Their successful settlement was a feat which by comparison utterly dwarfs all the European wars of the last two centuries; just as the importance of the issues at stake in the wars of Rome and Carthage completely overshadowed the interests for which the various contemporary Greek kingdoms were at the same time striving.
Australia, which was much less important than America, was also won and settled with far less difficulty.

The natives were so few in number and of such a low type, that they practically offered no resistance at all, being but little more hindrance than an equal number of ferocious beasts.

There was no rivalry whatever by any European power, because the actual settlement--not the mere expatriation of convicts--only began when England, as a result of her struggle with Republican and Imperial France, had won the absolute control of the seas.

Unknown to themselves, Nelson and his fellow admirals settled the fate of Australia, upon which they probably never wasted a thought.

Trafalgar decided much more than the mere question whether Great Britain should temporarily share the fate that so soon befell Prussia; for in all probability it decided the destiny of the island-continent that lay in the South Seas.
The history of the English-speaking race in America has been widely different.