mats and
at the luxurious courts of kings. In America he worked among savages
under the hard conditions of frontier life. The methods and the aims in
both cases were the same--by subtle and secret influence so to mold the
actions of men that France should be exalted in power. In their high
politics the French sometimes overreached themselves. To seize points of
vantage, to intrigue for influence, are not in themselves creative. They
must be supported by such practical efforts as will assure an economic
reserve adequate in the hour of testing. France failed partly because
she did not know how to lay sound industrial foundations which should
give substance to the brilliant planning of her leaders.

To French influence of this kind the English opposed forces that were
the outcome of their national character and institutions. They were
keener traders than the French and had cheaper and better goods, with
the exception perhaps of French gunpowder and of French brandy, which
the Indians preferred to English rum. Though the English were less alert
and less brilliant than the French, the work that they did was more
enduring. Their settlements encroached ever more and more upon the
forest. They found and tilled the good lands, traded and saved and
gradually built up populous communities. The British colonies had twenty
times the population of Canada. The tide of their power crept in slowly
but it moved with the relentless force that has subsequently made nearly
the whole of North America English in speech and modes of thought.

When, in 1744, open war between the two nations came at last in Europe,
each prepared to spring at the other in America--and France sprang
first. In Nova Scotia, on the narrow strait which separates the mainland
from the island of Cape Breton, the British had a weak little fishing
settlement called Canseau. Suddenly in May, 1744, when the British at
Canseau had heard nothing of war, two armed vessels from Louisbourg
with six or seven hundred soldiers and sailors appeared before the poor
little place and demanded its surrender. To this the eighty British
defenders agreed on the condition that they should be sent to Boston
which, as yet, had not heard of the war. Meanwhile they were taken to
Louisbourg where they kept their eyes open. But the French continued in
their offensive. The one vital place held by the British in Nova Scotia
was Annapolis, at that time so neglected that the sandy ramparts had
crumb