Pitt seems to have realised it. He sent out a strong force, which was ably helped by the militia called up from the British who were settled in America. Montcalm appears to have shown much genius for friendship with the Indians, and he had many of their tribes to aid his French forces. But the British gained post after post, and the crowning victory was won by Wolfe in 1759 on the Plains of Abraham, which dominate Quebec. Canada was won for Great Britain. The way to the almost boundless West was opened to men of British race. France's dream of Western empire was broken as completely as her dream of empire in the East. Florida, moreover, became British under the terms of the Peace of Paris, being assigned to Great Britain in return for Cuba and the Philippine Islands which had been taken from the Spaniards during the war. 1760, the year of the Wandewash battle in India, saw two great battles in Europe, one on land, at Minden, and one on sea, in Quiberon Bay, in both of which the French were heavily beaten. They happened at a moment when Frederick's fortunes were at low ebb, and were sorely needed. In the land battles the French were broken by a charge of the English line which seems to have been delivered contrary to all then recognised rules of war. At sea the French fleet was practically destroyed by the English under Admiral Hawke just when it was actually preparing for an invasion of England. And the rewards of these conquests, both East and West, were confirmed to Britain by that Peace of Paris which terminated the Seven Years' War. {134} CHAPTER X HOW THE UNITED STATES WON INDEPENDENCE We have come to a moment in our story at which the events which modified it most importantly occurred, not in Europe at all, but in that new West which was still British. Before considering them, however, it will be well to gather up some loose ends of the European story. There had been some rearrangement of territory, in the year 1767, between Denmark and Sweden, by which most of what we may see on modern maps marked as Schleswig-Holstein was given over to Denmark in exchange for the Duchy of Oldenburg; but a rearrangement of far more importance was that which is known as the first partition of Poland in 1772. It was a mutual arrangement, between the three strong powers of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, to dismember and embody as parts of themselves such pieces of Polish territory as lay most neighbourly to their own boundaries.