The Setting

Abstract

Although an era of prosperity lay ahead for it, the British Caribbean in the mid-eighteenth century seemed to be at a point of crisis. Its sugar was losing its export markets to more productive French colonies, while its smaller islands seemed to be worked out. More territory was urgently needed. This sense of crisis and the need for expansion are themes in the chapter on the West Indies in Edmund and William Burke’s Account of the European Settlements in America of 1757. The Seven Years War enabled the British to seize islands from the French. Conquests retained at the peace of 1763 were limited to the four Ceded Islands, but they set off a speculative scramble for potential new sugar land. Burke’s close friend William Burke and his brother Richard sought to profit from the new conquests in the West Indies by winning public offices in them. Although they failed to make their fortunes, they focused Edmund’s interest on the Caribbean.