Defeat abroad and danger at home only quickened the resolve of the Pelhams to bring the war, so far as England and Prussia went, to an end. When England was threatened by a Catholic Pretender, it was no time for weakening the chief Protestant power in Germany. On the refusal therefore of Maria Theresa to join in a general peace, England concluded the Convention of Hanover with Prussia at the close of August, and withdrew so far as Germany was concerned from the war. Elsewhere however the contest lingered on. The victories of Maria Theresa in Italy were balanced by those of France in the Netherlands, where Marshal Saxe inflicted new defeats on the English and Dutch at Roucoux and Lauffeld. The danger of Holland and the financial exhaustion of France at last brought about in 1748 the conclusion of a peace at Aix-la-Chapelle, by which England surrendered its gains at sea, and France its conquests on land. But the peace was a mere pause in the struggle, during which both parties hoped to gain strength for a mightier contest which they saw impending. The war was in fact widening far beyond the bounds of Germany or of Europe. It was becoming a world-wide duel which was to settle the destinies of mankind. Already France was claiming the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and mooting the great question whether the fortunes of the New World were to be moulded by Frenchmen or Englishmen. Already too French adventurers were driving English merchants from Madras, and building up, as they trusted, a power which was to add India to the dominions of France. [Sidenote: Clive.]