| The English command of the water. |
As the French kept for war on the continent of Europe the troops which should have been sent to North America, so they allowed the English to gain control of the water, over which alone troops and supplies could be sent to New France. 'The possession of Canada,' writes Captain Mahan, 'depended upon sea power.'6 After the victory of Hawke in Quiberon Bay, and other English successes on sea, Burke, in the Annual Register for 1760,7 wrote that France 'was obliged to sit, the impotent spectator of the ruin of her colonies, without being able to send them the slightest succour. It was then she found what it was to be inferior at sea.' Especially important was the command of the water to those who would hold Canada, for two reasons; because Canada, poor and undeveloped, was dependent on supplies from Europe, to a greater extent than the English colonies8 in North America; and because she could and must be attacked by the St. Lawrence.
6 Influence of Sea Power upon History (6th ed.), p. 294.
7 p. 9.
8 Thus Charlevoix (as above, p. 38) says Canada 'has always had more from France than it could pay.'
The command of the sea meant the command of the St. Lawrence; and the command of the St. Lawrence was indispensable for the reduction of Quebec and Montreal. The downfall of New France began when the Treaty of Utrecht took from her, in Acadia, the best part of her scanty seaboard; the downward process was arrested when Louisbourg, taken by Massachusetts, was restored to the French; it began again with the second capture of Louisbourg. The seaport was taken in one year; in the next the river port, Quebec, was lost also. This would not have happened had the French not divided their energies so completely as to give Great Britain superiority on the water. They attempted too much at home, and the same fault, if we turn to consider their system and policy in North America, was carried into the New World.
| French and English systems and policies in North America compared. |
It is roughly true to say that in North America the French had a definite policy and a definite system; but the policy, though brilliant in conception, was quite impracticable, and the system was radically unsound. The English in North America, on the other hand, had rarely any policy and never any system.
| Hopelessness of the French scheme for dominion in North America. |
The French policy was an imperial policy. It was clear, consistent, and far-reaching. The object aimed at was a French dominion in North America, the lines of communication being the two great rivers, the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi. Canada and Louisiana were to be joined; the English were to be kept between the Alleghanies and the Atlantic; the French King was to be lord of all; the French religion was to be supreme; the Indians were to be converted and made French in sympathies and interests. The scheme was brilliant, but it was impossible; and it is difficult to understand why it is considered by historians to have been so dangerous to the future of the British colonies. White men of one race, sparsely scattered over two sides of a gigantic triangle, were to control white men of another but equally masculine race, thirteen times as numerous, who held the base of the triangle, the base being the seaboard. The attempt became more impracticable every year, for every year the actual preponderance of numbers on the English side increased, and every year the white men gained on the red men, who alone could make the realization of the French dream even conceivably possible.