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For the British, it was the perfect set-up. Their ships dominated the oceans, their slaves brought them profit, the world was their oyster.
对英国人而言，这是一个完美的计划。他们的船主宰了海洋，奴隶们为他们创造财富，世界就在他们手中。
But someone else was eager to prise it open -- the French. They'd fought for centuries and they would fight again.
但却有人想夺走这些--法国人。他们争斗了数世纪且又将开战。
The Hundred Years' War of the Middle Ages would become the Seven Years' War of the 18th century.
中世纪的百年战争将变成十八世纪的七年战争。
Agincourt, fought, not on a muddy field, but in battles around the globe.
阿金库尔战役不单是泥沼中的战争，更是全世界范围的争夺。
It turned out that the combo the British most despised -- Jesuits, professional soldiers and bureaucrats -- were stealing the empire before their very eyes, starting with continental America.
结果表明，英国人最蔑视的集团--耶稣会士、职业军人和官僚--正从他们眼皮底下窃取帝国，这种窃取从美洲大陆开始。
Singing patriotic anthems wouldn't stop them, only war would. And war, as the Romans discovered, changes everything.
爱国颂歌无法令他们止步，唯有战争能够。正如罗马人所言，战争改变一切。
The first victim is liberty and the second is profit.
首先牺牲的是自由，其次是利益。
The French had been in North America for as long as the British, based in Canada to the north, and Louisiana to the south, and exploring the Mississippi and the Ohio River valley in between.
法国人来到北美的时间与英国人不相上下，北起加拿大，南至路易斯安那，还开拓了其间的密西西比以及俄亥俄河谷。
It didn't take a genius to work out that a cordon of French forts linking Canada to Louisiana would box the British colonies in. It would be death by slow strangulation.
不难发现，法国人修筑了连接加拿大到路易斯安那的堡垒，对英属殖民地形成合围之势。势必慢慢扼杀他们。
The days of the ad hoc empire were drawing to a close. Empires were not for sharing. The British would have to fight to keep theirs.
独占天下的梦想岌岌可危。一山不容二虎。英国人必须捍卫自己的领土。
It was commonly thought by politicians that war was coming, but it wasn't a prospect anyone relished, except someone who made global victory his alpha and omega.
政客们普遍认为战争将近，却又不希望看到这一幕，除了把称霸世界视为生命全部的人。
And that man was William Pitt. For better or worse, it was William Pitt, neurotic, gouty, irascible, either maniacally hyperactive or collapsed in a paralysing gloom, who was the British Empire's true visionary.
那个人就是威廉·皮特。不管怎样，他神经质，患有痛风，易怒，时而狂热亢进，时而陷入忧郁，他是大英帝国真正的梦想家。
He believed with an almost feverish intensity that what was at stake in the struggle between France and Britain was not just who would get the lion's share of wealth, but whether the world would be conquered by liberty or despotism.
极度狂热地相信，英法竞争的胜负不仅关系到谁能得到最大份额财富，更关系到将要统治世界的是自由还是独裁。
The first rounds went badly for the forces of liberty.
自由一方的武装力量开局不利。
British troops were wiped out in the backwoods of New York State by the French and their native allies.
英军被法国及其原住民盟友在纽约州的荒地上拖得精疲力尽。
So Pitt unleashed his biggest weapon -- his war chest.
于是皮特发动了他的最强武器--战争基金。
He would fight the First World War with columns of figures as well as columns of soldiers.
如果他生于一战期间，他将穷尽财力和兵力。
Pit spent 18 million pounds a year, twice the government's annual income. This flew right in the face of the empire's basic principle -- that it shouldn't cost.
皮特一年就花去1800万英镑，是政府年收入的两倍。如此挥霍对帝国的原则是当头一棒--钱要花在刀口上。
But, as Pitt calculated, you can't make a profit from empire if it's not your empire. After one more setback, there were nothing but glories.
不过，正如皮特盘算的，不是你的地盘，就没法从中牟利。如果再一次受挫，就只能徒留荣誉。
1759 was a year of military miracles.
1795年创造了一个军史神话。
The strongholds of the French Empire fell, one by one, to truly British forces, Highland regiments often leading the way in India, the French sugar islands, West Africa and Nova Scotia.
法兰西帝国的堡垒被推倒，被英军一个接一个地攻克，苏格兰高地团一路披荆斩棘，拿下印度，产糖的法属殖民岛，西非和新斯科舍。
Horace Walpole boasted: Our bells are worn threadbare with the ringing of victories.
霍勒斯·沃波尔吹嘘说：胜利之声持续敲响，钟都为之震碎。
But there was no victory as sweet or as significant as the one that broke the back of French power in North America for good -- General Wolfe's conquest of Quebec.
没有其他的胜利能比得上在北美一劳永逸地粉碎法军主力更令人振奋、更有意义，沃尔夫将军攻取魁北克。
It was exactly the kind of thing Pitt adored.
这正是皮特所乐见的。
An attack so improbable that Wolfe himself assumed it couldn't work.
一次几乎不可能的进攻，沃尔夫自己也以为会失败。
He'd designed it more as a glorious death than a likely victory, climbing the sheer cliffs that protected the city and surprising -- and were they surprised -- the French.
比起渺茫的胜利，他更做好了光荣牺牲的准备，英军攀上护城的峭壁，出人意料，完全出乎法军的意料。
After a suicidal charge, the defenders were cut down in a monstrous volley.
在一波自杀式的冲锋后，法军被一阵猛烈的齐射击溃。
True to his script, Wolfe took a shattering shot to the wrist, then bullets in the guts and chest.
作好牺牲准备的沃尔夫手腕中弹，接着内脏和胸膛中弹。
Bleeding into the arms of his brother officers, he died as the first imperial romantic martyr, duly set in marble in Westminster Abbey.
鲜血浸透了战友的双臂，他成为了帝国第一位传奇的烈士，随后安息于威斯敏斯特教堂的大理石棺。
Victory in Quebec and then Montreal totally transformed the British Empire in North America.
魁北克和之后蒙特利尔的胜利完全扭转了大英帝国在北美的局势。
Pitt had made America, as he supposed, British forever. And he must have felt he'd made the world safe for liberty to triumph.
皮特如愿把北美永久纳入了大英帝国。他定会觉得是他把世界带向了自由的主宰。
The age of imperial Britain as a world power was about to dawn, was it not?
大英帝国成为世界强国的时代即将到来，不是吗？
