What factors led to the growth of the British Empire during the 18th & 19th centuries?

Why was Germany's population growth higher than France's after this period? If France was depopulated I would expect it to shoot back up from all the available space.

Objectively (I assure you I'm not a Brit)
they had that fighting spirit, that faith in ourselves, that belief that we were destined for glory.

Against all the odds the heroic and stoic brits presevered to brinig a new light of civilisation, a new Rome to the world. Other nations simply didn't match the British when it came to our fighting spirit and willpower.

That's an objective view here. Again, I'm not British

Hello Niall, how's it going?

Not him, but IIRC, it was more the introduction of new fertilizers that had a profound impact on some of the more marginal agricultural land in Europe, but less so in very fertile areas.

One of the reasons France had such a relatively huge population was that it had access to some very good agricultural area, and was comparatively helped less by the new technology than others were.

I read somewhere that differences in population growth resulted from differences in inheritance. The French practiced some form of inheritance which disadvantaged younger sons which made it difficult to support a wife and family and thus resulted in lower population growth.

So which Brit are you, the Snow Brit, the Desert Brit or the Kiwi Brit?

The "mosquito" coast in Central America was the product of trying to screw with the Spaniards and aside from a few English settlers consisted mostly of Miskito people (an admixture of shipwrecked african slaves and natives) led by a "king" (who was crowned by the English and had a mostly ceremonial role); they mostly acted in English interests as long as they were left alone.

Anyone who uses more than these two words is wrong

>The French practiced some form of inheritance which disadvantaged younger sons
Primogeniture? Only other relevant law I can think of is gavelkind, which I believe has the problem dividing estates to the point where each son can't even support himself, essentially "squandering" (or rather splitting to the point of irrelevance) the family fortune, thereby discouraging large families. This only technically disadvantages the eldest son, though.

Oh right I think it was that

In other countries the younger kids got nothing so they were encouraged to go into the military or a trade to survive, resulting in them having careers elsewhere while in France everyone got something in the will but that something was less and less with each generation so it was difficult to support a family of 6 when you had to split your father's land with your 3 brothers, resulting in people having fewer kids both for the sake of preserving the inheritance and because it wasn't economically feasible to have a lot of kids.

>Conquer a bunch of tribes with sticks using gunpowder stolen from China
>Claim to be the greatest empire

Oh YEAH great job Britain, well done for making other more powerful nations fight amongst themselves while you stole a bunch of worthless colonies and squeezed all the wealth out of them. Your shitty little island isn't even the best part of your """"Empire""""" since America literally decided it didn't want to be a part of Britain and BTFO you ugly fucking Brits during their Revolution. Yep, that's right. A colonial militia defeated the entire assembled military of the British Empire. And then did it again in 1812, kek.
The British army was fucking worthless and tiny, kek, why would you possibly think it could even remotely match the armies of Europe? The Royal """Navy""" was also overrated to fuck.
Then you got almost fucking destroyed in WW1, then again in WW2 until America bailed you out both times and now Britain is practically the least relevant developed country on Earth.

That's what you get for not actually having had a great Empire like the French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian or Ottoman Empires.

>see Spain get filthy rich
>see no reason why England couldn't do the same
>lots of peasants who see owning land as the defining attribute of being an elite member of society and will therefore go anywhere for free land
>disease conveniently wipes out any Amerindians you make contact with
Did I miss anything?

Come on lad, at least try to make your bait credible.

1. It was an Island so they could spend all their resources in the navy unlike Spain or France
2.Industrial revolution
3.Untouch by the Napoleonic wars.
They actually fared pretty horribly against Spain in the XVIII century considering their geographical advantage