406 A BRIEF SURVEY OF HUMAN HISTORY

in the East. That is a familiar tale. Its importance for
us lies in the consequences. The Seven Years' War de-
finitely marked the ascendancy of England. Though Eng-
land lost the American colonies (U. S. A.) after this, she
was more than compensated for that loss by her acquisi-
tion of India. The work begun at Arcot, Plassey, and
Buxar in the days of Clive in the eighteenth century was com-
pleted in the nineteenth by Wellesley and Dalhousie. The final
overthrow of the Marathas (1818) who had succeeded to
the sovereignty of the Mughals was not less significant
than the overthrow of Napoleon (1815) only three years
earlier : both marked a new era—one in India and the
other in Europe. The pretensions of the Peshwa and the
Mughal Emperor were simultaneously extinguished in the
Great Rising of 1857. It is also not to be forgotten that
the ' Honourable John Company Bahadoor' too was extin-
guished in that conflagration which illumined the birth of a
New India.

Here we must not lose sight of happenings in England
and Europe at the same time. It was an epoch of reforms
and revolutions, economic, political, an<J social. Both
Nationalism' and Democracy (the two great moulding forces
of nineteenth century Europe) derived a new impulse and
significance from the Industrial Revolution. The economic
changes in agriculture, industry, and commerce—confirmed
and extended the scope of democracy as well as nationalism.
Out of these complex elements was born British Imperialism
whose testing crucible has been India. India fed the Indus-
trial Revolution, supplied it raw materials, and provided
a vast market for its finished articles, including high employ-
ment for the growing population of England. Hence India
became indispensable to England, to secure hold over whom
she has had to set her policies. Truly in the words of