Recasting the New World: Britain and the Treaties of 1713 and 1763

In the press of forthcoming anniversaries, notably of the beginning of the First World War, Magna Carta, and Waterloo, those of the Peace of Utrecht (1713) and the Peace of Paris (1763) might seem of limited consequence. Compared to the immediacy of the photography and newsreels of 1914, these 18th-century treaties are apparently resonant of a dead age. Yet both the treaties and the wars they concluded were important in helping make the world we live in now. This is particularly so because the wars and treaties ensured that British political culture, rather than its French counterpart, would become the dominant model in North America.

Of the two, the Peace of Paris was the most significant, although that of Utrecht was an important anticipation. Utrecht, which brought to an end Britain's participation in the War of the Spanish Succession, secured Britain wide-ranging gains, including Gibraltar and Minorca, captured from Spain in 1704 and 1708, respectively. Utrecht also left Britain with the asiento, the right to supply slaves to the Spanish Empire, and with a limited, although potentially profitable, right to trade there. This right was exercised by the South Sea Company, and the extravagant hopes it gave rise to helped launch the vast speculative bubble in shares in the company that famously burst in 1720. Philip V of Spain, the grandson of Louis XIV of France and the French candidate for the Spanish succession, had earlier granted the asiento to the French Guinea Company in 1701. Its acquisition by Britain was significant in Britain's competition with France for the leading position in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and for the ability to profit from the economic opportunities of Latin America.

Utrecht also increased the British stake in North America with the gain of Nova Scotia and the acceptance of the British position on Newfoundland and around Hudson's Bay. The peace settlement registered the fate of the war. In 1710 a force of New England militia supported by British units had captured Port Royal, the main French position in Nova Scotia, and had left a garrison in what was renamed Annapolis Royal in honor of Queen Anne. In contrast, the major amphibious expedition sent to capture Québec in 1711 failed as a result of a nighttime error in navigation that caused the loss of eight ships and nearly 900 men on rocks in the St. Lawrence estuary.

France's defenses in North America were weakened as a result of the loss of Nova Scotia. There was still, however, a French presence that provided opportunities to challenge the British. The French settlers in

Prime Minister George Grenville holds "debt" and "savings" in the balance. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [reproduction number, LC-USZ62-45399].

Nova Scotia, the Acadians, maintained a French interest in the colony. Furthermore, in Newfoundland the French retained seasonal shore rights that supported their continued presence in the valuable Newfoundland cod fishery, a presence that provided an important source of sailors for the French navy.

The Utrecht settlement scarcely made Britain's victory over France in North America during the Seven Years' War (1756-63) inevitable, but it strengthened the process by which British and French imperialism there were diverging. Louis XIV's willingness to cede colonial claims to Britain in 1713 was an aspect of his focus on dynastic and European interests that contrasted markedly with the oceanic and economic commitment of Britain's Tory ministry.

With limited population growth and little state support, France's colonies were heavily dependent on trade relations with Native Americans, linking France's transoceanic networks to the river systems that channelled exchange in the interior of the continent. As a result, French imperialism was very much inserted into the dynamics of Native American development. The same was also true of the British colonies, but their rapid demographic growth and the related development of an agrarian society created a different pattern from one that depended on links with Native Americans.

This contrast was to be important in the development of an independent America...