Press Kit - A Clash of Empires: The Seven Years’ War and British America

April 24, 2010–July 26, 2010
Library, West Hall
 
Some 20 years before the shot “heard ‘round the world” initiated the War of Independence, other shots, fired in what is now southwestern Pennsylvania, literally set the world on fire. On May 28, 1754, a detachment of Virginia militia commanded by a young George Washington ambushed a party of French soldiers in the territory claimed by both France and England. Less than two months later, French reinforcements surrounded the stockade hastily built by Washington’s men and forced their surrender. This skirmish triggered a chain of events that erupted in a conflict known as the French and Indian War or the Seven Years’ War and drew into its vortex all the European powers and engulfed the entire globe. “A Clash of Empires” examines the causes, course, and consequences of the conflict through the eyes of its many participants, publicly displaying for the first time materials from the Huntington Library’s vast collections documenting this turning point in modern history.  
 

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Benjamin Franklin James McArdell (engraver), Benjamin Franklin, mezzotint, after the painting by Benjamin Wilson, 1761. Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.		Franklin Letter Benjamin Franklin, letter to John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun, July 22, 1756. In this letter to the commander of British forces, Franklin deflects a charge that the legislators were not doing enough for the defense of the colonies. Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Washington Address Officers of the Virginia Regiment, address to John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun, July 25, 1756. Signed by George Washington. Three days after the new commander-in-chief landed in New York, the officers of the Virginia Regiment, anxious to be taken into the British army establishment, submitted this address. Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.		George Washington J. W. Steele (engraver), George Washington as the Colonel of the Virginia Militia, after the painting by Anson Dickinson, from Benson John Lossing, The Home of Washington and Its Associations (New York: W. A. Townsend, 1865). Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Fall of Braddock J. A. Allen (engraver), The Fall of Braddock, from Benson John Lossing, The Home of Washington and Its Associations (New York: W. A. Townsend, 1865). Gen. Edward Braddock’s defeat at the Battle of the Monongahela in 1755 was a major setback for the British and colonial forces early in the war. Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
British Resentment John June (engraver), British Resentment of the French fairly Coopt at Louisbourg, 1755, after the design by Louis Peter Boitard. Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
The Invasion William Hogarth (1697–1764), The Invasion, March 1756.  Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Congress at Albany Proceedings of the Congress at Albany, 1754. Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.