50 FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN AMERICA. [1608-1663. 



and missions through all the western wilderness. 

 Feebly rooted in the soil, she thrust out branches 

 which overshadowed half America ; a magnificent 

 object to the eye, but one which the first whirl- 

 wind would prostrate in the dust. 



Such excursive enterprise was alien to the genius 

 of the British colonies. Daring activity was rife 

 among them, but it did not aim at the founding of 

 military outposts and forest missions. By the force 

 of energetic industry, their population swelled with 

 an unheard-of rapidity, their wealth increased in a 

 yet greater ratio, and their promise of future great- 

 ness opened with every advancing year. But it 

 was a greatness rather of peace than of war. The 

 free institutions, the independence of authority, 

 which were the source of their increase, were ad- 

 verse to that unity of counsel and promptitude of 

 action which are the soul of war. It was far other- 

 wise with their military rival. France had her 

 Canadian forces well in hand. They had but one 

 will, and that was the will of a misti-ess. Now 

 here, now there, in sharp and rapid onset, they 

 could assail the cumbrous > masses and unwieldy 

 strength of their antagonists, as the king-bird 

 attacks the eagle, or the sword-fish the whale. 

 Between two such combatants the strife must 

 needs be a long one. 



Canada was a true child of the Church, baptized 

 in infancy and faithful to the last. Cliamplain, the 

 founder of Quebec, a man of noble spirit, a states- 

 man and a soldier, was deeply imbued with fervid 

 piety. " The saving of a soul," he would often 



