History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 16 [119]
itself, stipulated, with great distinctness, that Cape Breton, all its guns and furnishings entire, should be restored at once (France extremely anxious on that point); but for the rest had, being in such haste, flung itself altogether into the principle of STATUS- QUO-ANTE, as the short way for getting through. The boundary in America was vaguely defined, as "now to be what it had been before the War." It had, for many years before the War, been a subject of constant altercation. ACADIE, for instance, the NOVA SCOTIA of the English since Utrecht time, the French maintained to mean only "the Peninsula", or Nook included between the Ocean Waters and the Bay of Fundy. And, more emphatic still, on the "Isthmus" (or narrow space, at northwest, between said Bay and the Ocean or the Gulf of St. Lawrence) they had built "Forts:" "Stockades," or I know not what, "on the Missaquish" (HODIE Missiquash), a winding difficult river, northmost of the Bay of Fundy's rivers, which the French affirm to be the real limit in that quarter. The sparse French Colonists of the interior, subjects of England, are not to be conciliated by perfect toleration of religion and the like; but have an invincible proclivity to join their Countrymen outside, and wish well to those Stockades on the Missiquash. It must be owned, too, the French Official People are far from scrupulous or squeamish; show energy of management; and are very skilful with the Indians, who are an important item. Canada is all French; has its Quebecs, Montreals, a St. Lawrence River occupied at all the good military points, and serving at once as bulwark and highway.
Southward and westward, France, in its exuberant humor, claims for itself The whole Basin of the St. Lawrence, and the whole Basin of the Mississippi as well: "Have not we Stockades, Castles, at the military points; Fortified Places in Louisiana itself?" Yes;--and how many Ploughed Fields bearing Crop have you? It is to the good Plougher, not ultimately to the good Cannonier, that those portions of Creation will belong? The exuberant intention of the French is, after getting back Cape Breton, "To restrict those aspiring English Colonies," mere Ploughers and Traders, hardly numbering above one million, "to the Space eastward of the Alleghany Mountains," over which they are beginning to climb, "and southward of that Missiquash, or, at farthest, of the Penobscot and Kennebunk" (rivers HODIE in the State of Maine). [La Gallisonniere, Governor of Canada's DESPATCH, "Quebec, 15th January, 1749" (cited in Bancroft, History of the United States, Boston, 1839, et seq.). "The English Inhabitants are computed at 1,051,000; French (in Canada 45,000, in Louisiana 7,000), in all 52,000:" History of British Dominions in North America (London, 1773), p. 13. Bancroft (i. 154) counts the English Colonists in "1754 about 1,200,000."] That will be a very pretty Parallelogram for them and their ploughs and trade-packs: we, who are 50,000 odd, expert with the rifle far beyond them, will occupy the rest of the world. Such is the French exuberant notion: and, October, 1745, before signature at Aix-la-Chapelle, much more before Delivery of Cape Breton, the Commandant at Detroit (west end of Lake Erie) had received orders, "To oppose peremptorily every English Establishment not only thereabouts, but on the Ohio or its tributaries; by monition first; and then by force, if monition do not serve."
Establishments of any solidity or regularity the English have not in those parts; beyond the Alleghanies all is desert: "from the Canada Lakes to the Carolinas, mere hunting-ground of the Six Nations; dotted with here and there an English trading-house, or adventurous Squatter's farm:"--to whom now the French are to say: "Home you, instantly; and leave the Desert alone!" The French have distinct Orders from Court, and energetically obey the same; the English have indistinct Orders from Nature, and do not want energy, or mind to obey these: confusions and collisions are manifold, ubiquitous, continual. Of
Southward and westward, France, in its exuberant humor, claims for itself The whole Basin of the St. Lawrence, and the whole Basin of the Mississippi as well: "Have not we Stockades, Castles, at the military points; Fortified Places in Louisiana itself?" Yes;--and how many Ploughed Fields bearing Crop have you? It is to the good Plougher, not ultimately to the good Cannonier, that those portions of Creation will belong? The exuberant intention of the French is, after getting back Cape Breton, "To restrict those aspiring English Colonies," mere Ploughers and Traders, hardly numbering above one million, "to the Space eastward of the Alleghany Mountains," over which they are beginning to climb, "and southward of that Missiquash, or, at farthest, of the Penobscot and Kennebunk" (rivers HODIE in the State of Maine). [La Gallisonniere, Governor of Canada's DESPATCH, "Quebec, 15th January, 1749" (cited in Bancroft,
Establishments of any solidity or regularity the English have not in those parts; beyond the Alleghanies all is desert: "from the Canada Lakes to the Carolinas, mere hunting-ground of the Six Nations; dotted with here and there an English trading-house, or adventurous Squatter's farm:"--to whom now the French are to say: "Home you, instantly; and leave the Desert alone!" The French have distinct Orders from Court, and energetically obey the same; the English have indistinct Orders from Nature, and do not want energy, or mind to obey these: confusions and collisions are manifold, ubiquitous, continual. Of