Meanwhile it is necessary for a moment to peer outside, and take note of the world so far, and only so far, as it affects the life of Pitt; for the clouds of war were gathering fast. The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was only an armed truce, the cupidities and resentments which it had checked for the moment were still active, though mute. With two such characters as Frederick and Maria Theresa matched against each other, it was evident that Silesia would never be surrendered or abandoned without another deadly struggle. Moreover, half unconsciously, the two secular rivals, France and Britain, were drifting into a contest for supremacy over half the globe, to settle the question as to which should become the first colonising power of the world. Hostilities in India and in North America were always smouldering, and the arrangements of Aix-la-Chapelle had not extended to either region. The treaty had in no way checked the desperate war carried on in India between the English and French Companies, between Clive and Dupleix. That was presently closed for the moment by a provisional treaty signed on the spot in January 1755. In America the scene was even more poignant. There without any declaration of war, in a formal and legal state of peace, hostilities were carried on, openly and yet treacherously, by incursions connived at by the French Government. And as if to add an additional horror to these sinister operations, they were accompanied by all the unspeakable barbarities of Indian warfare, the cold-blooded murder of men, women and children, rewards from the European governors for the scalps thus obtained, and by open cannibalism.[294] Christian missionaries were not ashamed to hound on these savages to murder, torture, and rapine; nay, their professed converts[295] were sometimes the keenest in butchery. For religious fanaticism imparted an ignorant zeal to the barbarous combatants, who were taught, it is said, that Christ was a Frenchman crucified by the English. The claim that the King of France was the eldest son of the Church was construed into a much more literal interpretation of divine origin.[296] There was in fact no element of atrocity wanting to this war, which was not a war; blasphemy, murder, outrage, arson, rape, torture were all employed under the pure white banner with its golden lilies. Parkman, the historian of these operations, does not record the like of the British. But this is not to affirm there were no reprisals. For war carried on in this fashion and by the employment of savages can scarcely be one-sided in its barbarities. [Sidenote: July 4, 1754.] [Sidenote: Jan. 1755.] [Sidenote: July 9, 1755.]