152 
THE BRITISH ARMY ON THE CONTINENT OF EUROPE. 
that engagement, but one of our cavalry officers who was conspicuous 
in that action was the Marquis of Granby, though Lord George Sackville 
did not charge. However, the six regiments of infantry that were 
engaged upon that occasion, won the heartiest thanks of Prince Fer¬ 
dinand of Brunswick for the maimer in which they stood their 
ground. And again at Kirchdenkern in 17G1 the allies, among whom 
the British were prominent, defeated the French. The British sur¬ 
passed themselves during this war—founded for themselves, after 
PJassey 1757, an empire in India, now one of the greatest empires in the 
world from every point of view, and founded another empire in Canada 
and maintained a vast navy and swept hostile fleets from every sea; 
and, at the same time, had energy enough to send soldiers to fight in 
Hanover and Saxony, and to fight well and to win praise from the most 
able masters of continental warfare. Verily, at that period, British 
mothers used to give birth to men, I hope they will continue the 
process. 
In the next great war England was very hard pressed, it ended in 
the loss of tho American colonies, and yet the British clung to their 
own with extraordinary tenacity, while they certainly were only beaten 
by its own people—not beaten in the field—the soldiers were not 
beaten, but it is hard to conquer a continent—at any rate it did not 
keep the United States. But while losing the United States they 
strengthened their position in India and maintained, at the end of 
the war at any rate, command of the sea under Rodney and kept the 
standard of St. George floating over the Rock of Gibraltar under 
Elliott for four years in spite of tho most tremendous efforts of 
France and Spain. 
The most tremendous struggle that was ever entered into by our 
nation was, of course, tho French Revolutionary War and the con¬ 
sequent war against Napoleon. Tho population of Britain all told, I 
suppose about 1793, could not, with Ireland and Scotland, have been 
more than seventeen millions. Tho population of France during part 
of this war was forty millions, not to speak of tho people in the north 
of Italy and tho possessions on the further side of the Rhine and of 
tho south German States under the sway of Napoleon, and yet the 
British nation not only became absolutely supreme at sea, but was con¬ 
stantly sending out some expedition. Thesd expeditions wore, as you 
know, to all parts of the earth, but my subject confines me to Europe. 
There were three expeditions to Holland. I quite admit some of 
them were not brilliant successes. In spite of the heroism of the 
guards and of the commander (Colonel Arthur Wellesley) of the 33rd 
regiment and the bravery of certain Highland regiments, undoubtedly 
the Duke of York and his successors were driven back step by step 
from the Scheldt to Bremen in Germany. Thus the expedition of 1793 
was a failure: and in 1799 there was another expedition, the Helder 
expedition, which was also a failure, though some good fighting took 
place at Alkmaar. But these expeditions and the affairs of Burgoyne at 
Saratoga, and Cornwallis at York Town and the few failures at the 
beginning of the Seven Years' War at St. Malo and Cherbourg are 
