158 THE FAMILY AND THE NATION 



were lost. Thus there grew up a half-caste breed, 

 with characteristics and aspirations of their own, who 

 in a few generations came to know little of their 

 paternal ancestry. They easily broke with the traditions 

 of Spanish civilization, and took an early opportunity 

 of throwing off the Spanish domination. 



The history of the English colonies in North 

 America ran a different course. The country was 

 explored by men of the same type as the Spanish 

 adventurers, but the actual settlement was made chiefly 

 by people who for various causes, political and reli- 

 gious, were discontented with the course of events 

 in England. They took their wives and families with 

 them, and represented a certain type of sturdy, self- 

 contained, independent, somewhat uncompromising 

 men and women, admirably suited to carve out their 

 fortunes and establish themselves firmly under new 

 and untried conditions. But the very qualities that 

 took them out of England militated against the forma- 

 tion of a cohesive and adaptable nation ; and, the cause 

 of their departure being largely discontent, prevented 

 any warm feelings of attachment to the mother country. 

 The ties between the two were chiefly those of mutual 

 advantage — protection on the one side and commercial 

 interests on the other. When, after the conquest of 

 French Canada by British troops and fleets, the need 

 for military protection ceased, when commercial in- 

 terests clashed, the inevitable repudiation of the 

 mother country, foreseen by at least one English 

 statesman of the eighteenth century, took place. A 

 small body of loyalists, whose heredity and reasons for 

 emigration would well repay special study, moved off 



