Montcalm and Wolfe | Page 5

mother-country, aim at
conquering Canada, but only at pushing back her boundaries.
Canada--using the name in its restricted sense--was a position of great
strength; and even when her dependencies were overcome, she could
hold her own against forces far superior. Armies could reach her only
by three routes,--the Lower St. Lawrence on the east, the Upper St.
Lawrence on the west, and Lake Champlain on the south. The first
access was guarded by a fortress almost impregnable by nature, and the
second by a long chain of dangerous rapids; while the third offered a
series of points easy to defend. During this same war, Frederic of
Prussia held his ground triumphantly against greater odds, though his
kingdom was open on all sides to attack.

It was the fatuity of Louis XV. and his Pompadour that made the
conquest of Canada possible. Had they not broken the traditionary
policy of France, allied themselves to Austria, her ancient enemy, and
plunged needlessly into the European war, the whole force of the
kingdom would have been turned, from the first, to the humbling of
England and the defence of the French colonies. The French soldiers
left dead on inglorious Continental battle-fields could have saved
Canada, and perhaps made good her claim to the vast territories of the
West.
But there were other contingencies. The possession of Canada was a
question of diplomacy as well as of war. If England conquered her, she
might restore her, as she had lately restored Cape Breton. She had an
interest in keeping France alive on the American continent. More than
one clear eye saw, at the middle of the last century, that the subjection
of Canada would lead to a revolt of the British colonies. So long as an
active and enterprising enemy threatened their borders, they could not
break with the mother-country, because they needed her help. And if
the arms of France had prospered in the other hemisphere; if she had
gained in Europe or Asia territories with which to buy back what she
had lost in America, then, in all likelihood, Canada would have passed
again into her hands.
The most momentous and far-reaching question ever brought to issue
on this continent was: Shall France remain here, or shall she not? If, by
diplomacy or war, she had preserved but the half, or less than the half,
of her American possessions, then a barrier would have been set to the
spread of the English-speaking races; there would have been no
Revolutionary War; and for a long time, at least, no independence. It
was not a question of scanty populations strung along the banks of the
St. Lawrence; it was--or under a government of any worth it would
have been--a question of the armies and generals of France. America
owes much to the imbecility of Louis XV. and the ambitious vanity and
personal dislikes of his mistress.
The Seven Years War made England what she is. It crippled the
commerce of her rival, ruined France in two continents, and blighted

her as a colonial power. It gave England the control of the seas and the
mastery of North America and India, made her the first of commercial
nations, and prepared that vast colonial system that has planted new
Englands in every quarter of the globe. And while it made England
what she is, it supplied to the United States the indispensable condition
of their greatness, if not of their national existence.
Before entering on the story of the great contest, we will look at the
parties to it on both sides of the Atlantic.
Montcalm and Wolfe
Chapter 1
1745-1755
The Combatants
The latter half of the reign of George II. was one of the most prosaic
periods in English history. The civil wars and the Restoration had had
their enthusiasms, religion and liberty on one side, and loyalty on the
other; but the old fires declined when William III. came to the throne,
and died to ashes under the House of Hanover. Loyalty lost half its
inspiration when it lost the tenet of the divine right of kings; and
nobody could now hold that tenet with any consistency except the
defeated and despairing Jacobites. Nor had anybody as yet proclaimed
the rival dogma of the divine right of the people. The reigning monarch
held his crown neither of God nor of the nation, but of a parliament
controlled by a ruling class. The Whig aristocracy had done a priceless
service to English liberty. It was full of political capacity, and by no
means void of patriotism; but it was only a part of the national life. Nor
was it at present moved by political emotions in any high sense. It had
done its great work when it expelled the Stuarts and placed William of
Orange on