Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/187

Rh tinent, and above all in the exhaustion of their naval strength, which left all transmarine possessions of France defenceless against the overwhelming superiority of England. The English nation was deeply and ardently interested in the struggle; the lead and direction was in supremely able hands. The whole unfettered energy of a free and fierce people had been wielded by Pitt, the ablest war-minister that England has ever seen, against the careless incapacity of courtiers and the ill-supported efforts of one or two able but irresponsible officials, under such an autocrat as Louis XV. Nor can it be denied that French writers are mainly right in ascribing the success of England at this period, in India and elsewhere, to this signal inequality between the two governments.

It was natural that, after such mishaps and disappointments, the benefit to be derived from distant colonies or Asiatic conquests should be sharply questioned in France. The imposing authority of Montesquieu had been pronounced, a few years earlier, against emigration beyond sea, on the ground that it had a tendency to drain the population at home; although he saw the great advantages of commerce and navigation. The anti-colonial party was now headed by Voltaire, who declared the loss of Canada to be France's gain, mocked at the folly of fighting for a few snow-covered acres more or less, and deplored the shedding of blood to procure coffee, snuff, or spices for the citizens of Paris and London.

In the latter part of this same century, when the