The decisive 



18 INTEODUCTION 



English. Montcalm fought for the old regime, Wolfe 

 for the House of Commons ; Montcalm fought for alle- 

 giance to king and priest, Wolfe for the habeas corpus 

 and free inquiry ; Montcalm fought for the past, Wolfe 

 for the future ; Montcalm fought for Louis XV, Wolfe 

 for Greorge Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Al- 

 though both men were killed in that battle, Montcalm 

 lost and Wolfe won. With the triumph of Wolfe com- 

 menced the history of the United States. 



"France should have won that battle; she should 

 'If" have held America for Eome. She had the advantage. 



She had Quebec as her Gibraltar and she had a chain of 

 forts from Quebec through the heart of the country down 

 through the Mississippi valley to the very city of New 

 Orleans. She had also allies in many tribes of Indians 

 whom she converted to Catholicism. She might have 

 won that battle, if — and the Huguenots were in that if — 

 if she had only used the forces against England which 

 she used in persecuting and driving out the Huguenots 

 from the home land. One historian says that ' the per- 

 secution of the Huguenots in France called from America, 

 the important centre of conflict, the forces that would in- 

 evitably have torn from the American Protestants the 

 fair heritage they now have.' " 



IV 



The exact value of the conti'ibution of the French 

 Intermarriage Protestauts to the building of the Eepublic no human 



and Assimila- . . ^ 



tion Wisdom can estimate, so early, so continuous, so comi^lete 



was the assimilation of this people into the English 

 colonial life. Intermarriage began before the Pilgrim or 

 Piu'itan or Huguenot came to America, and it continued 

 all through colonial years. The French refugees entered 

 with earnestness and vigour into all the hopes and plans 

 of the new nation. They gave property and life in be- 

 half of the principles they had so eagerly championed in 

 France. They faced danger and had their full share of 



