essly. Under all temporary and
apparent grounds of quarrel lay this deep-rooted jealousy and
incompatibility of interests. Beyond the Alleghanies the Revolution was
fundamentally a struggle between England, bent on restricting the growth
of the English race, and the Americans, triumphantly determined to
acquire the right to conquer the continent.

The West Actually Conquered.

Had not the backwoodsmen been successful in the various phases of the
struggle, we would certainly have been cooped up between the sea and the
mountains. If in 1774 and '76 they had been beaten by the Ohio tribes
and the Cherokees, the border ravaged, and the settlements stopped or
forced back as during what the colonists called Braddock's War,
[Footnote: During this Indian war, covering the period from Braddock's
to Grant's defeats, Smith, a good authority, estimates that the
frontiers were laid waste, and population driven back, over an area
nearly three hundred miles long by thirty broad.] there is every reason
to believe that the Alleghanies would have become our western frontier.
Similarly, if Clark had failed in his efforts to conquer and hold the
Illinois and Vincennes, it is overwhelmingly probable that the Ohio
would have been the boundary between the Americans and the British.
Before the Revolution began, in 1774, the British Parliament had, by the
Quebec Act, declared the country between the Great Lakes and the Ohio to
be part of Canada; and under the provisions of this act the British
officers continued to do as they had already done--that is, to hold
adverse possession of the land, scornfully heedless of the claims of the
different colonies. The country was _de facto_ part of Canada; the
Americans tried to conquer it exactly as they tried to conquer the rest
of Canada; the only difference was that Clark succeeded, whereas Arnold
and Montgomery failed.

But only Definitely Secured by Diplomacy.

Of course the conquest by the backwoodsmen was by no means the sole
cause of our acquisition of the west. The sufferings and victories of
the westerners would have counted for nothing, had it not been for the
success of the American arms in the east, and for the skill of our three
treaty-makers at Paris--Jay, Adams, and Franklin, but above all the two
former, and especially Jay. On the other hand, it was the actual
occupation and holding of the country that gave our diplomats their
vantage-ground. When the treaty was made, in 1782,