1

tofore called the Missouri, and of the St. Jerome, heretofore called the Ouabache, with all the countries, territories, lakes within land, and the rivers which fall directly or indirectly into that part of the river St. Louis." Crozat's Louisiana was a separate colony, but not wholly independent of Canada. In 1717 Illinois, with limits not very different from those of the present State, was made a separate government, but still dependent upon Louisiana. Still later the Wabash country was separated from Illinois. It is foreign to our own purpose to describe the machinery by which these governments were carried on. But they were personal governments-governments of officers not of laws. The governor and the intendant commonly quarrelled, as the king no doubt expected and desired them to do. What constant pains were taken to smother the very germs of political life is well shown by a letter that Colbert wrote to Frontenac in 1672.

"It is well for you to observe that you are always to follow in the government of Canada the forms in use here; and since our kings have long regarded it as good for their service not to convoke the states of the kingdom, in order, perhaps, to abolish insensibly this ancient usage, you on your part should very rarely, or, to speak more correctly, never give a corporate form to the inhabitants of Canada. You should even, as the colony strengthens, suppress gradually the office of the syndic who presents petitions in the name of the inhabitants; for it is well that each should speak for himself and none for all.'

on

Such a letter as this prepares us for the fact that politics and the affairs of the nation, they [the Illinois inhabitants] never suffered their minds to feel a moment's anxiety, believing implicitly that France ruled the world and all must be right." Major Stoddard, writing about the year 1804, says that the people of Louisiana "did not relish at first the change in the administration of justice when they came under the juris2 Cooley Michigan, 9, 10.

1 Narrative and Critical History, V., 28.

diction of the United States. The delays and the uncertainty attendant on trial by jury, and the multifarious technicalities of our jurisprudence, they could not well comprehend, either as to its import or its utility, and it is not strange that they should have preferred the more prompt and less expensive decisions of the Spanish tribunals."1

The French colonists were utterly indifferent to what Americans call political rights. They could no more comprehend the men trained in the English colonial school than such men could comprehend them. What fervent appeals the Continental Congress made to the Canadians to join in the war against Great Britain! What sacrifices the States made to break the British power in Canada! And what a very meagre response was made to the appeals and sacrifices alike! Some of the Canadians cast in their lot with the States: the Western habitants were generally friendly to the patriot cause, but this was owing to their hostility to England rather than to any conception that they had of what was involved in the contest. There is, perhaps, no better measure of the provincialism of the Revolutionary Fathers than their quiet assumption that the Canadians, steeped to the lips in ancien régime, had political sentiments and aspirations like their own. Possibly the national pride of a few Canadians was touched when the Congress of 1774, in the address to the people of Canada, invoked the shade of "the immortal Montesquieu;" but that was all. The incapacity of the Canadians to manage representative institutions and the jury system was urged as a reason for restoring the French system of laws, when the Quebec bill was before Parliament; and it is impossible to deny force to the argument. In fact, the want of political ideas and habits, on the part of the habitants of Illinois, was a serious inconvenience when the time came to organize society on an Anglo-Saxon basis.

Finally, the cruel oppression of the monopolies, and the

1 Monette: History of the Valley of the Mississippi, i., 191, 194.

restrictive policy of the government, had much to do with driving the young men of Canada from regular industry into the woods; and the remoteness of the Illinois settlements from Quebec and New Orleans helps to explain their comparative prosperity.

Turgot was right when he compared colonies to fruit that falls to the ground when ripe, but colonies never ripen under such a regimen as this.

V.

ENGLAND WRESTS THE NORTHWEST FROM

FRANCE:

THE FIRST TREATY OF PARIS.

THIS contest was the culmination of the long and bitter struggle of England and France for supremacy in the New World. I shall rapidly review the main facts leading up to this culmination, and then assign to the West its place in the controversy.

Professor J. R. Seeley has attempted to show that "Expansion" is the key to English history in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; that the wars of England and France grew out of their colonial rivalries; and that the explanation of the policies of the two powers must be sought in Asia, the Indies, and America.' There is a considerable measure of truth in the propositions that the English professor expounds with so much eloquence and learning; but there is an unmistakable difference between the first four Anglo-French wars in America and the last one of the series. The very names that three of them bear indicate their origin and nature: they were wars of kings and queens. These wars began in Europe; they grew out of Old World quarrels, and the treaties of peace that ended them were mainly concerned with Old World matters. The colonies fought because the mother countries fought. The fifth and last of these wars began in America; it was waged here two years before it was declared

The Expansion of England.

in Europe; it involved a distinct and most important American question; and the terms of peace affected the welfare and destiny of America more than of any other part of the globe.

In 1629, when the colonies of both powers were in their very infancy, David Kirk captured Quebec and sent the garrison to Europe; but, on the conclusion of peace, the conquest was given up to France, and the life of the colony began again.

King William's War, 1689-97, was but the extension to America of the great European contest growing out of the ascension of William and Mary to the throne of England. The most striking features of this war are the massacres of Schenectady, Salmon Falls, the seizure and plunder of Port Royal, and the two unsuccessful attempts to invade and reduce Canada, one made by way of Lake Champlain and the other by the Lower St. Lawrence. Peace came with the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697, each belligerent surrendering all countries, islands, forts, and colonies, wherever situated, that he had captured, belonging to the other at the opening of hostilities.

Queen Anne's War, 1702-13, was a prolongation of the one that preceded it. It is the American phase of the war of the Spanish succession. Again the English colonists captured Port Royal, thenceforth called Annapolis, and again they vainly attempted, both by the Champlain and the St. Lawrence routes, the reduction of Canada. America is much more prominent in the Treaty of Utrecht than in the Treaty of Ryswick. Newfoundland and the adjacent islands, and Nova Scotia, or Acadia, "with its ancient boundaries," were ceded to the English Crown. The treaty also restored to Great Britain the Hudson Bay region, which had fallen into French hands, and contained an agreement, " on both sides, to determine within a year, by commissaries to be chosen forthwith, named by each party, the limits which are to be fixed between the said Bay of Hudson and the places appertaining to France." Another stipulation of the treaty was the springing point of bitter controversies that we shall have occasion to