The growth of the British Empire was due in large part to the ongoing competition for resources and mar­kets which existed over a period of centuries between England and other European countries — Spain, France, and Holland. During the reign of Elizabeth I, England set up trading companies in Turkey, Russia, and the East Indies, […]

In America as in India the French had consider­able success at the opening of the war. Here the Brit­ish colonies lay in a long line from Maine to Florida, facing the Atlantic Ocean with the Appalachian Moun­tains standing as a barrier between them and the inte­rior. The French had two main settlements, Canada in the […]