1763.]

Geographical Results.

France retained only her West Indies and the insignificant islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon in the Gulf of St Lawrence. Thenceforward there were but two North American powers. Spain had all the continent from the Isthmus of Panama to the Mississippi, and northward to the upper watershed of the Missouri, and she controlled both sides of the Mississippi at its mouth. England had the eastern half of the continent from the Gulf to the Arctic Ocean, with an indefinite stretch west of Hudson's Bay.

boundaries.

The interior boundaries of the English colonies were now defined by proclamations and instructions from Great Interior Britain. A colony of Canada was established which included all the French settlements near the St. Lawrence. Cape Breton was joined to Nova Scotia. On the south Georgia was extended to the St. Mary's River. Florida was divided into two provinces by the Appalachicola. The interior country from Lake Ontario to the Gulf was added to no colony, and a special instruction forbade the governors to exercise jurisdiction west of the mountains. In Georgia alone did the governor's command cover the region west to the Mississippi. The evident expectation was that the interior would be formed into separate colonies.

19. The Colonies during the War (1754-1763). Seven years of war from 1754 to 1760, and two years more of military excitement, had brought about signifiInternal cant changes in the older colonies. It was quarrels. a period of great expenditure of men and money. Thirty thousand lives had been lost. The more vigorous and more exposed colonies had laid heavy taxes and incurred burdensome debts. The constant pressure of the governors for money had aggravated the old quar

Brad

rels with the assemblies. The important towns were all
on tide water, and not one was taken or even threatened;
hence the sufferings of the frontiersmen were not always
appreciated by the colonial governments. In Pennsyl-
vania the Indians were permitted to harry the frontier
while the governor and the assembly were in a deadlock
over the question of taxes on proprietary lands.
dock's expedition in 1755 was intended to assert the claim
of the English to territory in the limits of Pennsylvania;
but it had no aid from the province thus concerned.
Twice the peaceful Franklin stepped forward as the
organizer of military resistance.

In the early part of the war Massachusetts took the lead, inasmuch as her governor, Shirley, was made com

English control.

mander-in-chief. Military and civil control

over the colonies was, during the war, divided in an unaccustomed fashion. The English commanders. and even Governor Dinwiddie, showed their opinion of the Provincials by rating all their commissions lower than those of the lowest rank of regular British officers. The consequence was that George Washington for a time resigned from the service. In 1757 there was a serious dissension between Loudoun and the Massachusetts assembly, because he insisted on quartering his troops in Boston. At first the colonies were called on to furnish contingents at their own expense: Pitt's more liberal policy was to ask the colonies to furnish troops, who were paid from the British military chest. New England, as a populous region near the seat of hostilities, made great efforts; in the last three campaigns Massachusetts kept up every year five to seven thousand troops, and expended altogether £500,000. The other colonies, particularly Connecticut, made similar sacrifices, and the little colony of New York came out with a debt of $1,000,000.

1754-1763.]

trade.

Colonies during the War.

As often happens during a war, some parts of the country prospered, notwithstanding the constant loss. Colonial The New England fisheries and trade were little affected except when, in 1758, Loudoun shut up the ports by a brief embargo. As soon as Fort Duquesne was captured, settlers began to pass across the mountains into western Pennsylvania, and what is now Kentucky and eastern Tennessee. The Virginia troops received ample bounty lands; Washington was shrewd enough to buy up claims, and located about seventy thousand acres. The period of 1760 to 1763 was favorable to the colonies. Their trade with the West Indies was large. For their food products they got sugar and molasses; from the molasses they made rum; with the rum they bought slaves in Africa, aud brought them to the West Indies and to the continent. The New Englanders fitted out and provisioned the British fleets. They supplied the British armies in America. They did not hesitate to trade with the enemy's colonies, or with the enemy direct, if the opportunity offered. The conclusion of peace checked this brisk trade and commercial activity. When the war was ended the agreeable irregularities stood more clearly revealed.

Free from border wars.

20. Political Effects of the War (1763).

In government as well as in trade a new era came to the colonies in 1763. Nine years had brought about many changes in the social and political conditions of the people. In the first place, they no longer had any civilized enemies. The Canadians, to be sure, were still mistrusted as papists; but though the colonists had no love for them, they had no fear of them; and twelve years later, at the outbreak of the Revolution, they tried to establish political brotherhood with them. The colonies were now free to expand west

ward, or would have been free, except for the resistance
of the Western Indians gathered about the Upper Lakes.
In 1763 Pontiac organized them in the most
Pontiac's
conspiracy. formidable Indian movement of American his-
tory. He had courage; he had statesmanship; he had
large numbers. By this time the British had learned the
border warfare, and Pontiac was with difficulty beaten.
From that time until well into the Revolution Indian
warfare meant only the resistance of scattered tribes
to the steady westward advance of the English.

Military experience.

For the first time in their history the colonists had participated in large military operations. Abercrombie and Amherst each had commanded from twelve to fifteen thousand men. The colonists were expert in fortification. Many Provincials had seen fighting in line and in the woods. Israel Putnam had been captured, and the fires lighted to burn him; and Washington had learned in the hard school of frontier warfare both to fight, and to hold fast without fighting.

United action.

The war had further served to sharpen the political sense of the people. Year after year the assemblies had been engaged in matters of serious moment. They laid heavy taxes and collected them; they discussed foreign policy and their own defence; they protested against acts of the British government which affected them. Although no union had been formed at Albany in 1754, the colonies had frequently acted together and fought together. New York had been in great part a community of Dutch people under English rule during the war; now, as most exposed to French attack, it became the central colony. Military men and civilians from the different colonies learned to know each other at Fort William Henry and at Crown Point.

This unwonted sense of power and of common interest was increased by the pressure of the British government.

Just before in England

Scheme of

British

control.

forced. T
because the
essential.
of the war.

sending tro
sion, and t
Theory of
Co-operation
down a na
bounties.
that the co

thus genero

ing to this

Shirley in

Proposed

taxes.

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When, in I
ised £400
Otis protes
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Navigation
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denied the
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and thus

country,policy from complishe

1754-1763] Political Effects of the War.

Scheme of
British

41

Just before the war broke out, plans had been set on foot in England to curb the colonies; legislation was to be more carefully revised; governors were to be instructed to hold out against their assemcontrol. blies; the Navigation Acts were to be enforced. The scheme was dropped when the war began, because the aid of the colonies in troops and supplies was essential. Then arose two rival theories as to the nature

of the war. The British took the ground that they were sending troops to protect the colonies from French invasion, and that all their expeditions were benefactions to the colonies. The colonists felt that they Theory of co-operation were co-operating with England in breaking down a national enemy, and that all their grants were bounties. The natural corollary of the first theory was that the colonies ought at least to support the troops thus generously sent them; and various suggestions looking to this end were made by royal governors. Thus Shirley in 1756 devised a general system of taxation, Proposed including import duties, an excise, and a polltaxes. tax; delinquents to be brought to terms by "warrants of distress and imprisonment of persons." When, in 1762, Governor Bernard of Massachusetts promised £400 in bounties on the faith of the colony, James Otis protested that he had "involved their most darling privilege, the right of originating taxes." On the other. Navigation hand, the colonies systematically broke the Navigation Acts, of which they had never denied the legality. To organize the control over the colonies more carefully, to provide a colonial revenue for general colonial purposes, to execute the Navigation Acts, and thus to confine the colonial trade to the mothercountry, these were the elements of the English colonial policy from 1763 to 1775. Before these ends were ac complished the colonies had revolted.

Acts.