The French and Indian War was the New World portion of a struggle between England, France, Austria, and some German states. The so-called Seven Years' War was truly world-wide in scope and spanned the globe from Europe to India and around the globe again to French Canada, British America and the Caribbean.

Although important in the New World colonial struggle between Britain and France, the war would have lasting effects on the eventual independence of American Colonies, who would, nine years hence, break away from the Mother Country. Someone once said that to get to the bottom of things one should "follow the money." The money in this instance was the increased expenses experienced by Britain in their war effort in the colonies to rid the New World of their French rivals.

Before the war, Britain exercised a so-called "benign neglect" of their colonies, preferring to allow colonists to run their own affairs and not worrying much about security and the expensive maintenance of armies. The war in the American colonies soon became costly as soldiers, sailors, weapons and ships had to be paid for out of the British treasury.

Naturally, the British Crown and Parliament looked to stop the bleeding of money in the newly expensive colonies and decided to recoup their expenses through increased taxation and levying of fees on everything from tobacco to newspapers. It was the festering resentment over increased taxes on the part of colonists that eventually led to open rebellion and the cries of "no taxation without representation!"

The French and their allied Native Americans presented a mortal threat to colonial settlers. Responding to pleas of their colonial governors, Britain dispatched its Navy and troops, who were victorious and ejected France from Canada. France was not quick to forget its humiliation at the hands of the British and came to the aid of the rebellious colonialists. The French monarchy, no friend of republican libertarianism, nevertheless provided money, troops, and its Navy, which eventually turned the tide in favor of George Washington and his rag-tag army of revolution.

In an ironic twist, the French nobility would ultimately take little pleasure in their revenge on the British through French backing the American colonists. The revolution that started in America would soon spread to France where it would morph into wholesale political executions and ten years of political and social chaos that included beheading the French King, who must have rued the day France ever became involved in the New World.

Learn more about this author, Jerry Curtis.
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