A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

388 Ch. 1 1 • Dynastic Rivalries and Politics

In the meantime, dynastic rivalries remained a major source of conflict.
George I from the German state of Hanover succeeded to the throne of En­
gland in 1714, but his German origins and interests complicated British
foreign policy and led to unsuccessful attempts by the Catholic Stuart pre­
tenders to take back the British throne. On the continent, Frederick the
Great of Prussia and Maria Theresa of Austria locked horns in a battle of
expansion for the former and survival for the latter. The other great powers
lined up in alliances on the side of each.

Global Rivalries

As voyages of discovery opened up new horizons to Europeans, the stakes
of colonial rivalry between the great powers rose. During the seventeenth
century, England, the Dutch Republic, France, Spain, and Portugal had
gradually expanded their trading routes across the seas. Coffee, tea,
molasses, ginger, indigo, Indian calicoes, tobacco, and other colonial
products—for the most part luxury goods—fetched high prices at home. The
discovery of gold in Brazil in 1694 and 1719 further whetted the appetites
of commercial companies. By the end of the seventeenth century, Dutch
and French traders began to sail to China in greater numbers. There the
K’ang-hsi emperor and the Ch’ing dynasty had expanded toward the south
even while affirming Chinese cultural unity, even within the context of a
vast and varied land. The Chinese rulers manifested little interest in the
traders from the West. (When a diplomat representing King George III of
Britain arrived in China to try to convince the emperor to begin diplomatic
relations with his country and brought presents from England, the
emperor's message to him said “I set no value on objects strange and inge­
nious.”) Ambitious European merchant-traders still brought back spices
and fine silks from Asia, but sea routes had largely supplanted the old
land trade routes that had stretched through the Middle East and Central
Asia. Chinese prints, porcelain, silk, and rugs became popular in Western
Europe.
In the eighteenth century, the British East India Company established
new posts in South India and Bengal. Parliament licensed the company to
operate as a military force. Ships of the British East India Company car­
ried Chinese porcelain, silks, spices, and tea to England in exchange for
silver and, increasingly, opium grown in India. British traders exchanged
slaves taken from West Africa and textiles and other manufactured goods
for colonial products. If at the middle of the eighteenth century there were
about 3 to 4 million Europeans living in British, French, Spanish, and Por­
tuguese colonies in America, several times that number of slaves had been
carried there by European ships from Africa.
Spain still had the largest empire. It included the largest Caribbean
islands, the Philippines in the Pacific, and most of South America except for