A DUTCH HOUSEHOLD.
As seen in the early days in New York.
MOMENTOUS RESULTS OF THE WAR.
This battle was one of the decisive ones of the world, for, as will be seen, its results were of momentous importance to mankind. The conquest of Canada followed in 1760, and the other French forts fairly tumbled into the possession of the English. Pontiac, Chief of the Ottawas, was so angered at the turn of events that he refused to be bound by the terms of the surrender. He brought a number of tribes into an alliance, captured several British posts in the West, and laid siege to Detroit for more than a year, but in the end he was defeated, his confederacy scattered, and Pontiac himself, like Philip, was killed by one of his own race.
The war was over, so far as America was concerned, but England and France kept it up for nearly three years, fighting on the ocean and elsewhere. In 1762, Spain joined France, but received a telling blow in the same year, when an English expedition captured the city of Havana. In this important event, the provincials gave valuable aid to the British regulars. The colonies also sent out a number of privateers which captured many rich prizes from the Spaniards.
By 1763, Great Britain had completely conquered France and Spain, and a treaty of peace was signed at Paris. France and Spain agreed to give up all of North America east of the Mississippi, and England ceded Cuba to Spain in exchange for Florida, exchanging Florida in 1783 for the Bahama Islands. The former was a victory for Spanish diplomacy, since Florida was practically worthless to Spain, while Havana, the capital of Cuba, was an enormously wealthy city, and the island possessed marvelous fertility and almost boundless resources.
France, after her wholesale yielding to England, paid Spain her ally by ceding to her all her possessions west of the Mississippi, including the city of New Orleans. This enormous territory, then known as Louisiana, comprehended everything between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River, from British America to the Gulf of Mexico. In extent it was an empire from which many of the most important States of the Union have been carved. When it is remembered that these changes were the result of a war in which the capture of Quebec was the decisive conflict, it will be admitted that there was ample warrant for pronouncing it one of the great battles of the world.
The thirteen original colonies were now "full grown." Their population had increased to 2,000,000 and was fast growing. Their men had proven their bravery and generalship in the French and Indian War. Many of them had developed into fine officers, and all compared favorably with the British regulars. Their loyalty to England was proven by the 30,000 lives that had been given that she might conquer her traditional rival and enemy.
The adventurous spirit of the colonists was shown by the fact that many began crossing the Alleghanies into the fertile district beyond, where they were in continual danger from the fierce Indians. James Robertson led a party of emigrants who made the first settlement in Tennessee in 1768, and the famous Daniel Boone and a company of immigrants were the pioneers in Kentucky in 1769. No effort was made to settle the country north of the Ohio until after the Revolution.
