themselves and their constituents. It was in such ways as these that the constitutions of the provinces became developed and liberalized during the French wars. Many a precedent was then established which was utilized in the later struggle with the mother country. The home government on its part also became convinced that requisitions were altogether inadequate as a method of procuring revenue for general purposes.
42. The quality of the rank and file of the Canadian militia was not essentially different from that of the British colonies. But the Canadian government was autocratic. The power of the French was also concentrated in a single large province, and not distributed among thirteen or more colonies. These conditions greatly promoted military efficiency. When taken in connexion with their Indian alliances, they enabled the French to take the offensive in the earlier wars much oftener than did the English, and with much greater effect. The government at Quebec was not subject to the limitations of quotas and requisitions. There were no assemblies to thwart its will. The English frontier was also more accessible and more exposed than was the lower part of the valley of the St Lawrence. Quebec was in every sense a citadel to which additional security was given during a large part of every year by the intense cold of the Canadian winter. But so superior were the training and enterprise of the French coureur de bois that, with his Indian allies, he was far better able than the English farmer or artisan to penetrate the wilderness, whether in winter or in summer, and massacre the exposed dwellers on the frontier. It was this class which gave the French the superiority in the long succession of raids by which the English frontier was laid waste.
43. Though the French by their skill and boldness achieved a remarkable success, their defects and weaknesses were equally evident. The flow of population from France to America was never great, and even it was diminished by the exclusion of Huguenots. The natural growth of population within New France was not rapid. The result was that the French colonists did not become sufficiently numerous to maintain the interests to which their vast claims and possessions gave rise. The disparity between their numbers and those of the British colonists became greater with every generation. At the opening of the last intercolonial war the proportion of English to French colonists was approximately 15 to 1. New York alone had about the same population as that of all the French colonies on the North American continent combined. The resources of the British exceeded those of the French colonists to a corresponding degree. Had the decision of the questions at issue depended upon population and wealth alone, the issue could not long have remained doubtful. But the tendencies arising from these fundamental conditions were to such an extent offset by other circumstances, already alluded to, that the result of the struggle was for a long time uncertain. Had it been confined to the forces of the colonies alone, it would perhaps never have been decided. The English could have defended the territory which they occupied; so could the French. Moreover, with the French and English thus facing one another, it would have been impossible for the latter to have declared their independence. The French would never have desired to do this. Therefore, the two peoples must apparently have remained in the condition of colonists for an indefinite period. But the motherlands were to be the decisive factors in the problem, which thus depended to an extent on complications which existed in Europe or even on remoter seas and continents. When the climax of the struggle was reached the result might have been different if France at the time had not been so deeply involved in the politics of central Europe.
44. Of the first importance in reaching a decision were the fleets and armies of Great Britain and France, or those parts of them which were available for use on the continent of North America. During the larger part of the period under review the French neglected their fleet, while the English steadily advanced toward naval and commercial supremacy. But the first conspicuous service on the northern coasts was that which was rendered by Commodore Peter Warren and his squadron at the capture of Louisburg in 1745. In the next year a large French fleet was dispatched to North America, but it accomplished nothing. In the last intercolonial war the operations before Louisburg in 1758 and at Quebec (q.v.) in 1759 decisively proved the superiority of the British navy. The colonies also, in the later stages of the struggle, contributed loyally toward the result. France failed to make her natural military superiority effective in North America, and therefore her power on that continent had to yield before the combined attacks of Great Britain and her colonies by land and sea.
D.—The Colonial Revolt, 1763-1776.
45. The Treaty of Paris (1763), by which the period of colonial wars—but not the struggle between England and France—was British Acquisitions of Territory. concluded, added vast stretches of territory to the dominions of Great Britain in North America. The Floridas, Canada and Louisiana as far west as the Mississippi river now came into the possession of the English. Of the islands which were occupied, the two most important—Guadaloupe and Martinique—were restored to the French. The retention of Canada in preference to these involved an important change in the nature and objects of British colonization. Hitherto tropical colonies had been preferred to those in northern climes. The occasion of this had been the view that, as England was not over-populated, colonies were not needed as “homes for a surplus population.” Instead, they were estimated in proportion to their commercial value. The ideal was a self-sufficing commercial empire. The supporters of this view now argued that the islands which had been conquered from the French were more valuable than Canada and should be retained in preference to the northern continental territories, which had yet produced nothing for export except furs. But the government did not hesitate. Following the lead of Pitt, it was now bent upon continental expansion. Canada and the West were retained and the most important French islands were given back. The development of modern industry—the so-called industrial revolution—had already begun in Great Britain. Its effect was vastly to increase the population of the British Isles and to necessitate an overflow into the unoccupied regions of the globe. Colonies therefore began to be regarded from this point of view, and the retention of Canada opened the way for the change. Henceforth, as time progressed, colonies were to be valued as homes for a surplus population quite as much as sources of raw materials and food supplies. The retention of Canada and the West also coincided exactly with the desires of the continental colonies. The chief gains of the war went therefore to them and not to the island colonies. They now possessed a continental domain which was adequate to their need for expansion, and their long-cherished desire to be rid of the French was gratified. Though, as expansion progressed, conflicts with the Indian tribes of the interior, and that on a large scale, were to be expected, the conquest of the French removed the sense of dependence on Great Britain for military aid which the northern colonies in particular had previously felt.
46. In consequence of the policy thus adopted, largely increased burdens were, devolved on the imperial government, Changed Colonial Policy of Great Britain: Strengthening of Imperial Control. while the conquest and the events which led to it strengthened imperialist sentiment and ambitions. The course of action which was at first favoured by leading officials, both in England and the colonies, was a more systematic administration of Indian affairs, the employment of sufficient regular troops under the commander-in-chief to defend the newly acquired territory, the maintenance of posts with English settlers in the interior on a scale sufficient to prevent the French or Spanish from securing the trade of the region. Improved methods of administration were urged through the press by Thomas Pownall, Henry McCulloh, Francis Bernard and Dr John Campbell. French methods were praised and
