two
splendid bases for their fleet in the Mediterranean; while France gave
up all her claims to Newfoundland and the Territory of Hudson Bay,
besides ceding Acadia (Nova Scotia), to the British Crown.

CHAPTER XV

WAR AGAINST FRANCE AND SPAIN

(1739-1748)

Though the same king did not reign over both countries the same family
did. So the French and Spanish Bourbons made a Family Compact against
British sea-power. Spain promised to take away from the British all
the trading rights she had been forced to grant them in America, while
France promised to help Spain to win Gibraltar back again.

When the secret began to leak out the feeling against the Bourbons ran
high; and when a merchant skipper called Jenkins paraded London,
showing the ear he said the Spaniards had cut off him in South America,
the people clamoured for immediate war. Admiral Vernon became
immensely popular when he took Porto Bello in the Spanish Main. But he
was beaten before Cartagena. He was a good admiral; but the Navy had
been shamefully neglected by the government during the long peace; and
no neglected navy can send out good fleets in a hurry.

Still, the Navy and mercantile marine were good enough to enable
British sea-power to turn the scale against Prince Charlie in Scotland
and against the French in Canada. The French tried to help the last of
the Stuarts by sending supply ships and men-of-war to Scotland. But
the British fleet kept off the men-of-war, seized the supply ships, and
advanced along the coast to support the army that was running the
Jacobites down. Prince Charlie's Jacobites had to carry everything by
land. The British army had most of its stores carried fen times better
by sea. Therefore, when the two armies met for their last fight at
Culloden, the Jacobites were worn out, while the British army was quite
fresh. In Canada it was the same story when the French fortress of
Louisbourg was entirely cut off from the sea by a British fleet and
forced to surrender or starve. In both cases the fleets and armies
worked together like the different parts of one body. At Louisbourg
the British land force was entirely made up of American colonists,
mostly from enlightened Massachusetts.

A fleet sent against the French in India failed to beat that excellent
French admiral, La Bourdonnais. But Anson's famous four years voyage
round the world (1740-44) was a wonderful success. The Navy having
been so much neglected