ABSTRACT
Montreal fell to the British in September 1760 and with it went France's empire in North America. The Anglo-French struggle for overseas empire that took Amherst's juggernaut to the gates of Montreal had begun roughly seventy years before. Competition between England and France for empire closer to home dated back centuries rather than decades, long before either nation looked toward the Atlantic horizon. For those on the island of Great Britain who preferred tribal living and local control, the creation of England itself was a type of imperialism. The movement of Americans beyond their borders once they achieved political independence mimicked the tendencies of Britons begun nearly two centuries before. Once the English did develop a sustained interest in the New World, the most far-sighted among them envisioned a European balance of power remade because of it. The colonists proved adept evaders of trade laws and smuggling ran rampant.
