ke, though they probably
were not recognized by contemporaries, still blinded by the traditions
which saw in Europe alone the centre of political interests.

To realize the conditions, and their bearing upon a future which has
become our present, we should recall that in 1748 the British Empire, as
we understand the term, did not exist; that Canada and Louisiana--
meaning by the latter the whole undefined region west of the
Mississippi--were politically and socially French; that between them the
wide territory from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi was claimed by
France, and the claim vigorously contested not only by Great Britain
herself, but by the thirteen British colonies which became the United
States of America; that in India the representatives of both mother
countries were striving for mastery, not merely through influence in the
councils of native rulers, but by actual territorial sway, and that the
chances seemed on the whole to favor France.

In the great struggle for Anglo-Saxon predominance, which had begun
under William III., but was now approaching its crisis and final
decision in the Seven Years War, the determining factor was to be the
maritime strength of Great Britain. It is, therefore, the distinctive
and distinguished significance of Hawke's career that during so critical
a period he not only was the most illustrious and able officer of her
navy--the exponent of her sea-power--but that by the force of his
personality he chiefly shaped the naval outcome. He carried on the
development of naval warfare, revolutionized ideas, raised professional
standards, and thereby both affected the result in his own time, and
perpetuated an influence, the effect of which was to be felt in the
gigantic contests of later days. In this eminent particular, which
involves real originality, no sea officer of the eighteenth century
stands with him; in this respect only he and Nelson, who belongs rather
to the nineteenth, are to be named together.

In the years of nominal peace, 1748-1755, the Navy of Great Britain was
permitted by a politically cautious Government to decline much in
power; but there was compensation in the fact that that of France
drooped equally. In both countries there was then, as there has been
ever since, a party opposed to over-sea enterprise. "The partisans of
the Ministry," wrote Walpole in 1755, "d----n the Plantations [Colonies],
and ask if we are to involve ourselves in a war for them." The F