the
counterpoise to a power which, if unchecked, must ultimately prevail.

Nearly three years elapsed before the Colonists accomplished this
object, by giving a demonstration of their strength in the enforced
surrender of Burgoyne's army at Saratoga. This event has merited
the epithet "decisive," because, and only because, it decided the
intervention of France. It may be affirmed, with little hesitation,
that this victory of the colonists was directly the result of naval
force,--that of the colonists themselves. It was the cause that naval
force from abroad, entering into the contest, transformed it from
a local to a universal war, and assured the independence of the
Colonies. That the Americans were strong enough to impose the
capitulation of Saratoga, was due to the invaluable year of delay
secured to them by their little navy on Lake Champlain, created by the
indomitable energy, and handled with the indomitable courage, of the
traitor, Benedict Arnold. That the war spread from America to Europe,
from the English Channel to the Baltic, from the Bay of Biscay to the
Mediterranean, from the West Indies to the Mississippi, and ultimately
involved the waters of the remote peninsula of Hindustan, is
traceable, through Saratoga, to the rude flotilla which in 1776
anticipated its enemy in the possession of Lake Champlain. The events
which thus culminated merit therefore a clearer understanding, and
a fuller treatment, than their intrinsic importance and petty scale
would justify otherwise.

In 1775, only fifteen years had elapsed since the expulsion of the
French from the North American continent. The concentration of their
power, during its continuance, in the valley of the St. Lawrence, had
given direction to the local conflict, and had impressed upon men's
minds the importance of Lake Champlain, of its tributary Lake
George, and of the Hudson River, as forming a consecutive, though not
continuous, water line of communications from the St. Lawrence to
New York. The strength of Canada against attack by land lay in its
remoteness, in the wilderness to be traversed before it was reached,
and in the strength of the line of the St. Lawrence, with the
fortified posts of Montreal and Quebec on its northern bank. The
wilderness, it is true, interposed its passive resistance to attacks
from Canada as well as to attacks upon it; but when it had been
traversed, there were to the southward no such strong natural
positions confronti