The two together severed all the avenues of Spanish trade and cut off all intercourse between the parts of their vast but disconnected empire."[107] The selection of the points of attack, due to the ministry of Pitt, was strategically good, cutting effectually the sinews of the enemy's strength; and if his plans had been fully carried out and Panama also seized, the success would have been yet more decisive.

England had lost also the advantage of the surprise he would have effected by anticipating Spain's declaration of war; but her arms were triumphant during this short contest, through the rapidity with which her projects were carried into execution, due to the state of efficiency to which her naval forces and administration had been brought.
With the conquest of Manila ended the military operations of the war.
Nine months, counting from the formal declaration by England in January, had been sufficient to shatter the last hope of France, and to bring Spain to a peace in which was conceded every point on which she had based her hostile attitude and demands.

It seems scarcely necessary, after even the brief summary of events that has been given, to point out that the speed and thoroughness with which England's work was done was due wholly to her sea power, which allowed her forces to act on distant points, widely apart as Cuba, Portugal, India, and the Philippines, without a fear of serious break in their communications.
Before giving the terms of peace which ought to summarize the results of the war, but do so imperfectly, owing to the weak eagerness of the English ministry to conclude it, it is necessary to trace in outline the effect of the war upon commerce, upon the foundations of sea power and national prosperity.
One prominent feature of this war may be more strongly impressed upon the mind by a startling, because paradoxical, statement that the prosperity of the English is shown by the magnitude of their losses.
"From 1756 to 1760," states a French historian, "French privateers captured from the English more than twenty-five hundred merchantmen.

In 1761, though France had not, so to speak, a single ship-of-the-line at sea, and though the English had taken two hundred and forty of our privateers, their comrades still took eight hundred and twelve English vessels.
The explanation of the number of these prizes lies in the prodigious growth of the English shipping.

In 1760 it is claimed that the English had at sea eight thousand sail; of these the French captured nearly one tenth, despite escorts and cruisers.
In the four years from 1756 to 1760 the French lost only nine hundred and fifty vessels."[108] But this discrepancy is justly attributed by an English writer "to the diminution of the French commerce and the dread of falling into the hands of the English, which kept many of their trading-vessels from going to sea;" and he goes on to point out that the capture of vessels was not the principal benefit resulting from the efficiency of England's fleets.