Buy this book on Amazon: A Short History of the World
Since 1754 there had been open hostilities between the French and the British over the possession of territories in America and over control of the lucrative fur trade. With the eruption of war in Europe, open war also finally broke out in America in 1756. With major support from the native Indians, who had been alienated and badly treated by the British, the French initially seized the advantage, but the tide turned in 1758 under William Pitt, the new Secretary of State and future Prime Minister, who had been assigned responsibility for war. A great orator, and confident of his own abilities, he stated, ‘I know that I can save this country, and that no-one else can.’
Through its mastery of the seas, the British navy destroyed the French fleet in 1759, thereby hampering France’s ability to supply its troops in America. The writing on the wall for the French came when Montreal and Quebec fell to the British. By 1760 the whole of French Canada was in British hands and the war was effectively won, although a peace treaty to end the war was not signed until 1763. Concerned about the balance of power, the Spanish had finally supported the French in 1762, but their support came too late and all they had to show for it was the loss of Cuba to the British.
The consequences of the war in America were enormous: Britain gained all of northern America east of the Mississippi, including Canada from the French and Florida from the Spanish83 and, with a vastly increased empire, emerged as the greatest colonial power. France, on the other hand, was defeated on all fronts, ceding all its territory in mainland America, with the exception of New Orleans and a few sugar islands in the Caribbean. This saw not only the end of France’s American empire, but also the end of France’s political and cultural influence in the region.
Any joy felt by the thirteen British colonies at having rid themselves of the French threat was dampened by a royal proclamation in 1763, forbidding settlers on the continent to colonise Indian lands to the west of the Appalachian Mountains. The increasing dissatisfaction with British rule felt by frontiersmen, land speculators, and colonists in general, and the inability of the British to quell this dissatisfaction, became a tinderbox which would require very little to ignite it.