Meanwhile, since the war of American Independence, England had been building up a great colonial empire, and she had the sense not to attempt again to levy taxes upon her unwilling offspring. India was taken over from the East India Company (1858). The colonies of Canada and the Cape were gained by conquest; those of Australia and New Zealand were the result of spontaneous settlement. The two former were captured from the French and Dutch, but of the second of them at least we have not made a commercial or even a political success; nor are we likely to do so unless we can contrive to keep on good terms with the original settlers, and to allow no misplaced sentiment about native races to disturb cordial relations between Europeans. As regards our Australasian colonies, they have grown far beyond the expectations of former generations, and gained for themselves entire political freedom, though they have chosen to use it chiefly in carrying on a one-sided war of hostile protective tariffs against their mother-country. As, however, they owe English capitalists a good deal of money, the interest on which is paid in colonial goods, there is a strong commercial bond of union between us and them; a bond which protectionists in England are strangely anxious to break, by placing unnatural obstacles upon the payment in goods of the interest due upon colonial loans. [61. See note 16, p. 250, on his French treaty.] § 6. ENGLAND AND OTHER NATIONS’ WARS--But besides the extension of our colonial relations, English trade has benefited by the quarrels of her competitors. The prostration of Continental nations after 1815 precluded much competition till almost the middle of the century, and {217} then the Crimean War broke out (1854–56). As mentioned before, this war gave a great stimulus to our agriculture, and had a similar effect upon our manufactures. The Indian Mutiny which followed it did not much affect our trade, but it rendered necessary the deposition of the East India Company and the assumption of government by the Crown (1858),[62] and thus eventually served to put our relations to that vast and rich empire upon a much more satisfactory and profitable basis. About the same time the Chinese wars of 1842 and 1857, regrettable as they were, established our commercial relations with the East generally upon a firm footing, and since then our trade with Eastern nations has largely developed. Then came the Civil War in America (1861–65), after which there was an urgent demand for English products to replace the waste caused by this severe conflict. The Civil War was succeeded by a series of short European wars, chiefly undertaken for the sake of gaining a frontier, as was the war waged by Prussia and Austria upon Denmark (1864), followed by another struggle between the two former allies (1866). Then in 1870–71 all Europe was shaken by the tremendous fight between France and Germany, and since