The next year Montreal was taken, and the war ended. And in the treaty of peace France gave up all her colonies in America. England got Canada and Spain got Louisiana. All North America now belonged to two nations, England and Spain.
CHAPTER XI
THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION
I SHOULD be glad to have some of you take a steamboat ride up the broad Hudson River, past the city of New York, and onward in the track of the "Half Moon," Henry Hudson's ship. If you did so, you would come in time to the point where this ship stopped and turned back. Here, where Hudson and his Dutch sailors saw only a great spread of forest trees, stretching far back from the river bank, our modern travelers would see the large and handsome city of Albany, the capital of the State of New York.
This is one of the hundreds of fine cities which have grown up in our country since Henry Hudson's time. A hundred and fifty years ago it was a small place, not much larger than many of our villages. But even then it was of importance, for in it was taken the first step towards our great Union of States. I shall have to tell you what this step was, for you will certainly want to know.
Well, at the time I speak of there was no such thing as an American Union. There were thirteen colonies, reaching from New Hampshire down to Georgia. But each of these was like a little nation of its own; each had its own government, made its own laws, and fought its own fights. This was well enough in one way, but it was not so well in another. At one time the people had the Indians to fight with, at another time the French, and sometimes both of these together, and many of them thought that they could do their fighting better if they were united into one country.
So in the year 1754 the colonies sent some of their best men to Albany, to talk over this matter, and see if a union of the colonies could not be made. This is what I meant when I said that the first step towards the American Union was taken at Albany.
Of these men, there is only one I shall say anything about. This man's name you should know and remember, for he was one of the noblest and wisest men that ever lived in this country. His name was Benjamin Franklin. Forty years before this time he was a little Boston boy at work in his father's shop, helping him make candles. Afterwards he learned how to print, and then, in 1723, he went to Philadelphia, where he soon had a shop and a newspaper office, and in time became rich.