Tag Archives: Napoleon


George Washington and the French and Indian War

I spent a couple of evenings this week watching “The War That Made America,” a 4-hour PBS special made in 2006, to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the French and Indian War.   The intro added the words:   “And it’s not the war you think.”

It is, arguably, the most significant war in American history.   If it had ended differently, we might have been French and Catholic. Instead, we speak English and have freedom of religion.

Prior to 1754 the British had control of the eastern seaboard.   The French were in control of the “Ohio country.”   From Canada to Louisiana, they had a series of forts that controlled the center of what is now the US.   These forts stopped Americans from moving westward.   They were trying to strengthen these forts when conflict arose between Britain and France.

George Washington fired the first shot, as a member of the colonial Virginia Regiment, a provincial militia.   It was the first shot in what was really the first world war, a war that saw fighting in India, the Philippines, Africa and Europe as well as North America.   Outside of the US, the war is known as the Seven Years War.

After more than seven years of brutal fighting, the French were driven out of North America.   The threat from the Roman Catholic Church, which did not tolerate freedom of religion, was over.   The French king no longer ruled over North America, replaced by an English king who was a constitutional monarch.

When told the news that he had lost Canada, Louis XV was talking to Voltaire, the famous French philosopher. In an attempt to console him, Voltaire asked what the French had actually lost. It was, he said, just “a few acres of snow.”

Fast forward fifteen years, to 1775.   This was the year that saw the beginning of major changes that lay the groundwork for the world we now live in.

From Wikipedia:   “In the Hebrew Bible, forty is often used for time periods, forty days or forty years, which separate “two distinct epochs.”   Several Jewish leaders and kings are said to have ruled for “forty years,” that is, a generation.”

1775 was truly the end of one epoch. 1815 was the beginning of another.


The forty-year period began with the separation from the “multitude of nations,” of a ”great people,” Manasseh.   The multitude remained united under the Crown.

Then Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands knowingly, for  Manasseh was the firstborn.  And he blessed Joseph, and said: “God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, The God who has fed me all my life long to this day, The Angel who has redeemed me from all evil, Bless the lads; Let my name be named upon them, And the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; And let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.”



“So he blessed them that day, saying, “By you Israel will bless, saying, ‘May God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh!’ ” And thus he set Ephraim before Manasseh.”   (Genesis 48:14-20)


One of the consequences of the US victory at Yorktown was the expansion of Canada and of it becoming its very own nation.  The British had control of the 14th colony, Quebec (Lower Canada), which refused to join the “Protestant Republic” forming to the south.   Britain had conquered Quebec in 1759, guaranteeing the French their Roman Catholicism.   Many of America’s Tories fled to Ontario, then Upper Canada, and, with Lower Canada, formed a new nation of Canada.   Later, in 1867, they would be given independence under the Crown, forming the Dominion of Canada, the first nation of the British Commonwealth.


The first blow against French domination was struck in 1759 when the British gained Montreal and Quebec.   But it was the 22-year period of on-again, off again, military conflict with France that led to a century of British domination.   The Napoleonic Wars weakened France and strengthened England.   The defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, on 18th June, 1815, saw the end of France as a great military power.

4.  The LOUISIANA PURCHASE of 1803, financed by a British bank, gave America the Ohio country and enabled it to expand westward.


The Battle of Trafalgar on October 21, 1805, one of the greatest British victories of all time, gave Britain naval supremacy.   For over a century, the Royal Navy ruled the seas, protected British territories and the US and ensured the peace.


The trade in slaves ended for the British Empire in 1807. The US followed a year later.   It wasn’t until 1833 that the British ended slavery throughout their empire.   For the US it was thirty years later during the Civil War.   But the end of the slave trade boosted the growth of the British Empire, which was seen throughout Africa as a Liberator.   The West Africa Squadron of the British Royal Navy patrolled the Gulf of Guinea, and was authorized to stop any naval vessel (of whatever country) and free their slaves.   In the fifty years of the Squadron it is estimated that 150,000 slaves were freed.

During the Revolutionary War, the British were supported by most of the slaves in the thirteen colonies, slaves who were promised their freedom at the end of the war.   With defeat, they took those slaves on board ships, many of which went to found a new nation, Sierra Leone, in West Africa.

Three new countries emerged in the 40-year period we are looking at – the United States, Canada and Sierra Leone.

  1.  WAR OF 1812

This war showed that the US was a serious nation.   Canada was, too. The two fought and established their separate identities.   Canadians made it clear they wanted to stay under the Crown.


The PBS documentary showed quite clearly the role of the Indians in the struggle for North America.   The French started the war with great advantage – most of the Indian tribes were on their side.   But their arrogance toward the Indians caused that to change.

At the same time, British arrogance toward George Washington cost them the American colonies twenty years later.   They refused to allow Washington advancement in the ranks because he was a “provincial.”   He quit the military in 1758, returning in 1775 to lead the Patriots” against the British.

The DVD is well worth four hours.   You could also read the book “A Few Acres of Snow” by Robert Leckie, “the saga of the French and Indian Wars.”   Published in 2006.



Mrs. Theresa May, Prime Minister of the UK, visited my hometown of Grimsby this morning.   She was there to make a pitch for her latest Brexit proposals, to be voted on in parliament on Tuesday.   Grimsby is one of the towns that most supported Brexit.   She made it clear that, if her proposals are rejected, the UK might have to remain in the EU.

Even if her proposals receive the support of parliament (a big IF), there is no guarantee that the EU will go along with them.

The people voted to leave the European Union.   Now they are being told it’s not as simple as that.   Why not let the people have what they voted for?   That will never do!










Ahh, but Muslims are new to this country.























He can even help you clean up your language!



















Stretched Thin
















Since I wrote, there have been two other developments.






Enter Europe.
























Well, almost everything . . .









But note the following, from the UK’s Financial Times:













The British Royal Family is having a very good year!




Next month Prince Harry marries Meghan Markle.






Ancient Mass Child Sacrifice May Be World’s Largest






















On Tuesday I was able to see the widely acclaimed movie “Dunkirk”. It tells the story of a major turning point in World War II, before the United States entered the war.

After the declaration of war in September 1939 Britain sent the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to France to help the French fight Germany.   The German advance through France was so rapid that the British Army was cornered in the small coastal town of Dunkirk. 338,000 men were about to be captured by the Nazis.   Such a catastrophe would have left Great Britain unable to defend itself against the Nazi onslaught on Britain widely expected to follow the fall of France. In turn, if Britain had fallen, Canada, a dominion of the British Empire, would have been under great pressure; the United States would then be next, at the time unprepared to fight a major conflict.

It’s hard for people now to realize how victory over Germany was not a foregone conclusion.   Even after the US entered the war, the advantage still lay with Germany and its far-eastern ally, Japan.   The Germans were a formidable military force.   Adolf Hitler only came to power in 1933, but in a little over six years had taken the country from the depths of depression and despair to the height of economic and military power.   No country was able to stop Germany’s rapid takeover of Europe.

In May of 1940, faced with this incredible threat, the British changed leadership.   Winston Churchill came to power. One of his first tasks was to rescue the BEF from Dunkirk.   Only 30,000 beleaguered soldiers could be saved by the navy from the beach at Dunkirk.   The call went out for ordinary British people to take their boats and their yachts across the Channel to help rescue the others. Over 700 vessels accomplished this heroic task – big men in small boats.   They not only had to contend with the advancing German Wehrmacht. They were also risking aerial bombardment by the German Luftwaffe.

The evacuation began on 26th May.

On the same day, King George VI called for a National Day of Prayer.   Photos taken at the time show tens of thousands of people lining up at churches across the country, anxious to pray for their loved ones on the beaches of northern France.   The King called on the British people to repent and turn back to God.

Biblical verses like this one were his inspiration: if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (II Chron 7:14). The King was a British-Israelite – he believed that the British people were literally God’s people:

“In The Independent, 6 April, 1996, there appeared a facsimile of a letter written by George VI in 1922, when he was Albert, the Duke of York. In the letter, George VI wrote:



What happened then was truly amazing and was referred to as “the miracle of Dunkirk.”   The weather around Dunkirk changed dramatically, making it impossible for the Luftwaffe to continue their deadly attacks on the stranded British soldiers.   Following this, the English Channel calmed, enabling the armada of small boats to cross and rescue the men from France.

It took a few days to get everybody home.   It was to be four years before they were able to go back, attacking Germany on the beaches of Normandy.   Then, another year before the final victory, ending the European theater of war on May 8th, 1945.


First of all, the movie is a reminder of how quickly the situation in Europe can change and threaten the United Kingdom.

Secondly, the movie reminds us of the long history of what Winston Churchill called “the island race,” the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic peoples who have inhabited the British Isles for well over a thousand years.

The only criticisms I’ve seen of the movie were in Time Magazine and USA Today.   Both lamented the lack of minorities and women in the film.   Neither reviewer seemed to realize that non-white immigration into the UK did not begin until after World War 2; and women were not in combat roles until fairly recently.

Rather, the men who stood on that beach, waiting to be rescued, were the direct descendants of the people Churchill was talking about.   Their ancestors stood up and fought the Spanish to ensure the Protestant Reformation, which gave them and others religious freedom; Churchill’s own ancestor the First Duke of Marlborough led an army against King Louis XIV’s forces; a century later the British defeated Napoleon who also tried to unite Europe forcibly; in the last century, the enemy was the Kaiser before Hitler.   Each time it was the British people, fairly secure on their island, who preserved the freedoms of smaller European nations.

They are not the same people today.   After World War II, immigration from the West Indies, Africa and the Asian sub-continent, transformed the country.   More recently, arrivals from other parts of the European Union have entered the UK.   Today, well over 50% of the people of London are not of British ethnic descent.

Most of these people are highly unlikely to fight for Britain if a similar situation arose to that faced in 1939-45.

There is also a third, and deeper, lesson here for the United Kingdom.

Christopher Nolan, the producer and director of the movie, deserves acclaim for an outstanding film.   But the movie does not even mention the King’s call for a National Day of Prayer on the day the evacuation began.   In an irreligious age, this is to be expected. However, it’s an appropriate time to remind the island race of the role religion played in the four centuries of their greatness.

After the Protestant Reformation, the country had to act quickly to secure its freedom and independence from Rome.   They began building what became the greatest navy in the world.   Colonies were established in different parts of the world as they pursued trade.   Wherever they went, they established parliamentary government, the rule of law and basic freedoms.   All of this came about as a direct consequence of the break from Rome.

The British people lost sight of this after World War II.   They reversed course in a pursuit of an alternative dream, that of European unification.   Instead of pursuing a different course to Rome, they signed the Treaty of Rome and lost themselves in an alien enterprise.   Continental Europe has always been more centralized – gradually the British people came under increasing control by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, together with foreign politicians in Strasbourg and Berlin.   At the same time, they lost support from the Commonwealth of Nations that they had built up since the first settlement in Virginia over 400 years ago.

An increasingly irreligious people lost sight of their unique place in the world.   It was still there at the queen’s coronation in 1953, when she committed herself to enforce the laws of God in her numerous territories.   Things did not go according to plan.

Faced with catastrophe at Dunkirk, the King rightly called for a National Day of prayer.   Apparently, it was not well received amongst the soldiers, who interpreted the call as saying that they were doomed unless God intervened.

It’s the same today.   The UK has been reduced to a position of weakness in a hostile world.   Without a return to the foundations that made Britain great, the country, racked with divisions over Brexit and the future of the United Kingdom itself, and disunited by diversity, is in danger of falling apart or becoming a vassal state of a coming European superpower.


It has been suggested that citizens of the sixteen Commonwealth Realms be given their own “fast lane” at UK Points of Entry.   This will be good news for citizens of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the smaller realms.   If the idea is approved, it will be a first step toward restoring closer Commonwealth ties that ended when Britain joined the EU.

While Britain has been a member of the European Union, EU citizens were able to go through the fast lane, while the rest of us waited for up to two hours, slowly inching forward in the “Aliens” line.

Post-Brexit, it will certainly be in Britain’s best interests to enter into closer trade and defense ties with the countries that share Britain’s parliamentary system and all have the same Head of State, Queen Elizabeth II.   Other Commonwealth countries have opted for a republican form of government, recognizing the Queen as Head of the Commonwealth but not retaining her services as their own sovereign.

It will also mean that, for the first time, the United Kingdom is reversing five decades of history and turning its attention again to its former Empire.

The word “Empire” has been a pejorative for two generations.   Before World War One, there was a great deal of enthusiasm for the British Empire around the world in territories that constituted the “empire upon which the sun never set.”   Over a quarter of the world’s people lived under the British flag.   Imperialism was in vogue and inspired millions of people to help develop other nations.

Today, people forget what a blessing the Empire was.  Let’s take a look at a few of those blessings.

1.  The Bible and religious freedom.

The fourteenth century philosopher and theologian, John Wycliffe, was the first man to translate all the scriptures into English.   His favorite verse was Philippians 2:12: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”   He struck the first blow for religious freedom and democracy by encouraging people to study for themselves and make up their own minds.

Two centuries later, the English Queen Elizabeth I, secured the Protestant Reformation by bravely sending her smaller fleet against the Spanish Armada.   England defeated the Spaniards, thereby thwarting an attempt by the pope to force the country back into the Catholic Church.

In the nineteenth century, the British and Foreign Bible Society, took the Bible into dozens of different countries.   The Wycliffe Bible Translation Society still exists, sending volunteers into poor and backward countries to develop a written language and then translate the Bible so that all may read it.

The most famous British missionary, David Livingstone, took the Bible with him into central Africa, to “bring light into darkness.”  He was also motivated by a desire to see the end of slavery, perpetrated by Arab slave traders, who were seizing black Africans as slaves.

2.  Britain was the first major country to abolish slavery.

Slavery was universal and had not been questioned until the eighteenth century.   It wasn’t just Africans who were taken as slaves.   One million white people were being held by Muslim slave traders at this time.   (“White Gold”, Giles Milton, 2004.)

In 1772, the Somerset decision by an English court, ruled that British people could not hold slaves, that all people in Britain were free. It took another 35 years before the slave trade was abolished and a further 27 years before slavery itself was ended throughout the British Empire.  (Denmark banned the slave trade in its territories a few years before Britain.)

One year after the abolition of the slave trade, the British government authorized the Royal Navy to stop ships on the high seas and free all the slaves.   Wikipedia has this to say about the West Africa Squadron:

“The Royal Navy established the West Africa Squadron (or Preventative Squadron) at substantial expense in 1808 after Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act of 1807.   The squadron’s task was to suppress the Atlantic slave trade by patrolling the coast of West Africa.   With a home base at Portsmouth, it began with two small ships, the 32-gun fifth-rate frigate HMS Solebay and the Cruizer-class brig-sloop HMS Derwent. At the height of its operations, the squadron employed a sixth of the Royal Navy fleet and marines.

“Between 1808 and 1860 the West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans.[“1]

Because of its role in fighting slavery, Britain was seen as a Liberator around the world.  Many tribes in Africa asked to be annexed into the British Empire, seeking protection from slave traders.  At one point, so many African tribes were asking to join the Empire that the British were overwhelmed. “The Dualla chiefs of the Cameroon repeatedly asked to be annexed, but the British either declined or took no notice at all.”  (Pax Britannica, James Morris, 1968, page 43)

In the last three decades of the nineteenth century, Victorians were caught up in an enthusiastic desire to see slavery ended in Africa, and the Bible, Protestant Christianity, democracy and the rule of law introduced (“Africa and the Victorians,” Robinson and Gallagher, 1961)

Sadly, in the sixty years since the end of the British Empire, slavery is back in every single African country, according to UNESCO.   The former Ghanaian President, John Kufour, condemned slavery in Ghana a few years ago on the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade throughout the British Empire; he also apologized for the role Ghana’s own chiefs had played in promoting slavery by selling their own people and members of other tribes.

3.  British capital developed many nations.

The definitive books on British investment around the world are the two volume “British Imperialism” by Cain and Hopkins.  The books highlight “London’s role as the chief provider of economic services during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries” (back cover, volume one).   London remains the world’s number one financial center (New York has the world’s biggest stock exchange).   Not only did British capital develop every country in the Empire, it was also responsible for developing the United States, Argentina, Brazil,Chile, the Ottoman Empire and China.

Interestingly, one reason that members of the European Union are upset over Brexit, is that Britain has been a net contributor to the EU, helping to finance development in other member nations.  When the UK leaves, where is the money going to come from?

4.   Another blessing of British rule was its governmental system and the administration of its various colonies.

Britain’s democratic parliamentary system and its constitutional monarchy is the most stable political system in the world.   It was successfully exported to all its colonies and dominions.  Sixteen of those countries have retained the same system since independence, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and a number of majority black countries in the Caribbean.  Queen Elizabeth remains as Head of State in all of these countries.

38 other countries, former colonies of Great Britain, did not retain the Queen as Head of State but still look to her as the Head of the Commonwealth.  Many of these nations have suffered through coups and counter-coups and periods of military rule.  In many, corruption is rife and the people are worse off than they were when colonies.

Interestingly, it was recently suggested that the United States join the Commonwealth, as an Associate member.  The Royal Commonwealth Society is opening a branch in New York City.

5.   The free world’s first line of defense.

For two centuries Great Britain was the “policeman of the world.”  The country brought down Napoleon, after which she was the undisputed leader of the world.  A century later, with her dominions and colonies, she brought down the Kaiser.  In World War Two, the British Empire was the only power that was in the war from beginning to end.   With later help from the Soviet Union and the United States, the Empire defeated Hitler and his monstrous Third Reich that was the most racist regime in modern history.  The Empire’s forces also kept the peace on the North-West frontier of India, in what are now Pakistan and Afghanistan and in other trouble spots around the world.

America’s pre-eminent historian, James Truslow Adams, wrote his history of “The British Empire 1784-1939” in the year that World War Two started, 1939.   This is the final paragraph in his book:   “In this world crisis, we in America have a great stake.  We know that stability is impossible without respect for law and order, for the honesty of the written and spoken word.  Without liberty of thought, speech and press, progress is impossible.  What these things mean to the world of today and tomorrow has been amply demonstrated by the negation of them in certain great nations during the past few years.   Different peoples may have different ideals of government but for those who have been accustomed to freedom of person and of spirit, the possible overthrow of the British Empire would be a catastrophe scarcely thinkable.  Not only would it leave a vacuum over a quarter of the globe into which all the wild winds of anarchy, despotism and spiritual oppression could rush, but the strongest bulwark outside ourselves for our own safety and freedom would have been destroyed.”  (page 358)

The Empire has indeed been replaced by “the wild winds of anarchy, despotism and spiritual oppression.”

It’s no wonder that, at the height of the Empire, during Queen Victoria’s reign and the first few years of the twentieth century, many people in Britain and its overseas territories, believed the Empire was a fulfillment of biblical promises made to Joseph, one of the twelve sons of Israel.  In Genesis, chapter 48, we read of howJoseph’s descendants were to become a great “multitude of nations” and a “great (single) nation,” the British Empire and Commonwealth and the United States.  They were to be a physical blessing to the world (Genesis 12:3).  In the late Victorian period, believers published a weekly newspaper called “The Banner of Israel”  — they enthusiastically tracked the daily growth of the British Empire and the United States at the time.

This belief was widely held in the trenches of World War One.  It’s ironic that those same trenches shattered the religious convictions of many, who witnessed the carnage first-hand.

No empire was perfect.  Britain made mistakes.  Often listed by anti-imperialists is the Amritsar massacre of 1919.  This was not deliberate government policy, but rather the misjudgment of the commanding officer.  The 1943 Bengal famine is also often mentioned; overlooked is the fact that this was in the middle of World War II when other nations also experienced famine. Historical mistakes were made in Ireland, which caused problems to this day.

Imperialism had been in vogue before 1914; after two world wars, there was great disillusionment.   Additionally, the colonial powers had serious financial problems.  Decolonization followed.  It was the end of the European empires.








Jo Cox














