Читать книгу Washington the Soldier онлайн

24 страница из 123

In 1761, Spain joined France against Great Britain, but failed of substantial gain through that alliance, because the British fleets were able to master the West India possessions of Spain, and even to capture the city of Havana itself.

In 1763, a treaty was effected at Paris, which terminated these protracted inter-Colonial wars, so that the thirteen American colonies were finally relieved from the vexations and costly burdens of aiding the British crown to hold within its grasp so many and so widely separated portions of the American continent. In the ultimate settlement with Spain, England exchanged Havana for Florida; and France, with the exception of the city of New Orleans and its immediate vicinity, retired behind the Mississippi river, retaining, as a shelter for her fisheries, only the Canadian islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, which are still French possessions.

In view of the constantly increasing imposition of taxes upon the Colonies by the mother country, in order to maintain her frequent wars with European rivals, by land and sea, a convention was held at New York on the seventh day of October, 1765, called a Colonial Congress, “to consult as to their relations to England, and provide for their common safety.” Nine colonies were represented, and three others either ratified the action of the convention, or declared their sympathy with its general recommendations and plans. The very brief advance notice of the assembling of delegates, partly accounts for the failure of North Carolina, Virginia, New Hampshire, and Georgia, to be represented. But that convention made a formal “Declaration of Rights,” especially protesting that “their own representatives alone had the right to tax them,” and “their own juries to try them.”