THE revolution of 1689 was not merely an important event in the constitutional history of the British Isles and of the English colonies; it also exerted a decisive influence on their international relations. Under the later Stuarts the foreign policy of the English government had been shifting and uncertain. The aggressive measures of Louis XIV. had awakened anxiety for the balance of power in Europe, and his harsh treatment of his Huguenot subjects was resented by the strongly Protestant spirit of the English nation; the spirit of commercial rivalry was also growing. These considerations would naturally have led to an English alliance with the Hapsburg monarchies of Spain and Austria on the one side, and the northern Protestant states on the other, against the expanding and menacing power of France; and such a policy seemed to be indicated by the Triple Alliance of 1668, when England combined with Holland and Sweden to defend the Spanish Netherlands against French aggression.

     The consistent carrying out of this policy was prevented chiefly by two considerations: the first was the commercial jealousy between England and Holland, which still interfered somewhat with their political co-operation; the second was the peculiar relation which existed between the last two Stuarts and the king of France. Charles and James were both Catholics, and both desired for the old faith—first, toleration, and after that, if possible, the supremacy in England. Politically in accord with the traditions of their family, they desired also to secure for themselves, not perhaps absolute power, but at least greater freedom from parlia mentary restraints. Both in their political and in their ecclesiastical policies they counted upon the support of Louis XIV.; and the influence of these sympathies was shown in the secret treaty of Dover in 1670 and the English co-operation with France against the Dutch in 1672.

     The accession of William and Mary to the English throne brought a decided change of foreign policy. William III. was the head of the European alliance against Louis XIV. in the new continental war; and though the English people were less interested than their king in the continental question of the balance of power, Louis XIV. virtually forced them to join the alliance when he championed the cause of their exiled king. The substitution of William and Mary for James II., intended to secure parliamentary liberties and the Protestant faith,

was now challenged by a foreign king, who represented precisely those tendencies in religion and politics which the nation had rejected. Not only was Louis XIV. the most striking embodiment of absolute monarchy, but he was also regarded since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes as the arch-enemy of the Protestant cause. He now contributed his money, his fleets, and his soldiers to bring about the restoration to the English throne of the Catholic Stuart king. The eight years of war which followed meant, therefore, a real struggle for national independence against foreign interference.

     The breach between England and France in the Old World brought into direct conflict their subjects in America. During the previous decade the rival colonies had attempted local wars, from which they had been held back by the conservative influence of their respective governments at home. James II. was sincerely desirous of defending English interests in the New World, but opposed to aggressive measures which might disturb his friendly relations with Louis XIV. Nevertheless, Englishmen and Frenchmen had already come to blows, and each suspected the other of instigating Indian attacks upon the frontiers. Thus the American war, though partly a result of the European conflict, was also in large measure the natural outgrowth of American conditions. A brief survey of these conditions is therefore essential.

     The French and the English came into contact and competition at a large number of widely scattered points. To the far north the rights of the British Hudson’s Bay Company were disputed by the French; and in 1686, three years before the formal declaration of war, a French party captured three of the British posts. In Newfoundland the settlements of English fishermen had an offset in the French post of Placentia. Similar close contacts were to be found in the West Indies: among the small islands of the Leeward group, Nevis, Antigua, and Montserrat were British, and St. Christopher partly French and partly English; in the Windward group, Barbadoes was British and Martinique French; and the new British colony of Jamaica was exposed to the attacks of French marauders from the neighboring islands. The French islands were few and small, but they became important centres for privateering and piratical enterprise.¹

     For the present-day student of the American nation, the chief interest of these international rivalries lies in the contest for supremacy on the continent of North America, which, in the closing years of the seventeenth century, took place chiefly on the frontiers of New England and New York.

     The boundary between Acadia and New England had never been accurately defined. The English establishments in 1688 extended eastward a little beyond the Kennebec to the frontier fort of Pemaquid; but a few miles away, at the mouth of the Penobscot, was the half-savage establishment of the French Baron de St. Castin. Farther to the north and east were French trading-posts and settlements on the St. John’s River and the Bay of Fundy. The competition here was quite as much for Indian trade as for territory. Each party tried to conciliate the tribes who occupied the upper courses of the rivers. On the whole, the French were more successful, chiefly through their political agents the Jesuit missionaries, although they owed something also to the blunders of their English rivals.

     At the outbreak of the revolution of 1689, these Abenakis, or “Eastern Indians,” were bitterly hostile to the English, and had already made a number of raids on the frontier. Such an Indian war was particularly dangerous to the northern villages of Maine and New Hampshire, but there were few places even in the old Massachusetts Bay colony which could count themselves entirely safe. Since the Indian raids were thought to be largely instigated by French missionaries, no permanent solution seemed possible without the expulsion of the French from Acadia and Canada.¹

     On the New York frontier the situation was quite different. Though Dutch and English settlements had spread beyond Albany to Schenectady on the Mohawk, they were still distinctly outposts at a long distance from any other considerable places. North of Albany the English were separated from the French by a great expanse of wilderness extending to the St. Lawrence. The chief difficulty here arose from the western ambitions of the two nations, and especially their competition for the fur trade. From the beginning of French colonization in America the westward movement had been one of its most marked characteristics; French missionaries and traders early made their way by the Ottawa River to the Great Lakes, and established trading-posts and missions at the Straits of Mackinac and on the Illinois River. In 1673 Fort Frontenac was built at the outlet of Lake Ontario to strengthen the French interest in the west, especially as against the Iroquois.¹

     Before the English conquest of the Hudson valley, what the French had to fear in this quarter was not so much European rivalry as the hostility of the Iroquois, who lived in the Mohawk valley and in the region south of the lower lakes. Alienated

from the French as early as 1609, they soon formed an alliance with the Dutch, with whom they carried on an important trade, especially in fire-arms. With these European weapons the Iroquois soon became the most formidable of the Indian tribes; they nearly exterminated some of their neighbors, and extended their ravages among the tribes of the upper lakes and the Mississippi valley, many of whom were the allies of the French.

     The hostile attitude of the Iroquois blocked effectually French movement south of the lower lakes, and disturbed trade with the western Indians; vigorous efforts were therefore made to conciliate or overawe these formidable antagonists. Here, as in Acadia, their most effective political agents were Jesuit missionaries, by whose efforts some of the Iroquois were converted to the Catholic faith and placed in settlements on the St. Lawrence under French protection. From time to time military expeditions were undertaken to punish and overawe the hostile members of the league, but they failed to produce permanent results.¹

     In November, 1686, the kings of France and England agreed to the so-called treaty of neutrality for America, and the governors on both sides were exhorted to refrain from hostile measures. Commissioners were appointed to adjust the pending boundary disputes, but no final agreement was reached. Even James II., with all his desire for

friendly relations with France, insisted that the Five Nations were British subjects and entitled to his protection.¹

     Hence the English governors of New York made active efforts to maintain and strengthen their hold upon the Iroquois, especially the aggressive Governor Thomas Dongan, the Irish Catholic representative of the Duke of York from 1683 to 1688. Some of the Iroquois had been induced to acknowledge themselves as under the protection of the Duke of York and King Charles, and the Five Nations as a whole were claimed as British subjects. The English tried also to develop their trade with the western Indians, and with so much prospect of success that the French were thoroughly alarmed. An angry correspondence took place on these subjects between the rival governors, and in 1687 two trading parties sent out by Dongan were attacked and captured by the commandant of the French fort at Mackinac. In the same year Denonville commanded a Canadian expedition against the Senecas, which was denounced by Dongan as an invasion of British juris diction. Some Indian villages were destroyed, but the chief practical result was to provoke the Iroquois to measures of savage retaliation.²

     Such in brief was the situation in America when

in April, 1689, the formal outbreak of war in Europe closed the unsatisfactory chapter of diplomatic controversy and brought the rival nations to the trial of arms. In the war of the Grand Alliance, France stood almost alone against a formidable combination, including not merely the Protestant states of England, Holland, and Germany, but also the Hapsburg monarchies of Spain and Austria. Two of England’s allies, the Dutch and the Spaniards, had also possessions in America. There was little practical co-operation between them in the American war, but it was worth something to the Carolina settlers to be relieved from the fear of Spanish invasions.

     The great resources of France enabled Louis XIV. to meet the allies on equal terms; and indeed the military advantages at the outset were on his side, for during the first two years of the war the English government was handicapped by disturbances in Scotland and Ireland. The first important naval engagement, the battle of Beachy Head in 1690, seemed also to indicate the superiority of the French on the sea, even against a combination of Dutch and English fleets. It was not until 1692 that the English naval victory at La Hague turned the scales in favor of England, and even then the English preponderance was not decisive. The long-continued wars also imposed upon the English people unaccustomed financial burdens and strained their resources to the utmost.

     The pressure of the European war seriously

limited England’s efficiency in defence of its American interests. British fleets were, indeed, sent to the West Indies, to co-operate in their protection and in offensive operations against the French, but they accomplished little of real importance. A few British regulars were stationed in the West Indies and in New York, and from time to time money and military supplies were sent. On the whole, however, the action of the British government upon the military situation in America was ineffective and of subordinate importance. The most important enterprise of the war in North America, the attack on Quebec in 1690, was undertaken by inexperienced colonists without assistance from the home government.

     A comparison of the resources of the rival colonies themselves seems at first sight to show a decisive advantage on the side of the English. In population and in wealth they far exceeded their French competitors. Even if we include only the colonies of New England and New York, which were most directly affected by the war, the English still had a decided preponderance. The comparatively large proportion of regular soldiers sent to Canada did not offset the English advantage in population.

     Yet on some points the French showed decided superiority: they had better trained and more efficient leaders, a more effective because more centralized political administration, and more capacity for co-operation with their Indian allies. On the

outbreak of the war the French government again sent out, to replace Denonville in the government of Canada, the famous Count Frontenac, a trained soldier and a daring commander, yet not reckless of his military resources. His previous service gave him a good knowledge of Canadian conditions, and he was remarkably effective in his dealings with the Indians. The increased prestige with which he now assumed office made him somewhat more independent of local antagonisms and more nearly master of the situation. No British representative on the continent could be compared with him for a moment in the essential qualities of leadership. He had also some able subordinates, such as his successor, Callières, then governor of Montreal, and such effective partisan leaders as Villieu and Iberville. To oppose this chieftain and his lieutenants the English had plenty of daring and energetic men, but no able general, and few officers really trained to lead in the serious enterprises of war.¹

     Even if a leader like Frontenac had appeared on the English side, he would have been seriously hampered by the loose political organization of the colonies. During the first two years of the war, New England and New York, which had to bear the brunt of the French attack, were without definitely settled governments, and suffered from the confusion incident to radical changes in government.

In New York the situation was particularly serious; at Albany the local civil and military officers organized themselves in a convention which for several months maintained its independence of the Leisler government at New York.¹

     After the new constitutional arrangements of 1689-1692 were worked out, there was still no effective concentration of military authority, though some efforts were made in that direction. Sir William Phips received a commission, not only as governor of Massachusetts, but as commander-in-chief of all the New England militia; and Governor Fletcher, of New York, was given a similar authority in Connecticut and the Jerseys, besides holding for two years the king’s commission as governor of Pennsylvania. Both governors met with resistance in the colonies and were unable to enforce the authority thus conferred. At different times during the war other methods of securing co-operation were attempted. In 1690 a convention of the northern colonies was held in New York and plans were made for:what proved to be an unsuccessful movement against Canada. In 1693, Governor Fletcher called a meeting of commissioners from the different colonies to meet at New York, but it was poorly attended. It called upon the various colonial governments to contribute definite sums of money or quotas of militia. A few contributions were received; but the final results were unsatisfactory and Fletcher declared

that the English colonies were as badly divided as Christian and Turk.¹

     Under these conditions decisive operations were hardly to be expected on either side. The resources of Canada, though on the whole efficiently organized, were insufficient for large offensive operations, and the English failed to use effectively their advantages in population and wealth. A few large operations were planned on both sides, some of which were seriously attempted, only to end in humiliating failure; others were abandoned almost at the outset as impracticable. The military enterprises of this war were, therefore, generally on a small scale, taking the form of mere raids on the enemy’s frontier, with the help usually of Indian allies.