n 1762 as part of the
price of a Spanish alliance, and France ceased to be a rival to England
on the American continent.

During the French war the excellent professional army which England was
able to maintain in the field was supported by levies raised from the
English colonies, which did good service in many engagements. Among the
officers commanding these levies one especially had attracted, by his
courage and skill, and notably by the part he bore in the clearing of
Pennsylvania, the notice of his superiors--George Washington of
Virginia.

England was now in a position to develop in peace the empire which her
sword had defended with such splendid success and glory. Before we
consider the causes which so suddenly shattered that empire, it is
necessary to take a brief survey of its geography and of its economic
conditions.

The colonies, as we have seen, were spread along the Atlantic seaboard
to an extent of well over a thousand miles, covering nearly twenty
degrees of latitude. The variations of climate were naturally great, and
involved marked differentiations in the character and products of
labour. The prosperity of the Southern colonies depended mainly upon two
great staple industries. Raleigh, in the course of his voyages, had
learned from the Indians the use of the tobacco plant and had introduced
that admirable discovery into Europe. As Europe learned (in spite of the
protests of James I.) to prize the glorious indulgence now offered to
it, the demand for tobacco grew, and its supply became the principal
business of the colonies of Virginia and Maryland. Further to the south
a yet more important and profitable industry was established. The
climate of the Carolinas and of Georgia and of the undeveloped country
west of these colonies, a climate at once warm and humid, was found to
be exactly suited to the cultivation of the cotton plant. This proved
the more important when the discoveries of Watt and Arkwright gave
Lancashire the start of all the world in the manipulation of the cotton
fabric. From that moment begins the triumphant progress of "King
Cotton," which was long to outlast the political connection between the
Carolinas and Lancashire, and was to give in the political balance of
America peculiar importance to the "Cotton States."

But at the time now under consideration these cotton-growing territories
were still under the British Crown, and were subject to the Navigation
Laws upon which England