192 J. G. BOUEINOT 



Eealizing, at last, the serious mistake they had made in neglecting the defences of 

 Acadie, the French government, after a few moni hs of hesitation — quite intelligible in view 

 of the disasters of the great war — set to work to adopt the wise advice of the llaudots in 

 1Y08 and to make Louisbonrg a centre of trade on the Atlantic coast, and a bulwark of 

 their dominion in Canada. Unlike the English colonists, the French on the St. Lawrence 

 enjoyed no political liberties, but were governed by an aristocratic, illiberal system which 

 crushed out every semblance of self-government and placed them entirely under the rule 

 of the king and his officials in the province. Their only trade was in furs, and the 

 country gave no evidence of that commercial enterprise that distinguished the English 

 colonies, where ship-building, the fisheries and tobacco cultivation were among the staple 

 industries. In 1*714 there were only two towns of any importance in Canada, Quebec and 

 Montreal, and their total population did not nearly equal that of Boston. The whole 

 population of Canada did not exceed twenty-five thousand souls, or about one half that 

 of Massachusetts, of which less than five thousand were capable of bearing arms. 

 Although the commerce and population of Canada were insignificant in comparison with 

 the English colonies, the French governors were ambitious to extend French dominion in 

 America. Men like Joliet, Marquette and La Salle represented the spirit of enterprise 

 which carried coureurs de bois, missionaries, traders and gentlemen-adventurers into the 

 mysterious west which Frenchmen had discovered and explored forty years before txover- 

 nor Spottiswood and his gay following of Virginia gentlemen had crossed the Blue Ridge 

 and saw the beauty of the Shenandoah Valley. The only practical result of that holiday 

 trip of an English cavalier was the presentation of a pretty golden horseshoe to the 

 gallant gentlemen who, in honour of the occasion, were named the "knights of the golden 

 horseshoe" ; ' but La Salle actually explored the country of the Illinois, descended the 

 Mississippi and gave to France the right to claim that great valley, which is now the 

 home of many millions of people, inhabiting a rich country which seemed, at one time, 

 destined to become a part of a mighty French empire in America. When the House of 

 Hanover gave a king to England, there were already French posts and missions at 

 important x^oints on the great lakes and in the northwest, discovered by the French 

 explorers during the closing years of the seventeenth century: at Frontenac, on the head 

 of the St. Lawrence River ; at Detroit, between Lakes Huron and Erie ; at Ste. Marie, 

 between Lakes Huron and Superior; at Mackinaw (Michillimacinac), between Lakes 

 Huron and Michigan ; at Foit Miami, on the St. Joseph at the foot of Lake Michigan ; at 

 St. Louis, on the Illinois ; at Kaskakia, on the upper Mississippi ; at Mobile, on the Gulf 

 of Mexico.- These posts were the evidences of France's growing power in North America, 

 the first steps towards the realization of that ambitious jiolicy which, in the middle of 

 the eighteenth century, laid claim to the Ohio Valley and attemi^ted to confine the Eng- 

 lish colonies between the sea and the Alleghanies. 



The fortifications of Louisbourg^ were commenced in 1720 and cost the French nation 

 thirty millions of livres or about six million dollars, or taking into account the greater 



' See Cooke's "Virginia," in tlie American Commonwealth Series (Boston, 1884) pp. 314, 315; HinsJale's "Old 

 Northwest" (N.Y., 1891) i. 17, 18; the latter quotes Waddell's " Annals of Augusta Co.," pp. 6-9. 



- For a brief sketch of the colonization of the Northwest, and the establishment of a chain of fortified posts 

 between the lake countrj' and the settlements on the St. Lawrence, see Hinsdale's " Old Northwest," i. 38-54. 



'' bee large plan of the fortifications appended to this work. 



