George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

[277] of North America be made under the auspices of

chap. XII.} 1757.

English Protestantism and popular liberty, or shall the tottering legitimacy of France, in its connection with Roman Catholic Christianity, win for itself new empire in that hemisphere? The question of the European continent was, Shall a Protestant revolutionary kingdom, like Prussia, be permitted to rise up and grow strong within its heart? Considered in its unity, as interesting mankind, the question was, Shall the Reformation, developed to the fulness of Free Inquiry, succeed in its protest against the Middle Age?

The war that closed in 1748 had been a mere scramble for advantages, and was sterile of results; the present conflict, which was to prove a Seven Years War, was an encounter of parties, of reform against the unreformed; and this was so profoundly true, that all the predilections or personal antipathies of sovereigns and ministers could not prevent the alliances, collisions, and results necessary to make it so. George the Second, who was also sovereign of Hanover, in September, 1755, contracted with Russia for the defence of that electorate; but Russia, which was neither Catholic nor Protestant, tolerant in religion, though favoring absolutism in government, could not be relied upon by either party, and passed alternately from one camp to the other. England, the most liberal Protestant kingdom, had cherished intimate relations with Austria, the most legitimate Catholic power, and, to strengthen the connection, had scattered bribes, with open hands, to Mayence, Cologne, Bavaria, the Count Palatine, to elect Joseph the Second King of the Romans. And all the while, Austria was separating itself from its old ally, and