although Hawkins peacefully exchanged slaves for colonial goods, the fact remained that trade with the Spanish colonies was illegal for foreigners.This is not an act of piracy, but it is certainly an act of aggression.Elizabeth, hoping to remain at peace with Spain, would not allow Hawkins to go to the West Indies, however, in 1567 Hawkins persuaded her to change her mind and allow a final voyage.The venture turned out to be a disaster; as the annual convoy arrived weeks earlier than expected from Spain, Hawkins' fleet was ambushed in a port in the West Indies.Of the five ships in the fleet, three were sunk or captured, and the remaining two were commanded by Hawkins and his cousin, Francis Drake, and returned to England in 1569 in a state of sinking. The doom of the third voyage marked a turning point in Anglo-Spanish relations—it ended any hope of peaceful, legal commerce with the Spanish colonies.If trade cannot be conducted in a peaceful and legal manner, it must be conducted by other means.The chances of profit were too great for the Englishmen and other northerners to restrain themselves or to forget.In later decades, Protestant sea captains served as pirates and privateer captains.Instead of going to the Spanish West Indies as peaceful but illegal traders. In addition, other events in Europe at the time brought a showdown between the two great powers of Catholicism and Protestantism closer.By the time Hawkins went on his third voyage, the Netherlands had rebelled against Spanish rule, prompting a bitter war that dragged on for years. In 1570, the pope excommunicated Queen Elizabeth and allowed English subjects to break their oath of fealty to the queen.Two years later, thousands of French apostles were massacred in Paris and elsewhere on the eve of St. Bartholomew's Day.The two camps of Protestantism and Catholicism are clearly heading for war, and it is only a matter of time before war breaks out. When King Philip of Spain sent his Armada to invade England in 1588, the two most fearsome opponents he encountered were John Hawkins and Francis Drake.Hawkins and Drake had brought the Armada to a disastrous defeat; it was, for them, sweet revenge for the disaster they had suffered in the West Indies. These developments in Europe greatly influenced the development of events abroad.Formal war with Spain (in which Portugal was then involved) removed any disincentives that might have limited Protestant power.They ventured boldly and openly into the confines of the Iberian Empire--not only into Spanish America, but into Portugal's East, and the more they penetrated, the more they were encouraged to penetrate further, for they found their adversaries out of control. unexpectedly weak.The Dutch were the first to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the decline of Iberia. The 17th century will be the "golden century" for the Netherlands. During the 17th century, the power and prosperity of the Netherlands grew significantly, due in part to its favorable location.The estuaries of these great rivers, the Scheldt, the Maas, and the Rhine, are all in the Netherlands, providing the Netherlands with excellent ports facing the United Kingdom and the Atlantic Ocean in the west.In addition, the Netherlands is backed by the huge German hinterland and faces the transportation hub of two ancient European merchant shipping routes—one is north-south, from Bergen to Gibraltar; the other is east-west, from the Gulf of Finland to the United Kingdom. .The basic trade commodities carried along these routes were herring and salt from Vizcaya, wine from the Mediterranean region, cloth from England and Flanders, copper and iron from Sweden, and grain, flax, hemp, lumber and wood from the Baltic region. products. The Dutch began their great development by engaging in the transportation of these commodities.Its merchant fleet owed its rise to local coastal fisheries and the less lucrative herring fishery; the latter developed when shoals of herring miraculously returned from the Baltic to the North Sea.The Dutch took full advantage of this new source of wealth.They invented new methods of preserving, curing and smoking, and exported their catch across Europe in exchange for grain, wood and salt.With the establishment of the Spanish and Portuguese overseas empires, the Dutch received goods from their new colonies in Seville and Lisbon, and distributed them throughout Europe.In return, they supplied the Iberian countries with grain from the Baltic and naval supplies. In 1566, the outbreak of the Dutch rebellion against Spain greatly helped the Dutch.At that time, Antwerp, which had an important industrial and commercial status and was the main financial center of Europe, was repeatedly plundered by the Spaniards. Thousands of craftsmen, merchants and bankers fled to the north, especially to Amsterdam. Between 1585 and 1622, Amsterdam's population rose from 30,000 to 106,000; the Antwerpenians who contributed to this population increase also contributed their own money and technology to the Dutch's overseas expansion. The Dutch were also greatly aided in their cause by their three-masted merchant ships, or flat-bottomed coasters—a common transport vessel of enormous volume, cheap to build.In the past, typical merchant ships have always been built with heavy timbers, with a gun mount platform at the stern, which can mount artillery and be used as a warship when necessary.The Dutch first took the risk of building a merchant ship specially designed for the purpose of only transporting goods and not being equipped with artillery.Three-masted merchant ships have wide hulls, flat bottoms, and limited living quarters. Therefore, they have the largest cargo space and save ship building materials.These slow, ugly but cheap, spacious steamers were the mainstay of the Dutch merchant fleet that began to dominate the world's oceans. Towards the end of the sixteenth century a combination of accidents drove the Dutch to openly challenge Portuguese supremacy in the East.For one thing, Sir Francis Drake made the famous voyage around the world (1677-1580); on this voyage it was found that the Portuguese, far from being masters of the East, had many enemies to defend against extremely long merchant shipping routes and Widely dispersed strongholds.The Portuguese East Indies no longer seemed invulnerable, and the union of Spanish and Portuguese crowns in 1580 caused the Protestant nations to treat Portugal with the former fear and hatred of Spain.Portugal was now regarded as an enemy both in Europe and abroad, and its empire was therefore the object of attack by the Protestant powers.In addition, the resistance movement in the Netherlands hindered the distribution of colonial goods in northern Europe.Because the Dutch could no longer get goods from the Iberian ports.For some time, the British had obtained oriental products in the ports of the eastern Mediterranean, but this trade was also checked by Spanish and Portuguese warships blocking the passage through the Strait of Gibraltar.Under these pressures, the Dutch and British decided that since they could no longer get spices from Lisbon and Alexandria, they would go straight to the East Indies. The first task was to collect reliable information to guide navigators to find the long route around the Cape of Good Hope.The Portuguese took the most vigorous precautions to keep such information secret. In 1504, King Manuel I issued a decree forbidding maps to include any indication of routes beyond the Congo.Early maps that leaked such intelligence were collected, destroyed, or altered.Despite this censorship, the Portuguese seafaring secrets gradually leaked out.For the northerners, the most important source of information was the "Travel Diary" describing the geography of the world published in 1595 by the Dutchman Jan Hajjen von Linsoden.Lin Soden lived in India for seven years as a servant of the archbishop of Portuguese Goa, so he can provide detailed navigation instructions for the route around the Cape of Good Hope in the book. Linsoden's work was used to guide the first Dutch fleet to the East Indies in the year it was published.The two-and-a-half-year expedition suffered heavy losses, with only 89 of the original 289 men returning.Yet the trade was so lucrative that despite the loss of manpower and equipment, the Dutch made huge profits.The second expedition was luckier, netting a 400% profit.As a result, the Dutch flooded into the eastern waters one after another; in 1598, there were no less than 5 fleets sailing to the east, with 22 ships.From the very beginning, the Dutch outnumbered the Portuguese.They were better seamen, could transport spices cheaper in their three-masted merchant ships, and, as their own industry was superior to that of the Iberian nation, their trade goods were cheaper and better.In an unexpected complication, Indonesian rulers and merchants often took advantage of the competition between the Dutch and the Portuguese to raise prices and port charges. In 1602 the Dutch took countermeasures by merging their various private trading companies into a single state-run company, the Dutch East India Company. As far as the Dutch were concerned, the company enjoyed a monopoly of trade from the Cape of Good Hope to the Strait of Magellan, under the terms of the charter it received from Congress.Corporations were also given the power to make war or peace, seize foreign ships, establish colonies, build castles, and mint coins.The Corporation made good use of these powers in its dealings with the native rulers and in its successful expulsion of the cowering Portuguese.Two years earlier, in 1600, the British had organized their own East India Company, but they were no match for the Dutch.Subscription capital for British companies is much smaller than for Dutch companies, and is only available on a regular basis, as British business shareholders only fund individual voyages.After each voyage, they distribute capital and profits, closing their accounts.Furthermore, British corporations received little support from the Stuart kings (understandable, since Britain was still largely a peasant country), while the Dutch enjoyed strong support from their business-oriented government. support. Despite their favorable position, the Dutch initially tolerated British competition in the East Indies.Still fighting for independence from Spanish rule, they were powerless to make enemies.In 1609, however, the Dutch turned against the British after they had concluded a truce with Spain in Antwerp.The outcome of the struggle for monopoly power is unmistakable.The Dutch had as many as five times as many ships as the British, and built a series of castles in the Indonesian archipelago that allowed them to control important locations.Furthermore, the Dutch had the service of the gifted Governor-General Jan Peterszorn Cohen, who had done for his country what Albuquerque had previously done for Portugal.During his tenure (1618-1629) he drove the Portuguese from the East Indies and enabled his successors to drive the Portuguese from Malacca (1641) and Ceylon (1658).Cohen also harassed the British and prevented their penetration of the Indonesian archipelago, forcing them to retreat to their strongholds in India.Equally important, Cohen also cultivated and developed trade among Asian countries, making the volume of trade between Asia far greater than the volume of trade around the Cape of Good Hope to Europe.Before that time the Portuguese had been involved in this trade, however Cohen went a step further and established a base in "Formosa" (Taiwan) from where he controlled commercial routes to China, Japan and the East Indies. At first, the Dutch East India Company consciously tried to avoid acquiring territorial claims.Theorists and statesmen in Amsterdam attributed the decline of Portugal's power in the East to its expending power and capital on territorial conquests, and warned Dutch companies against similar mistakes.But the company, in its efforts to establish a trade monopoly, was gradually steered toward the kind of territorial expansion it wished to avoid.Monopoly power can only be strengthened by a network of fortified strongholds.Establishing a stronghold requires a treaty with the local ruler, and treaties lead to alliances, and alliances lead to protective relationships.By the end of the seventeenth century, only a small area was actually administered by the Dutch, but the number of countries that had become Dutch protectorates formed a much larger area.Then, during the 18th and 19th centuries, the Netherlands annexed all these protectorates and established a huge regional empire. After about 1700, the benefits of exporting spices to Europe diminished, but were made up for by the inter-Asian trade that Cohen developed.Also, around this time, the Dutch were developing a new economic resource by introducing coffee trees to the East Indies. In 1711 they harvested 100 pounds of coffee, and by 1723 they were selling 12 million pounds.Thus, as Europeans developed a taste for coffee, the Dutch became the main suppliers of this exotic beverage.By these means the Dutch East India Company received an average annual dividend of 18% throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, Dutch overseas activities were not limited to the East Indies.In the arctic waters around the Spitsberg archipelago, the Dutch had a virtual monopoly on whaling.In Russia they were far superior to the British Moscow Company.They also controlled the flourishing Baltic trade and became the main suppliers of Western Europe's most important naval supplies—lumber, pitch, tar, hemp for rope, and flax for sailcloth. Their merchant fleet as early as 1600 had 10,000 ships, the largest fleet in the world.Dutch shipyards are highly mechanized and can produce almost one ship a day.In addition, boats were economical to build and operate; Dutch shipowners could undercut their competitors for business.They thus acted as transport operators between Spain, France, England and the Baltic.The British could not compete with the Dutch in merchant shipping until the 18th century. In America, the Dutch established New Amsterdam in 1612 on Manhattan Island.The colony never expanded, and by 1663 there were only 1,900 people.However, it served as a base and clearinghouse for the vast numbers of Dutch ships engaged in the lucrative but illegal shipping trade between Europe and the Spanish, British and French colonies in America.In fact, the British took New Amsterdam in 1664 primarily to plug an intolerable loophole in their mercantile system. In the farther south of North and South America, the Dutch operated through the Dutch West India Company.The company was founded in 1621 with the purpose of exploiting the unsecured wealth of Spain and Portugal in the American colonies.After 10 years of on-and-off fighting, the Dutch took control of the Brazilian coast from Bahia all the way to the Amazon.However, the company was unwilling and unable to afford the expenses required to maintain a sufficient garrison, and the entire coastal strip was lost by 1654.The Dutch West India Company also established colonies in Caracas, Curacao, and Guyana on the Caribbean coast.They left a lasting mark on these places as they introduced sugar cane, which soon became a hugely profitable crop throughout the West Indies. The most enduring of all Dutch colonies was a small settlement in 1652 on the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.This was not a trading post, but a real colony established to provide fuel, water and fresh food to ships en route to the East.An official of the company, learning that the Chinese were the cheapest colonists available, wished to have the Chinese settle on the Cape of Good Hope.It will be interesting to speculate how different events might have followed had his advice been adopted.However, the Dutch officials in the East Indies refused to provide Chinese coolies, but instead persuaded many Boers in the Netherlands, that is, farmers, to emigrate there together with some French Huguenots.The colony soon proved its worth.The fresh meat and vegetables it supplied to Dutch ships and others helped to fight scurvy and save the lives of thousands of sailors.Today, descendants of these Boers make up two-fifths of the 3 million Europeans living in South Africa.They formed the only covenant, continuation of the overseas core of the Dutch language and Dutch culture.This is in stark contrast to the large number of English-speaking peoples who occupy a large part of the earth's surface today.This contrast goes some way to explaining why the Dutch were unable to maintain the primacy they enjoyed during their golden seventeenth century. In the 18th century, the Netherlands lagged behind England and France in terms of economic development and overseas activity.One reason for its decline is that the British and French governments passed a series of discriminatory laws against the Dutch.Working tirelessly to build up their own merchant fleet.Examples of such legislation are the several Acts of Navigation approved from 1651; these Acts stipulate that no merchandise shall be imported into or exported from any English colony unless the vessel carrying the merchandise is an English vessel, i.e. a British ship. or ships manufactured by, owned by, and manned by at least two-thirds of the crew of the British colonies.After the legislation, the British Merchant Navy developed extremely rapidly.To what extent the passing of these Regulations was linked to the growth of the British shipping industry is still an open question.Prolonged protests by the Dutch and by West Indian planters displeased with higher-demanding English shippers suggest at least some connection. The Dutch were also weakened by a series of costly wars—with England over commercial disputes from 1652 to 1674 and with France over Louis XIV's territorial ambitions from 1667 to 1713.The Dutch were especially vulnerable to the enemy in these wars.Their merchant ships were slow and practically unmanned.Their regular navies are generally neglected due to their focus on the merchant fleet.Thus, when Dutch ships congregated from all parts of the world to sail across the English Channel for their home ports, they were attacked on both sides, and the British, and especially French, privateers who ravaged them were well rewarded. .Serior Pepys narrates that he found on board a captured Dutch-Indian trading ship the greatest wealth in disorder that a man could ever see in the world...  Pepper spills through each slit.Man tramples on pepper, I walk knee-deep in cloves and nutmeg, and whole cabins are piled to the brim.There were also bundles of silk and copper boxes, and I saw one of the boxes open. The scale of these raids was such that the British took some 1,700 merchant ships from the Dutch as trophies in the two years after the war began in 1652. The Acts of Navigation and wars with England and France do not fully account for the decline of the Netherlands.In fact, Dutch trade peaked between 1698 and 1715, and, in those years, the Dutch merchant fleet was still twice the size of England and probably nine times the size of France.But at the time, the Dutch share of all trade was declining.Therefore, what has occurred is a relative rather than an absolute decline.The Dutch are not fading, but the French and the British are catching up.The fundamental reason is that the Dutch lack the resources needed to maintain their original expansion rate.The French had a large population, a prosperous agriculture, and a wealthy homeland with outlets on both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.The English also possessed far more natural resources than the Dutch, and enjoyed the great advantage of an island location which spared them the cost of frequent invasions.Furthermore, the British were backed by the rapidly growing wealth and power of their overseas colonies, while the Dutch had only a small isolated colony at the southern tip of South Africa.Thus we find that the value of English exports rose from £8 million in 1720 to £19 million in 1763, and that of France from 12 million livres in 1116 to 500 million livres in 1789. .The Dutch, who had already reached their peak, were no match for such growth.After all, the Netherlands gave way to England and France in the eighteenth century for the same reasons that Britain and France gave way to the United States and the Soviet Union in the twentieth century. The 18th century was marked by the struggle between England and France for colonial supremacy.The two countries compete head-to-head around the world -- in North America, Africa and India. In North America, the British and French colonies shared many characteristics.They lived in Jituo at about the same time.They are all located along the Atlantic coast and in the West Indies.The native population there was so few and primitive that the English and French, unlike the Spaniards, could not hope to live on native labourers, though they did depend on black slave labor on some of the sugar islands.Since the British and French could not find precious metals, they had to support themselves by farming, fishing, logging, commerce, and the fur trade. The British colonies in North America can be roughly divided into three groups: Virginia, which mainly produces tobacco, and its immediate neighbors; New England, which is engaged in fishing, logging, commerce, and fur trade, and its small and small groups of disbelieving settlements .Most highly regarded of the British West Indies for their hugely profitable sugar plantations.In general, one of the characteristics of these British colonies is that they are densely populated, far more populous than the French colonies.Another key feature of them is that they are politically unmanageable.Each colony has a governor, an advisory council and a court system, all three appointed by the British.Almost every colony also had an elected legislative assembly, usually at odds with appointed officials. Parliament was a distinctive feature of the British Empire, at a time when no other colonial empire in Europe had a significant representative institution.This is understandable, since England, unlike France and the Iberian states, began its colonization at a time when representative government was gaining strength in the mother country.In short, the elected assemblies of the British colonies fanatically defended what they considered their inalienable rights.The cause of their most usual quarrel with the London government was the latter's insistence that all colonial produce should be brought to England by British ships.This seemed like a reasonable request to the royal officials, since they also gave the colonies the right to monopolize the domestic market with their own products.Colonial merchants and planters, however, protested violently because they could not use cheaper Dutch ships and export their produce to more profitable non-English markets. In 1677, a century before the American Revolution, the Massachusetts Assembly openly wrote to the Privy Council in London: 北美法属殖民地因其战略位置而非常出色。最初的法国据点于1605 年、1608年及1642年分别在阿卡迪亚（即新斯科会）、魁北克及蒙特利尔建立。法国人以圣劳伦斯河流域为开拓殖民地的主要根据地，利用无与伦比的内陆水系向西推进到苏必利尔湖，向南推进至俄亥俄河。1682年，法国贵族拉萨尔划船沿密西西比河而下，声称整个密西西比河流域为法国所有，并命名为路易斯安那，以纪念路易十四。因而，法国人在非常短暂的时间里便已侵入北美大陆的中心。 这引起了复杂的情况，因为18 世纪英国王室发出的殖民地特许状大多附文授予“从大海到大海”即从大西洋到太平洋之间的地区。显然，每当英国殖民者到达并越过阿巴拉契亚山脉时，相竞争的英、法两国对土地所有权的要求便将经受考验。不过，开始时，法国人在土地占有方面占很大优势。他们的探险者最先开辟了这些地区，然后，他们的官员沿着从圣劳伦斯河到路易斯安那的路经修筑了许多堡塞。大西洋沿海的英属殖民地有效地被从圣劳伦斯湾到墨西哥湾的一条巨大的弧形地带所包围。 法国人不仅占有北美洲的制高点，还拥有纪律和团结方面以巨大优势。法属殖民地不存在难驾驭的民选的机构。负责各殖民地防御的总督和处理财政、经济事务的地方行政长官皆由巴黎任命。这种安排较之嘎吱嘎吱响的英国代议制制度更灵敏、更有效。英属殖民地的总督只能请求和怂恿他们的议会采取某种行动步骤；他们几乎不能下命令，尤其是从他们的薪水基金由议会投票决定以后。在法属殖民地，总督和地方行政长官下命令，而他们的部下则加以执行。 法国人和英国人在西印度群岛也是近邻。这地区主要的法属殖民地为马提尼克岛和瓜德罗普岛，英属殖民地则为牙买加、巴巴多斯和巴哈马群岛。这些殖民地作为同南面的西班牙和葡萄牙殖民地通商的贸易站是很有价值的，但是，它们最可贵的东西是它们的热带产品——糖、烟草和靛青——这些产品补充了法、英两国的经济。 在非洲，到18 世纪初，法国人已在马达加斯加岛、戈雷岛和塞内加尔河河口安家，英国人则在冈比亚和黄金海岸落户。非洲沿海的这些殖民点起了经营黄金、象牙、蜂蜡和奴隶交易的贸易站的作用；其中，奴隶占极重要的地位，特别是在西印度群岛产糖殖民地的发展增加了对当地劳动力的需求之后。不过，非洲很少受到18世纪英、法竞争的影响。争夺这块大陆的真正的斗争直到19和20世纪才来临。 相形之下，印度与北美洲的那些殖民地相似，是英、法激烈冲突的地区。17 世纪初，英国人被荷兰人逐出东印度群岛后，便退到印度次大陆。到这一世纪末，他们已在印度营建了四个较大的据点，东海岸的加尔各答和马德拉斯，西海岸的苏拉特和孟买；苏拉特是印度最早的英国贸易站，孟买则是葡萄牙公主于1662年嫁给查理二世时作为嫁妆带给英国的。1604年，法国人已组织了他们自己的东印度公司，但它很快就开始不起作用。它于1664年复兴，到这一世纪末，法国人在两个较大的据点——加尔各答附近的金德讷格尔和马德拉斯附近的本地治里——安置下来。 17 世纪时，凡在印度居住、经商的欧洲人都是经强大的莫卧儿皇帝容许后才这样做的。如果他们不是举止规矩、不是谦卑地请求享有从事商业活动的特权，后者原可能会轻易地把他们赶进大海。18世纪时，形势完全颠倒过来了。欧洲人从被勉强容忍的、限制在少数沿海前哨基地的外国商人变为逐渐控制印度整片整片地区的爱寻衅的入侵者。 这一转变的原因在于莫卧儿帝国的崩溃。1605 年，杰出、开明的皇帝阿克巴去世后。他的继承者们未能信奉其宗教信仰自由和薄赋轻税的英明政策。1658年即位的莫卧儿最后一位有名的皇帝奥朗则布尤其如此。奥朗则布是一个穆斯林狂热者，他的宗教迫害，特别是其晚年阶段的，使印度教臣民和他疏远；他不得不进行连续的战争，而战争又导致赋税更加繁重、人民更为不满。1707年，随着他死去，莫卧儿帝国开始土崩瓦解，由于他没有固定的继承人，其儿子们为王位争夺了两年。然后，1712至1719年，五位傀儡皇帝相继在德里进行统治。在这些情况下，地方统治者开始宣称独立，建立起世袭的地方王朝。马拉塔人代表模糊的、早期的意义上的印度民族主义，从他们在西面的孟买以南约100哩处的首都萨达拉扩张到离东面的加尔各答不到200哩的地方。中央政权的瓦解给了英国东印度公司和法国东印度公司以可乘之机，使它们得以从纯粹的商业组织转变为地区霸王和贡物收集者。它们修筑堡塞、供养士兵、铸造货币以及与周围的印度统治者缔结条约，因为印度已不存在能拒绝它们行使这种主权权利的中央政权。 当时，相竞争的英、法两国在印度、非洲和南北美洲控制的一批地区的情况就是如此。这两个帝国在17、 18世纪中的相互争斗以英国的压倒的胜利而告终。一个原团在于，法国更感兴趣的不是海外殖民地，而是欧洲霸权。从16世纪起，法国波旁家族就首先全力以赴地侵犯意大利，与奥地利和西班牙的哈普斯堡王室作斗争。路易十四曾有位大臣叫让·巴蒂斯特·柯尔贝尔，真正地对发展法国的经济感兴趣，试图鼓励贸易和殖民地拓殖。但是，其有名对手是国防大臣弗朗索斯·卢瓦，他只关心在欧洲大陆的军事战役和领土扩张。最后，卢瓦占上风，并在这种情况下，树立起一个介入欧洲大陆事务的传统。1758年，当勇敢的将军蒙卡尔姆派使者到巴黎去说明加拿大危急的军事形势、要求立即予以援助时，他得到的答复是，一个人在住宅着火的情况下，不会试图去救马厩。直到19世纪波旁王朝被推翻后，法国才又致力于海外事业和海外扩张。 英国胜利的另一原因是，移居殖民地的英国人较法国人多得多。到1688 年，集中在大西洋沿海狭窄的山麓地区的英国移民有30万，而散居在加拿大和密西西比河流域的广大地区的法国人仅2万。这种差别在某种程度上起因于巴黎拒绝让法国新教徒即胡格诺派教徒移居殖民地，而马萨诸塞大部分地区却由因不能遵从圣公会教义而离开英国的不从国教派聚居着。再一重要因素是，法国土壤较英国土壤肥沃。法国的农民群众深深地依恋自己的土地，他们能够得到足够的收入，无须求助于移居外国。但是，在英国，为了替不断发展的纺织工业生产更多的羊毛、替迅速发展的城市生产更多的粮食，大规模的目地已进行了一些时候。在联成一片的、科学经营的土地上，比在从中世纪继承下来的、小而分散的条块式田地上，能更有效地生产羊毛和粮食这些商品。圈地意味着更高的生产率，然而，也意味着社会混乱和不幸。这正是托马斯·莫尔爵士所谴责的，他愤怒地写道： 正是这些被逐出家园的人们提供了从英国移居殖民地的群众基础。 此外，还有不少英国绅士动身去美洲。他们因不断上涨的物价和固定不变的地租的共同影响而处于困境，于是，去政府部门寻找工作，但是，如果他们恰好是清教徒，寻找工作只能是徒劳无益。实际上，许多清教徒在查理一世统治期间丢了自己的官职。萨福克的约翰·温思罗普就是典型的一例。他在沃兹法院被撤职后，不再能维持他的庄园、庄园主的住宅、仆人和他已渐渐习惯的生活水平，他便卖掉田产，率领一伙清教徒移民前往马萨诸塞，在那里，他当选为殖民地的总督。 这些因素共同说明了英、法两国移民数量上的巨大差别。对这差别的意义估计再高，也不过分。美国革命爆发时，英属殖民地的人口不少于200万，即相当于操英语的世界的总人口的三分之一。这种大规模的殖民在很大程度上解释了1763年英国对法国的胜利和20年后美利坚共和国对英国的胜利。 英国工业的惊人发展也有助于英国在海外竞争中的成功。英国在1550 至1650年这100年中的工业发展只是在1760年以后的工业革命期间才被超过。事实上，后来的重工业发展的基础正是在这较早的时期里打下的。英国工业最初的急速发展之所以会出现，部分地是由于欧洲大陆的三十年战争（1618—1648年）；这场战争引起了对军需物资的需求。英国人响应这一需求，在由法国、德国及佛兰德的难民和移民引进的许多新技术的帮助下，大大地发展了他们的采矿、冶金和化学工业。 在整个17 世纪中，从中世纪就已开始的呢绒制造业仍是英国的主要工业和最宝贵的输出品来源。在新工业中，采煤业的发展极其惊人。煤这时已广泛地用作燃料并使用于需要高温的工业如制糖业。煤的产量从1550年的20万吨左右增长到1700年的300万吨。这一发展包括了采矿设备和排水机械的改进，这些改进促进了后来蒸汽机的发明。水力也比以前得到更广泛的利用，水击锤已使用于锻工厂。当时显著发展的其他工业还有制造火炮、黑色火药、硝石、玻璃、纸、明矾和盐的那些工业。 法国工业在产品数量方面大致和英国不相上下。但是，应记住，法国人口为英国的三倍以上，而且，法国人与生产布匹和金属器具的英国人大不相同，倾向于制造奢侈品。此外，法国的技术进步受到行会系统的妨碍，行会系统在这国家被组织得有条有理，非常强大。大体上，可以说，工、商业界与其说是在法国受到鼓励，不如说是在英国，因为法国工、商业界缺乏英吉利海峡对岸的工、商业界的政治势力。 英国繁荣的经济以各种方式促进了英国的海外事业。它为殖民地发展提供了更多的资本；这是一个须考虑到的重要事实，因为英国和法国的殖民地最初需要大量经费。它们和西班牙殖民地不同，出产不了金银，提供不了可利用的土著劳动力。因此，英、法两国的殖民地化的发起人不得不完全用欧洲人的劳动力来移植整块整块的社区。他们必须为这些人提供运输、工具、种子和装备。所有这一切都包括大量的资本支出；通常，资本从伦敦较之从巴黎更有可能随时可得。在英国，按人口平均计算的金钱更多，而且，不是象在法国那样投资于庞大的常备军和精心装饰的宫廷，而是取可得到的、流动的形式。英国的工业也提供了更便宜、更耐用的商品，使英国殖民者和商人胜过他们的法国竞争者。例如，在北美洲，英国皮毛商人能向印第安人提供较为价廉物美的毯子、水壶及火器，以换取后者的毛皮。 此外，英国工业对海军建设有充分准备。这一事实，加之英国统治集团对海上力量的重要性有更多的认识，在很大程度上说明了英国海军在长长一系列英法战争中占优势的原因。路易十五宣称，“在法国，除行家维尼特的海军外，决不会有别的海军”与这类似的情况，英国历史上是肯定不存在的。英国的海军优势是个决定因素，因为在布雷斯特附近海面上巡航的一支英国分舰队能切断法属殖民地与其母国的联系，使它们无依无靠，这种情况曾一再发生。 英、法两国在殖民地和贸易方面的竞争直到17 世纪末叶才导致相互开战。那时以前，英国人与荷兰人的矛盾要多得多，他们之间有遍布全球的冲突点——北大西洋的渔业、东方的商站、美洲的殖民地以及非洲和西印度群岛的奴隶贸易。这些争端促成1652至1674年的接连三次的英荷战争。其后，当英国人认识到法国人正取代荷兰人、成为他们最可怕的对手时，形势改变了。荷兰资源有限，且已过了其全盛时期；法国却是个远为富饶、人口多得多的国家，而且正在急剧地加紧海外活动。大不列颠的光荣革命（1688年）也促成了英、法相互间的疏远：它撵走了在英国复辟专制制度和恢复天主教时依靠路易十四的友好帮助的斯图亚特王朝。取代斯图亚特王朝的是荷兰的尼德兰联省执政、奥兰治亲王威廉三世，他是个坚定的新教徒，也是路易十四的主敌。因而，威廉三世的继位使英国和荷兰联合反对法国。1689年，开始了几乎拖延一个世纪、直到1763年英国大获全胜为止的接连四次的英法战争。 所有这些战争都有两个方面：欧洲方面和海外方面。欧洲方面的战争是围绕王朝野心、尤其是法国路易十四和普鲁士腓特烈大帝的野心进行的。海外方面的战争则起因于各种各样的问题——印度的势力均衡、在美洲的相冲突的领土要求、西班牙殖民地的贸易条件以及对世界商船航线的控制。由于这些战争的欧洲方面和海外方面的区分极其明显，每次战争都是在欧洲以一名字相称，在美洲以另一名字相称。因此，这些战争载入历史的名字为：奥洛斯堡联盟之战或威廉王之战（1689—1697年），西班牙王位继承战争或安妮女王之战（1701-1713年），奥地利王位继承战争或乔治王之战（1743一1748年），七年战争或法国和印第安人战争（1756-1763年）。 前三次战争就其海外方面而言，是非决定性的。在欧洲，它们的确解决了一些重要问题：路易十四被有力地击败，腓特烈大帝成功地占领了西里西亚地区，使普鲁士迅速跻身于欧洲强国的最前列。但是，在大部分海外战事的发生地美洲，只有孤立的、非决定性的战役。法国人享有大部分印第安部落的支持，这一方面是由于他们的传教士比英国传教士活动力强得多，一方面是由于法国殖民者人数很少，不象无情地向前推进、开始涌满阿巴拉契亚山脉的英国殖民浪潮那样，对印第安人构成巨大威胁。法国人和其印第安盟军一起，屡次掠夺和烧毁英国人的边远村庄。但是，英国人利用其优势的人力和海军力量，进攻易受海路攻击的今新斯科舍和布雷顿角岛境内的法国殖民地。 前三次战争的最后结果是，英国人获得新斯科会、纽芬兰和哈得孙湾地区。但是，这些征服留下一个未解决的基本问题：法国人是否会保持加拿大和密西西比河流域，从而把英国人限制在大西洋沿海地区呢？这问题由第四次战争作最后答复，第四次战争也解决了印度的前途问题。 这场重大的战争称为七年战争，因为它在欧洲从1756 至1763年进行了七年。但在美洲，由于占有俄亥俄河流域的竞争愈益加剧，它早两年就开始了。1749年，当英国政府向弗吉尼亚和伦敦资本家为拓殖流域地区而组织的俄亥俄公司颁发特许执照时，英属殖民地居民已开始越过阿巴拉契亚山脉、络绎不绝地进入流域地区。但当时，法国人正在西宾夕法尼亚修筑一系列堡塞——普雷斯克艾尔堡（伊利）、勒伯夫堡（沃特福德）和文南古堡（富兰克林）。1754年，俄亥俄公司通过在莫农加希拉河和阿勒格尼河的具有战略意义的汇合处设立一城堡，反击法国人。法国人迅速攻占这城堡，加以扩建，并为纪念加拿大总督而命名为迪凯纳堡。一个名叫乔治·华盛顿的年青的弗吉尼亚州人赶紧率兵前往那里增援英国驻军。不幸的是，他到得太晚了，未能提供任何援助，而且，他本人于1754年7月4日被法国人及其印第安盟军击败，不得不撤回到山脉的另一边。 第二年，为了夺回迪凯纳堡，英国将军布雷多克率领一支正规军到达美洲。但是，他拒绝接受手下殖民地官员关于如何进行新开辟地战争的劝告，其部队遭到惨败，他本人阵亡，英国人的败北一直继续到1756 年底。法军司令官是马奎斯·蒙卡尔姆，他是一位在欧洲久经沙场的将军，不过，他很快就使自己适应新开辟地环境，卓越地领导了法国和印第安军队。1757 年，战争发生重大转折，主要是由于威廉·皮特（老）进入英国内阁。这位后来成为查塔姆伯爵的皮特，是一个有远见卓识和富有感染力的自信的人。“我相信我能拯救这个国家”，他说，“别的人都不行。”他将财力集中于海军和殖民地，同时资助在欧洲继续作战的同盟者、普鲁士的腓特列。他的战略正如他所说的，是在德意志平原上争取到一个帝国。 皮特的战略取得辉煌的成功。他的得到加强的海军清除了海洋上的法国人，而美洲殖民者则为他的领导所鼓舞，加入英国正规军，组成一支大约5 万人的军队。按美洲战争的标准，这是一支庞大的军队，它攻克了一个又一个法国堡垒。战争的高潮随围攻魁北克而到来；魁北克是法属加拿大的中心，是由厉害的蒙卡尔姆防守的一个天然大堡垒。直立圣劳伦斯河两岸的峭壁似乎是攻不破的，疾病又削弱了围攻的部队，失败着来无可避免。英军司令官、33岁的将军詹姆斯· 沃尔夫在绝望中决定采取十分冒险的行动。他派3，60O名士兵在深夜渡河到魁北克城上游一侧的某个地点，在那里登陆，然后沿一条险峻的小道爬过灌木丛和石坡，爬上一块高地即俯瞰魁北克城的著名的亚伯拉罕平民1759年9月13日早晨，决战打响了。沃尔夫和蒙卡尔姆均阵亡，但英国老兵们获胜。几天后，魁北克投降。第二年，蒙特利尔也陷于向前推进的英国人手中。这是美洲法国殖民帝国的结束，因为英国对海洋的控制阻止了巴黎的任何援救。 在印度，英国人亦取得了完满的成功。那里的形势截然不同于美洲，因为英、法两国政府对印度都没有领土野心。英国东印度公司和法国东印度公司的董事们也是如此，他们坚持认为他们在印度的代理人应绝对地专心于商业。他们仅对利润感兴趣，而且对花费在非商业目标上的每个便士或苏表示不满。然而，与在印度的代理人联络要花一年或一年以上的时间，后者常利用这一事实独自行动，使公司卷入印度事务中。后者这样做还因为当时莫卧儿帝国正在崩溃，为扩大个人财源和建立帝国提供了令人眼花缭乱的机会。 第一个大规模地干涉印度事务的欧洲人是法属印度总督约瑟·杜布雷。即便是他，至少开始时，似乎也不是为了领土扩张而对领土扩张感兴趣。相反地，他希望获得领土，是为了能从税收和其他政治收益中得到更多的经营商业的资本。虽然杜布雷减少了由他指挥的法国军队，但他通过以欧洲军事方式操练土著印度人来扩大自己的影响。这些经过训练的印度军队即印度兵使他能支持对印度各种王位提出要束者，能逐步建立起对他本人感恩图报的土著统治者的庇护制度。这种做法十分有效，因为少数欧洲军队或印度兵能在对阵战中战胜人数多得多的纯粹的印度军队。然而，杜布雷于1754年被召回法国，因为公司担心他的侵略策略将导致同英国的战争 随着英、法之间大规模战争的爆发，战争破干1756 年降临到印度。开始时，由于杜布雷的活动，法国人处于较强大的位置。他们占据较多的领土，拥有大一倍以上的战斗力量，而且还在土著王公中间施加较广泛的政治影响。但最后，英国人赢得压倒的胜利。这里，又是海军优势为决定性因素。英国能从欧洲运来军队、金钱及供应品，同时阻止法国这样做。英国人还得到了罗伯特·克莱武的鼓舞人心的领导。克莱武是一名多年前当职员出身的公司官员，他具有杰出的军事才干和领悟印度政治的才能。1756年，他得知欧洲的战争后，立即向孟加拉进军。在以往靠与欧洲通商致富的印度商人的支持下，克莱武在1757年的普拉西战役中打败亲法国的穆斯林统治者，他把自己的傀儡安插在王位上，并为自己和公司勒索了巨额赔款。在战争的剩余阶段中，英国海军使克莱武能随意地将其军队从印度的一个地区转移到另一地区，同时，还切断了法国各据点之间以及它们与法国之间的联系。1761年，随着法国交出在本地治里的主要根据地，战争结束。 七年战争的海外方面是由美洲的魁北克和印度的本地治里的陷落决定的。但是，欧洲的战争一直拖延到1763 年即交战国缔结巴黎和约时。美洲法属殖民地中，法国仅保有南美洲的圭亚那、纽芬兰沿海的无足轻重的圣皮埃尔岛和密克隆岛以及包括瓜德罗普岛和马提尼克岛在内的西印度群岛的少数岛屿。因此，英国从法国得到了整个圣劳伦斯河流域和密西西比河以东的全部地区。这些区域几乎杳无人烟，被认为其价值不及盛产蔗糖的瓜德罗普岛和马提尼克岛；这两个岛已归还法国。实际上，它们是由于西印度群岛的英国种植园主的坚决要求才被归还的；这些种植园主担心法国糖岛的竞争，如果糖岛给包括在英帝国商业结构内的话。 西班牙于战争晚期站在法国这一边参战，因此，被迫将佛罗里达割让给英国。作为补偿，法国把路易斯安那西部即密西西比河以西地区给予西班牙。在印度，法国人保有他们在本地治里和其他城市的商业设施——事务所、货栈和码头。但是，他们被禁止修筑防御工事或在印度王公中间寻求政治目标。也就是说，法国人是作为商人而不是作为帝国建立者回到印度的。 巴黎和约签订时，英国政治领袖霍勒斯·沃波尔评论道，“烧掉你们的希腊和罗马书籍——有关微不足道的人们的历史记载吧。”这句颇有远见的评语有力地说明了这一和平解决办法的长远的、世界性的涵义。就欧洲而论，条约允许普鲁士仍占有西里西亚、成为奥地利争夺德意志领导权的对手。然而，对世界历史来说，具有远为重要的意义的是巴黎和约的海外影响。根据和约条款，法国遭到了甚至比荷兰在17世纪、西班牙在16世纪所蒙受的更为耻辱、更为彻底的失败。西班牙和荷兰虽然威信扫地，但各自仍保有大量殖民地——西班牙殖民地在美洲和菲律宾群岛，荷兰殖民地在东印度群岛，而法国，不仅威信丧尽，还被剥夺了其几乎所有的海外殖民地。 诚然，法国在19 世纪逐步建立起一个仅次于英殖民帝国的新的殖民帝国。但是，对世界历史而言，重要的事实是法国在18世纪丢失了北美洲和印度。这意味着格兰德河以北的美洲以后将发展成为操英语的世界的一部分。俾斯麦后来评论说，美国和英国操同种语言这一事实，是近代外交中最重要的一个成分。两次世界大战期间的事态发展已支持了这个观点。 法国被逐出印度也是一个具有世界意义的历史事件，因为它意味着英国人将在那里代替莫卧儿人。英国人一旦在德里安顿下来，就完全走上通往世界帝国和世界首位的道路。正是由于范围广阔、人口稠密的次大陆所提供的这块无与伦比的根据地，英国人能在19世纪扩张到南亚其余地区，然后远远地扩张到东亚。 英国历史学家J·R·格林对1763年的和平解决所引起的这些发展的世界性涵义作了很好的概述：