After the peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle, the army within the three kingdoms had been reduced to
about eighteen thousand men. Added to these were the garrisons of
Minorca and Gibraltar, and six or seven independent companies in the
American colonies. Of sailors, less than seventeen thousand were left in
the Royal Navy. Such was the condition of England on the eve of one of
the most formidable wars in which she was ever engaged.
Her rival across the Channel was drifting slowly and unconsciously
towards the cataclysm of the Revolution; yet the old monarchy, full of
the germs of decay, was still imposing and formidable. The House of
Bourbon held the three thrones of France, Spain, and Naples; and their
threatened union in a family compact was the terror of European
diplomacy. At home France was the foremost of the Continental nations;
and she boasted herself second only to Spain as a colonial power. She
disputed with England the mastery of India, owned the islands of Bourbon
and Mauritius, held important possessions in the West Indies, and
claimed all North America except Mexico and a strip of sea-coast. Her
navy was powerful, her army numerous, and well appointed; but she lacked
the great commanders of the last reign. Soubise, Maillebois, Contades,
Broglie, and Clermont were but weak successors of Conde, Turenne,
Vendome, and Villars. Marshal Richelieu was supreme in the arts of
gallantry, and more famous for conquests of love than of war.
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