them
in the open field. Defeated there, and pursued by the enemy, the
latter nearly entered Quebec pell-mell with the English troops, and
trenches were opened against the city. A few days later an English
squadron came in sight, and the place was relieved. "Thus," says the
old English chronicler of the navy, "the enemy saw what it was to be
inferior at sea; for, had a French squadron got the start of the
English in sailing up the river, Quebec must have fallen." Wholly cut
off now, the little body of Frenchmen that remained in Montreal was
surrounded by three English armies, which had come, one by way of Lake
Champlain, the others from Oswego and from Quebec. The surrender of
the city on the 8th of September, 1760, put an end forever to the
French possession of Canada.

In all other quarters of the world, after the accession of Pitt to
power, the same good fortune followed the English arms, checkered only
at the first by some slight reverses. It was not so on the continent,
where the heroism and skill of Frederick the Great maintained with
difficulty his brilliant struggle against France, Austria, and Russia.
The study of the difficulties of his position, of the military and
political combinations attending it, do not belong to our subject. Sea
power does not appear directly in its effects upon the struggle, but
indirectly it was felt in two ways,--first, by the subsidies which the
abundant wealth and credit of England enabled her to give Frederick,
in whose thrifty and able hands they went far; and second, in the
embarrassment caused to France by the attacks of England upon her
colonies and her own sea-coast, in the destruction of her commerce,
and in the money--all too little, it is true, and grudgingly
given--which France was forced to bestow on her navy. Stung by the
constant lashing of the Power of the sea, France, despite the
blindness and unwillingness of the rulers, was driven to undertake
something against it. With a navy much inferior, unable to cope in all
quarters of the world, it was rightly decided to concentrate upon one
object; and the object chosen was Great Britain itself, whose shores
were to be invaded. This decision, soon apprehended by the fears of
the English nation, caused the great naval operations to centre for
some years around the coast of France and in the Channel. Before
describing them, it will be well to sum up the general plan by which
England was guided in the use of her overwhelming s