76 ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Considering the map alone, it would seem as if the French 

 power was so intrenched upon this continent as to possess the 

 keys of its destiny. But there are many factors which enter 

 into the problem of nation-building, and the first of these is the 

 temper and quality of men. The French colonies were a nursery, 

 presided over by paternalism. The English threw their offspring 

 out into the wilderness to fight their way for themselves, with 

 no other heritage than liberty. In Canada the French colonist 

 could not build his own house or sow his own seed or reap his 

 own grain or raise his own cattle without the supervision of public 

 officers receiving minute instructions from the home government. 

 No farmer could visit the towns without permission or leave the 

 colony without royal authorization. Public meetings were pro- 

 hibited, initiative of every kind was forbidden, and the expres- 

 sion of opinion was repressed. Petted, pampered, and protected 

 by roj'al authority, the French colonies were stricken with paraly- 

 sis, and instead of looking to themselves became wholly helpless 

 and dependent. When, at last, the death-struggle came in the 

 battle for empire, the result was inevitable. Self-government, 

 self-reliance, and freedom were foredoomed to win. 



The map of 1763, 5 before the Peace of Paris, is the record of a 

 hundred and twenty years of struggle and development, in which, 

 with heroism, persistence, and patience the English-speaking col- 

 onists fought for and conquered space. The Dutch, tenacious 

 of their speech and manners, having themselves absorbed the 

 Swedes, were in turn engulfed in the English expansion, but not 

 without leaving a deep and lasting impress upon the communi- 

 ties that overbore them. Brave little Holland, the first exchange 

 in Europe for the commerce of the world, a cradle of art and 

 science, a power upon the ocean, and an asylum and school of 

 liberty when England sent her great thinkers across the North 

 sea to sit at the feet of her worthy masters, has alwa}'S lived, and 

 still lives, in the Empire State and the nation. Her influence, 

 even upon New England, is confessed by John Adams, when he 

 says, ''of all the countries of Europe, Holland seems to me the 

 most like home." 



New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware com- 

 pleted the unbroken chain of English colonies from the lawless 

 fishing villages of Maine to the broad plantations of Georgia. 

 Between the sea and the mountains had grown up a solid pha- 

 lanx of self-governing colonies as jealous of the French and as 



5 See map of English Colonies, 1763. 



