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 Pitt changed all this very quickly. He called upon the nation outside Parliament, upon Tory and Whig alike; and while he was War Minister, these evil party names seemed to have lost their meaning. The spirit of the nation, now united as it had never been since the days of Elizabeth, rose to his call. He terrified the quarrelsome House of Commons, until it voted him whatever he asked for in the way of men, money and ships; he put the militia for home defence on a new footing; he doubled the regular army, and enrolled whole regiments of those very Highlanders who, eleven or twelve years before, had been fighting against King George at home. He doubled the number of our ships of war. As our old ally, Austria, had gone over to the French, Pitt made a warm friend of the new German power, the King of Prussia; and, instead of borrowing from Germany troops to defend Britain, he sent regiment after regiment of British troops to help Prussia in Germany against France and Austria.

The war that began in 1756 was called the ‘Seven Years’ War’. It was far more clearly a war for empire than any earlier one. ‘I will win America for us in Germany,’ was what Pitt said; and what he meant was that France, if thoroughly beaten in Germany, would be unable to spare troops to defend far-away Canada. But, being a thorough man, he also set about winning America in America itself. He even persuaded the disloyal colonists to help us to fight their battles for them, and he paid them to do so. His huge and victorious fleet prevented the French from sending any help to Canada. That colony did, indeed, defend itself down to 1760 with true French gallantry. But when, by an amazing piece of daring, our General Wolfe took