With Toulon, Corsica, and Port Mahon, she now had a strong grip on the Mediterranean.

In Canada, the operations of 1756, under Montcalm, were successful despite the inferiority of numbers.

At the same time an attack by a native prince in India took from the English Calcutta, and gave an opportunity to the French.
Yet another incident offered a handle for French statesmanship to strengthen her position on the ocean.

The Dutch had promised France not to renew their alliance with England, but to remain neutral.
England retaliated by declaring "all the ports of France in a state of blockade, and all vessels bound to those ports liable to seizure as lawful prize." Such a violation of the rights of neutrals can only be undertaken by a nation that feels it has nothing to fear from their rising against it.

The aggressiveness, born of the sense of power, which characterized England might have been used by France to draw Spain and possibly other States into alliance against her.
Instead of concentrating against England, France began another continental war, this time with a new and extraordinary alliance.