Only for a few months had England dealt with Spain alone upon a private quarrel. In 1740 the male line of the great Austrian house of Hapsburg had run out: Maria Theresa took the throne; rival claimants disputed her right to the succession; and all Europe was presently plunged into the “War of the Austrian Succession” (1740-1748). “King George’s War” they called it in the colonies, when France and England became embroiled; but the name did not make it doubtful what interests, or what ambitions, were involved; and New England struck her own blow at the power of France. A force of about four thousand men, levied in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut, moved in the spring of 1745 against the French port of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island. Commodore Warren, the English naval commander in the West Indies, furnished ships for their convoy, and himself supported them in the siege; and by the 16th of June the place had been taken. For twenty-five years the French had been slowly building its fortifications, covering with them an area two and a half miles in circumference. They had made them, they supposed, impregnable. But the English had struck quickly, without warning, and with a skill and ardor which made them wellnigh irresistible; and their triumph was complete. Provincial troops had taken the most formidable fortress in America. William Pepperrell, the gallant gentleman who had led the New Englanders, got a baronetcy for his victory. Warren was made an admiral. [Illustration: WILLIAM PEPPERRELL] The next year an attack was planned against the French at Crown Point on Champlain, but nothing came of it. The war almost stood still thenceforth, so far as the colonies were concerned, till peace was signed at Aix-la-Chapelle in October, 1748. That peace brought great chagrin to New England. By its terms Louisbourg and all conquests everywhere were restored. The whole work was to do over again, as after King William’s War and the restoration of Port Royal, which Sir William Phips had been at such pains to take. The peace stood, however, little longer than that which had separated King William’s War from the War of the Spanish Succession. Seven years, and France and England had once more grappled,—this time for a final settlement. All the seven years through the coming on of war was plainly to be seen by those who knew where to look for the signs of the times. The French and English in that brief interval were not merely to approach; they were to meet in the western valleys, and the first spark of a war that was to embroil all Europe was presently to flash out in the still forests beyond the far Alleghanies.