The Seven Years’ War and the Politics of Empire

This chapter offers an account of the British debate over the war. Although establishment Whigs were initially reluctant to commit money and men to rebuff French encroachments in North America, military defeats and angry denunciations from radical Whigs on both sides of the Atlantic eventually led to an alliance with radical Whig leader William Pitt. Pitt's strategy of colonial reimbursement and global warfare helped make the Seven Years' War one of the most expensive in Britain's history, and it led politicians to accuse him of warmongering and demagoguery. Although authoritarian reformers were initially a voice in the wilderness, the accession of George Grenville and the fall of the Pitt–Newcastle ministry gave them the opportunity they needed to enact a sweeping program of reform and austerity. They cut back the war effort, negotiated peace with France, and stifled dissent—even as radical and establishment Whigs cried out against them.