Spread of English-Speaking Peoples 23 



fold war, overcoming the original inhabitants with 

 one hand, and with the other warding off the as- 

 saults of the kindred nations that were bent on the 

 same schemes. Generally the contests of the latter 

 kind were much the most important. The victories 

 by which the struggles between the European con- 

 querors themselves were ended deserve lasting com- 

 memoration. Yet, sometimes, even the most im- 

 portant of them, sweeping though they were, were 

 in parts less sweeping than they seemed. It would 

 be impossible to overestimate the far-reaching ef- 

 fects of the overthrow of the French power in 

 America; but Lower Canada, where the fatal blow 

 was given, itself suffered nothing but a political 

 conquest, which did not interfere in the least with 

 the growth of the French state along both sides of 

 the lower St. Lawrence. In a somewhat similar 

 way Dutch communities have held their own, and 

 indeed have sprung up in South Africa. 



All the European nations touching on the At- 

 lantic seaboard took part in the new work, with 

 very varying success; Germany alone, then rent by 

 many feuds, having no share therein. Portugal 

 founded a single state, Brazil. The Scandinavian 

 nations did little; their chief colony fell under the 

 control of the Dutch. The English and the Span- 

 iards were the two nations to whom the bulk of the 

 new lands fell ; the former getting- much the greater 

 portion. The conquests of the Spanards took place 

 in the sixteenth century. The West Indies and 

 Mexico, Peru and the limitless grass plains of what 



