ved, if the English were
successful, the military separation of Canada from Louisiana; while on
the other hand, occupation by the French, linking the two extremes of
their acknowledged possessions, would shut up the English colonists
between the Alleghany Mountains and the sea. The issues were apparent
enough to leading Americans of that day, though they were more
far-reaching than the wisest of them could have foreseen; there is
room for curious speculation as to the effect, not only upon America,
but upon the whole world, if the French government had had the will,
and the French people the genius, effectively to settle and hold the
northern and western regions which they then claimed. But while
Frenchmen upon the spot saw clearly enough the coming contest and the
terrible disadvantage of unequal numbers and inferior navy under which
Canada must labor, the home government was blind alike to the value of
the colony and to the fact that it must be fought for; while the
character and habits of the French settlers, lacking in political
activity and unused to begin and carry through measures for the
protection of their own interests, did not remedy the neglect of the
mother-country. The paternal centralizing system of French rule had
taught the colonists to look to the mother-country, and then failed to
take care of them. The governors of Canada of that day acted as
careful and able military men, doing what they could to supply defects
and weaknesses; it is possible that their action was more consistent
and well-planned than that of the English governors; but with the
carelessness of both home governments, nothing in the end could take
the place of the capacity of the English colonists to look out for
themselves. It is odd and amusing to read the conflicting statements
of English and French historians as to the purposes and aims of the
opposing statesmen in these years when the first murmurings of the
storm were heard; the simple truth seems to be that one of those
conflicts familiarly known to us as irrepressible was at hand, and
that both governments would gladly have avoided it. The boundaries
might be undetermined; the English colonists were not.

The French governors established posts where they could on the
debatable ground, and it was in the course of a dispute over one of
these, in 1754, that the name of Washington first appears in history.
Other troubles occurred in Nova Scotia, and both home governments then
bega