22 
EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. 
[LEGT. 
heard of the battles of Dettingen and Fontenoy, though 
perhaps few of us could give a rational account either of 
the reason for fighting them or of the result that came of 
them. And yet this war too lasted nine years, from 1739 
to 1748. Next comes the Seven Years’ War, in which we 
have not forgotten the victories of Frederick. In the 
English part of it we all remember one grand incident, 
the battle of the Heights of Abraham, the death of 
Wolfe, and the conquest of Canada. And yet in the 
case of this war also it may be observed how much the 
eighteenth century has faded out of our imaginations. We 
have quite forgotten that that victory was one of a long 
series, which to contemporaries seemed fabulous, so that 
the nation came out of the struggle intoxicated with glory, 
and England stood upon a pinnacle of greatness which she 
had never reached before. We have forgotten how, through 
all that remained of the eighteenth century, the nation 
looked back upon those two or three splendid years 1 as 
upon a happiness that could never return, and how long it 
continued to be the unique boast of the Englishman 
That Chatham’s language was his mother-tongue 
And Wolfe’s great heart compatriot with his own. 
This is the fourth war. It is in sharp contrast with the 
fifth, which we have tacitly agreed to mention as seldom as 
we can. What we call the American war, which from the 
first outbreak of hostilities to the Peace of Paris lasted 
i Mark how the uuenthusiastic Walpole writes of them : ‘ Intrigues of 
the Cabinet or of Parliament scarcely existed at that period. All men were, 
or seemed to be, transported with the success of their country, and 
content with an Administration which outwent their warmest wishes or 
made their jealousy ashamed to show itself. One episode indeed there 
was, in which less heroic affections were concerned...it will diversify the 
story, and by the intermixture of human passions serve to convince 
posterity that such a display of immortal actions as illustrate the 
following pages is not the exhibition of a fabulous age.