1695-97.] THE RIVAL COLONIES. 395 



communities so busy, and governments so popular, 

 much could not be clone, in war, till the people were 

 roused to the necessity of doing it ; and that 

 awakening was still far distant. Even New York, 

 the only exposed colony, except Massachusetts and 

 New Hampshire, regarded the war merely as a 

 nuisance to be held at arm's length. 1 



In Canada, all was different. Living by the 

 fur trade, she needed free range and indefinite 

 space. Her geographical position determined the 

 nature of her pursuits ; and her pursuits developed 

 the roving and adventurous character of her people, 

 who, living under a military rule, could be directed 

 at will to such ends as their rulers saw fit. The 

 grand French scheme of territorial extension was 

 not born at court, but sprang from Canadian soil, 

 and was developed by the chiefs of the colony, who, 

 being on the ground, saw the possibilities and re- 

 quirements of the situation, and generally had a 

 personal interest in realizing them. The rival 

 colonies had two different laws of growth. The 

 one increased by slow extension, rooting firmly as 

 it spread ; the other shot offshoots, with few or no 

 roots, far out into the wilderness. It was the 

 nature of French colonization to seize upon de- 

 tached strategic points, and hold them by the 

 bayonet, forming no agricultural basis, but attract- 

 ing the Indians by trade, and holding them by 

 conversion. A musket, a rosary, and a pack of 

 beaver skins may serve to represent it, and in fact 

 it consisted of little else. 



1 See note at the end of the chapter. 



