Quebec surrendered a few days later. It was the beginning of the end of
the French colonial empire in America. All hope was lost when, in
October, 1759, a great armada, ready to embark against England, was
destroyed in Quiberon Bay by Admiral Hawke. In 1760 Montreal fell and
the British completed the conquest of New France, at the very time when
the last vestiges of French power were disappearing in India.
[Sidenote: Futile Intervention of Spain, 1762]
In his extremity, Louis XV of France secured the aid of his Bourbon
kinsman, the king of Spain, against England, but Spain was a worthless
ally, and in 1762 British squadrons captured Cuba and the Philippine
Islands as well as the French possessions in the West Indies.
[Sidenote: Phase of the Seven Years' War in India]
[Sidenote: Continued Activity of Dupleix]
Let us now turn back and see how the loss of New France was paralleled
by French defeat in the contest for the vastly more populous and
opulent empire of India. The Mogul Empire, to which reference has
already been made, had been rapidly falling to pieces throughout the
first half of the eighteenth century.
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