THE FALL OF NEW FRANCE I2I 
thoroughly unknown at that day as Australia or Cen- 
tral Africa. From 1763 until 1803 New Orleans and 
St. Louis were accordingly governed by Spaniards. 
In 1803 this vast region was ceded by Spain to Bona- 
parte, who sold it to the United States for fifteen 
million dollars. Florida, on the other hand, was re- 
turned to Spain by England at the close of the Revo- 
lutionary War, and was afterward, in 1819, bought 
from Spain by the United States. 
All of Louisiana east of the Mississippi except New 
Orleans, and all of Canada, were at the peace of Paris 
surrendered to England, so that not a rood of land in 
all North America remained to France. France also 
renounced all claim upon India, and it went without 
saying that England, and not France, was now to be 
mistress of the sea. 
It may be said of the treaty of Paris that no other 
treaty ever transferred such an immense portion of the 
earth’s surface from one nation to another. But such 
a statement, after all, gives no adequate idea of the 
enormous results which the genius of English liberty 
had for ages been preparing, and which had now 
found definite expression in the policy of William Pitt. 
The roth of February, 1763, might not unfitly be cele- 
brated as the proudest day in the history of England. 
For on that day it was made clear— had any one had 
eyes to discern the future, and read between the lines 
of this portentous treaty —that she was destined to 
become the revered mother of many free and enlight- 
ened nations, all speaking the matchless language 
which the English Bible has forever consecrated, and 
earnest in carrying out the sacred ideas for which 
Latimer suffered and Hampden fought. It was pro- 
