Scarcely less important were the immediate effects of this

war upon the English colonists in America. With the removal

Revolution

of the danger of French and Indian attack on the frontier, It led the they could cross the mountains in safety and begin the settle- way to the ment of the West. They felt less dependent upon England than ever before. They no longer needed her help against New France, and they had learned in the hard school of war to act together. They were growing conscious of their own strength and of their own fighting qualities.

England won a vast empire in the French and Indian War. In trying to govern this new empire she did many things which first irritated and then alienated her American colonies. The French and Indian War hastened the coming of the Revolution and helped to train leaders like Washington, who were to fight the battles of the War for Independence.

REFERENCES.

Parkman, The Pioneers of France in the New World; The Jesuits in North America; La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West; The Old Régime in Canada; Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV; A Half Century of Conflict; Montcalm and Wolfe; Thwaites, France in America; Fiske, New France and New England; Sloane, The French War and the Revolution; Finley, The French in the Heart of America; Channing, History of the United States, Vol. II; Semple, American History and Its Geographic Conditions.

TOPICAL READINGS.

1. The Founding of Quebec. Parkman, Pioneers of France, 324-338.
2. How Champlain Incurred the Hatred of the Iroquois. Parkman,

Pioneers of France, 339-352.

3. The Story of Marquette. 4. An Adventure of La Salle.

Parkman, La Salle, 48-71.

Parkman, La Salle, 175-187.

5. The Death of La Salle. Parkman, La Salle, 396-408.

9. Braddock's Defeat. Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, I, 187-233. 10. The Removal of the Acadians. Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, I, 234-284.

11. The Capture of Louisburg. 52-81.

Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, II,

12. The Battle of Quebec. Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, II, 259297.

13. The People of New France. Thwaites, The French in America, 124-142.

ILLUSTRATIVE LITERATURE.

Poems: Whittier, St. John; Pentucket; Thomas Dunn English, The Sack of Deerfield; Longfellow, A Ballad of the French Fleet; Evangeline; Plimpton, Fort Duquesne.

Novels: Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans; The Pathfinder; Doyle, The Refugees; Parker, The Seats of the Mighty; Catherwood, The Lady of Fort St. John; The Romance of Dollard; Heroes of the Middle West; The Story of Tonty; King, Monsieur Motte.

QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS.

1. How is a birch-bark canoe made?
2. Draw a map of the Great Lakes.

of water that connect them?

What is meant by a "portage"? What are the names of the bodies

3. Contrast the motives of the French and English colonists in America.

4. Trace on a map the route of Marquette; the travels of La Salle. 5. What wars in Europe correspond to the first three intercolonial wars in America? In what way did the French and Indian War differ from all the earlier intercolonial wars?

6. Explain how the physical geography of North America influenced the history of the French and Indian War. Locate upon the map the important places in this war.

7. Why did the English fail in the earlier part of the French and Indian War? Why did they succeed in the later part?

8. Show on the map the changes in territory brought about by the French and Indian War. How did this war prepare the way for the Revolution?

CHAPTER VI

THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION

The True Character of the American Revolution.-Long
before America was discovered, the English people were fighting
to guard their freedom against the tyranny of kings and nobles.
In 1215 the barons of Eng-
land forced the wicked King
John to sign the Great
Charter, in which he prom-
ised to recognize and protect
the rights of his people.
Within a hundred years
after the Great Charter was
signed, the people of England
won the right to be repre-
sented in the Parliament, or
lawmaking body of the
realm. We have already
seen how the English Parlia-
ment resisted the tyranny
of Charles I and put him to
death, and how the leaders
of the people drove James
II from the throne in the
Revolution of 1688. That
Revolution made Parlia-
ment the supreme authority in England, but it was a Par-
liament controlled by the nobles and the rich. The common
people of the land had little voice in it. The struggle to make
the English government truly democratic was yet to come,
and the Revolution, in which the English colonists in America
won their independence from their mother country, was the
first great battle in that contest. The best men in England
saw this clearly at that time, and all Englishmen admit it now.
Some years ago the British Ambassador to our country said:
"Englishmen now recognize that in the Revolution you were
fighting their battles."

King John Signing the Great Charter to Which
We Owe Many of Our Rights

The long struggle for English liberty

Free men found greater

It was natural that English-speaking men should win the right of complete self-government first in America. The English Puritans and Quakers, and the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who came to the New World in such large numbers during freedom in the colonial period, were the most democratic people of their the colonies time. They left behind them many of the aristocratic notions and customs which had existed in the mother country for centuries. The dangers and the hardships of life in a new country had helped to make all the colonists bold, hardy, and self-reliant. They had found in their new homes far more freedom to speak and to act as they pleased than their ancestors had ever known in the Old World. The colonists had learned to love this new freedom, and they were quick to resent every effort to take it from them.

selfgoverr.ment

During the later colonial period there had been a great deal of strife between the colonists and the governors sent from Training in England to rule them. Though many of these quarrels between the governors and the people were over petty or local questions, they were important in teaching the people to know their rights and in giving them courage to maintain them. Sometimes laws passed by the legislatures of the colonies were set aside by the authorities in England because they were thought to be unwise or contrary to the interests of the mother country. This practice displeased the colonists, who thought that they knew best what laws they needed. But most of all, the people of the colonies resented the Navigation Acts which, as we have seen, were intended to make them buy all their imported goods in England and sell most of their exports to that country.

But in spite of the long-standing dissatisfaction over these matters, the American colonists were strongly attached to Attachment their mother country in 1763. They rejoiced in the British to England success in the French and Indian War-a success which they had helped to win-because it ended the old danger of French and Indian attack from Canada and opened the way for settlements beyond the Alleghany Mountains. The colonists loved the manners, the customs, and even the fashions of England. No one thought of independence. Benjamin Franklin, the greatest American of the later colonial days, said that he had never heard from any person drunk or sober the least expression of a wish for separation. Yet only twelve years after the

signing of the Treaty of Paris, in 1763, the colonists were in open rebellion against the British government. We must now trace, step by step, the history of the quarrel with the mother country which resulted in the establishment of the independence of the United States.

A New British Policy in America.-As we saw at the close of the last chapter, England had acquired a vast empire during

the French and Indian War. While Pitt and his generals, The British Amherst and Wolfe, were winning North America from France, empire another great Englishman, Robert Clive, was laying the foun

dations of British power in India. When peace was proclaimed in 1763, England was facing the question how to govern this great new empire.

The government of England at this time was unfit to undertake so difficult a task. For fifty years the kings of England had possessed very little actual authority. The real power, as we have said, was vested in Parliament, which consisted of a House of Lords, most of whose members were hereditary, and an elected House of Commons. But the House of Commons did not truly represent the people of England. Many small and insignificant towns were represented in it because they had long before been given the right to send members to parliament while large and thriving cities of recent growth sent no members at all. The masses of the English people did not even have the right to vote. The great noblemen and the rich merchants who controlled Parliament really governed the country.

The English government

In 1760, George III came to the throne of England. In his boyhood his mother had often said to him, "George, be king," and he began his reign with the determination to win George III back the power which the recent kings had lost. Few kings of England have been less fit to be entrusted with power. George III was ignorant, narrow-minded, and obstinate. He was jealous of men of ability, like Pitt, and appointed his