of the land
still held loyal devotion to the exiled Stuarts, while the mass of the
nation, disgusted by the sordid and unpatriotic acts of the existing
dynasty, regarded it with sentiments of dislike but little removed from
positive hostility. A sullen discontent paralyzed the vigor of England,
obstructed her councils, and blunted her sword. In the cabinets of
Europe, among the colonists of America, and the millions of the East
alike, her once glorious name had sunk almost to a by-word of reproach.
But "the darkest hour is just before the dawn:" a new disaster, more
humiliating, and more inexcusable than any which had preceded, at length
goaded the passive indignation of the British people into irresistible
action. The spirit that animated the men who spoke at Runnymede, and
those who fought on Marston Moor, was not dead, but sleeping. The free
institutions which wisdom had devised, time hallowed, and blood sealed,
were evaded, but not overthrown. The nation arose as one man, and with a
peaceful but stern determination, demanded that these things should
cease. Then, for "the hour," the hand of the All Wise supplied "the
man." The light of Pitt's genius, the fire of his patriotism, like the
dawn of an unclouded morning, soon chased away the chilly night which
had so long darkened over the fortunes of his country.

But not even the genius of the great minister, aided as it was by the
awakened spirit of the British people, would have sufficed to rend
Canada from France without the concurrent action of many and various
causes: the principal of these was, doubtless, the extraordinary growth
of our American settlements. When the first French colonists founded
their military and ecclesiastical establishments at Quebec, upheld by
the favor and strengthened by the arms of the mother country, they
regarded with little uneasiness the unaided efforts of their English
rivals in the South. But these dangerous neighbors rose with wonderful
rapidity from few to many, from weak to powerful. The cloud, which had
appeared no greater than "a man's hand" on the political horizon, spread
rapidly wider and wider, above and below, till at length from out its
threatening gloom the storm burst forth which swept away the flag of
France.

As a military event, the conquest of Canada was a matter of little or no
permanent importance: it can only rank as one among the numerous scenes
of blood that give an intense but morbid interest to our national