he history of the
world.

The War of the Spanish Succession sprang from the ambition of Louis XIV.
We are apt to regard the story of that gorgeous monarch as a tale that
is told; but his influence shapes the life of nations to this day. At
the beginning of his reign two roads lay before him, and it was a
momentous question for posterity, as for his own age, which one of them
he would choose,--whether he would follow the wholesome policy of his
great minister Colbert, or obey his own vanity and arrogance, and plunge
France into exhausting wars; whether he would hold to the principle of
tolerance embodied in the Edict of Nantes, or do the work of fanaticism
and priestly ambition. The one course meant prosperity, progress, and
the rise of a middle class; the other meant bankruptcy and the
Dragonades,--and this was the King's choice. Crushing taxation, misery,
and ruin followed, till France burst out at last in a frenzy, drunk with
the wild dreams of Rousseau. Then came the Terror and the Napoleonic
wars, and reaction on reaction, revolution on revolution, down to our
own day.

Louis placed his grandson on the throne of Spain, and insulted England
by acknowledging as her rightful King the son of James II., whom she had
deposed. Then England declared war. Canada and the northern British
colonies had had but a short breathing time since the Peace of Ryswick;
both were tired of slaughtering each other, and both needed rest. Yet
before the declaration of war, the Canadian officers of the Crown
prepared, with their usual energy, to meet the expected crisis. One of
them wrote: "If war be declared, it is certain that the King can very
easily conquer and ruin New England." The French of Canada often use the
name "New England" as applying to the British colonies in general. They
are twice as populous as Canada, he goes on to say; but the people are
great cowards, totally undisciplined, and ignorant of war, while the
Canadians are brave, hardy, and well trained. We have, besides,
twenty-eight companies of regulars, and could raise six thousand
warriors from our Indian allies. Four thousand men could easily lay
waste all the northern English colonies, to which end we must have five
ships of war, with one thousand troops on board, who must land at
Penobscot, where they must be joined by two thousand regulars, militia,
and Indians, sent from Canada by way of the Chaudiere and the Kennebec.
Then the whole force must go to Portsmouth, t