11 Professor Wrong's translation, p. 37.
| The English colonists alone no match for Canada. Shortcomings of the home Government. |
Common danger alone produced occasional signs of common action. The New England colonies, whose borders were most within reach of French raids, and whose shores reached to Acadia, showed far the most public spirit, and far the most power of combination. The southern colonies awoke only when the French in the Ohio valley did them active and present hurt; but, with many times the numbers of the Canadian population, the English colonies as a rule showed themselves to be no match for Canada. The first decisive treaty in North America—the Peace of Utrecht, which gave Acadia to Great Britain—was the result of fighting by English, not colonial soldiers, and not in America, but in Flanders under Marlborough. The second decisive treaty, the Peace of Paris in 1763, was the result of fighting in America, but mainly by British not colonial troops, and under British generals. The 'Bostonnais' alone among the English colonists were objects of apprehension to the French; and, if it were not for the record of Massachusetts and her smaller neighbours, the English colonies in North America before the year 1763 would in manhood and public spirit compare poorly with Canada. With equal truth it may be said that, in the matter of having a clear and consistent policy in North America, Great Britain compared very poorly with France; and the apathy of the colonies may fairly be attributed in large measure to their uncertainty as to what on any particular occasion might be the attitude of the King and the ministers in England; whether support would be forthcoming or withheld, and whether, if forthcoming, it would involve some sacrifice in return. It is very noticeable how often a promised force from home either was never sent or sent too late; it is noticeable too how difficult it was for Governors who opposed French claims and pretensions, such as Dongan of New York, in the seventeenth century, and William Shirley of Massachusetts, in the eighteenth, to persuade the home Government of the justice of their views. Like her colonies, England was as a rule averse to war; and as her colonies were inclined to keep her at arm's length, so she was inclined to leave them, within limits, to take care of themselves.
| English compromise. |
In the case of North America, while French and English were competing there, the English through their Government acted as they always have acted, during the whole course of their foreign and colonial history. They did, they undid, they compromised, until at length in Pitt there came a man who gripped the nettle, and the end was reached which might with infinitely greater ease have been attained many years before. When Quebec was in its infancy, the English under Kirke conquered it; the English King gave it back, and then the French dominion in North America took root. After Marlborough's wars the Peace of Utrecht gave Acadia to England, but gave it in terms so vague that the French continued to claim much or most of it; at the same time it left Cape Breton Island to France, and sowed the seeds of an apparently perennial controversy between Great Britain and France with regard to fishing rights on the coast of Newfoundland. There was more war, and the colonists took Cape Breton Island. Under the terms of the next treaty the English Government restored it to France. Then came the final war and the final peace; England gained all Canada, but, with that strange liking which Englishmen seem to have for leaving a frayed end in their treaty arrangements, the British Government confirmed the fishing rights of France on the Newfoundland coast, and added thereto possession of the two small islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon.
It was not policy, it was not system, which gave North America to the English rather than to the French, and yet there was a certain gain even from the utter absence of both policy and system. Natural forces had more play on the English side than on the French, and in a sense it might be said of the English colonies that their strength was to sit still.
| Was the contest between Great Britain and France in North America inevitable and beneficial? |
The last question to be asked, and if possible to be answered, is: Was the contest between France and Great Britain in North America, and the victory of one of the two powers, inevitable, and was it beneficial? From the English point of view, the answer to part of this question is a foregone conclusion. If there was to be a contest, it seems evident, if we look back on the past, that the English must have in the end prevailed. It is impossible to imagine that the French colony of Canada, with a population at the time of the conquest of considerably under 100,000, could dominate the English colonies with a million and a quarter inhabitants. Equally certain does it appear that to Canada the British conquest was a blessing in disguise, and the Canadians in a very short time realized what they had gained by the change of administration. In Mr. Parkman's words, 'a happier calamity never befell a people than the conquest of Canada by the British arms.'12
12 The Old Régime in Canada (end).
But the question, whether a decisive war between the two races in North America was inevitable, is one which may well be asked and answered, inasmuch as a similar question has in our own day troubled many minds in regard to other parts of the world where colonizing races have been side by side. Surely, it might be said, and probably was said, there was room enough in the great continent of North America for both French and English to work out their national destinies, without trying to supplant each other. In a sense this was no doubt true; and the truth is not vitiated by the fact that the French scheme of policy was not compatible with the presence of the English race in North America, on the supposition that the latter race would be allowed to extend its bounds by natural increase and progressive settlement pari passu with the French.