THE FALL OF NEW FRANCE 109 
meetings and at tavern firesides men discussed the 
feasibleness of resisting George III., the incidents of 
Braddock’s defeat did not fail to point a suggestive 
moral. 
The war thus inauspiciously begun was not confined 
to American soil. After three-quarters of a century 
of vague skirmishing, England was now prepared to 
measure her strength with France in a decisive strug- 
gle for colonial empire and for the lordship of the sea. 
The whole world was convulsed with the struggle of 
the Seven. Years’ War—a war more momentous in 
its consequences than any that had ever yet been car- 
ried on between rival European powers; a war made 
illustrious by the genius of one of the greatest generals, 
and of perhaps the very greatest war minister, the 
world has ever seen. It was an evil hour for French 
hopes of colonial empire when the invincible prowess 
of Frederick the Great was allied with the far-sighted 
policy of William Pitt. In the autumn of 1757, shortly 
after the Great Commoner was intrusted with the 
direction of the foreign affairs of England, the king 
of Prussia annihilated the French army at Rossbach, 
and thus — to say nothing of the immediate results — 
prepared the way for Waterloo and Sedan, and for the 
creation of a united and independent Germany. Yet, 
in spite of this overwhelming victory, the united 
strength of France and Austria and Russia would at 
last have proved too much for the warlike king, had 
not England thrown sword and purse into the scale 
in his favour. By his firm and energetic support of 
Prussia, Pitt kept the main strength of France busily 
occupied in Europe, while English fleets attacked her 
on the ocean, and English armies overran her posses- 
