CHAPTER IV
THE COLONIES UNDER WILLIAM III. AND ANNE
Colonies In passing to the reign of William and Mary, we are entering conquest u P on a new order of things. Hitherto the Colonies had been mainly founded by settlement ; in the times which will ensue they are mainly won by conquest. It is true that in the earlier period Jamaica and New York had been the fruits of conquest, and that in the later Georgia was settled, and Nova Scotia and Canada greatly developed by means of settlement ; but on the whole the difference is obvious, nor is the reason of it far to seek. We are entering upon a long period of war with uneasy intervals of peace, wherein Colonies are regarded primarily as pieces in the war game, and to be dealt with accordingly. In this state of things we shall expect to miss the diversity of experiment which attracts us in the glowing youth of English colonization ; but, in fact, military exigencies influence Colonial policy far less than might have been expected.
The magic of Macaulay’s History has done its best to cast a spell over the period ; but most people will agree with Hallam that it was in itself one of the least interesting in English history. Nevertheless, it was fraught with momentous issues for England. It opened out the great struggle for preeminence between England and France, which was to last more than a hundred years. It has been noticed how disgracefully the Navy had been neglected during the last years of Charles II., and how James had, partially at least, restored it to efficiency. William was both by necessity and choice a soldier, and his main business in the war was to preserve the existence of the Netherlands and of Protestantism upon the Continent from the aggressions of Louis XIV. Still, during the war, the English Navy did good service. The defeat, 1690. or partial defeat of Beachy Head, was much more than re