SHIRLEY, WILLIAM) devised the plan, which was daringly executed by a colonial fleet under William Pepperell (q.v.) in co-operation with four British men-of-war. The capture of Louisburg by a militia force was the greatest humiliation which France had suffered in Amer ica and its restoration by the Peace of Aix-la Chapelle (1748) (see AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, TIES OF PEACE CONCLUDED AT), came to New England as the sorest affront which it had ever received at the hands of the home government.
At the Peace of Utrecht New France con tained a population of rather more than 25,000. In 1763 when Canada was ceded to England the number of inhabitants had advanced to about 60,000. It is obvious that this rate of increase was trivial in comparison with the prog ress of the English colonies during the same period, and when we remember the unusual fecundity of the French Canadians, some special reason needs to be assigned for the slow de velopment of the colony. The cause of this striking phenomenon will be found in the fact that immigration was not spontaneous, as in the case of the English colonies, but controlled by government. Partly owing to the institutions which prevailed in France during the 17th and 18th centuries, and partly owing to gross mis management of colonial affairs by the court of Versailles, New France was handicapped in the long race with its southern rivals. This fact must be brought out because it is often errone ously stated that the Frenchman has never made a good colonist. The biography of Can ada from Champlain to Montcalm gives the direct negative to such an idea. Maladminis tration, the lack of local self-government and excess of loyalty to inherited institutions ac count for the defeat of the French in America rather than the want of promptness, courage, industry and resource. It must be remembered, moreover, that the English colonies took root in a soil which was fitted to stimulate rapid growth. The long calm which followed the Peace of Utrecht (1713-42) was often broken by signs of acute restlessness. As early as 1725 the Marquis de Beauharnois, who had be come governor in succession to Vaudreuil, was busy with schemes for keeping the English within the limits they already occupied. This
meant that their expansion northward should be checked in the vicinity of Lake George and their expansion westward by the range of the Alleghanies. Far from losing their love of ex ploration, the French pushed farther and farther westward with each decade. Michili mackinac was to Verendrye what Cataracoui had been to La Salle, and just at the moment when Maria Theresa was preparing to recover Silesia from Frederick the Great, one of Veren drye's sons caught the first glimpse of the Rockv Mountains. In America the hostilities which accompanied the War of Austrian Succession centred at Louisburg and accordingly this con flict affected Canada less than the two preced , ins wars had done. But every man of colonial origin, English and French alike, saw that the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was merely an armis tice. Unsettled boundaries suggested endless friction, especially in Acadia and the Ohio Val ley. The line which was run by Celoron de Bienville at the instance of France aimed at excluding the English from the Ohio and, ac cording to patriotic opinion in such colonies as New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, amounted to a cases belli. Before the development of the western trade the English and French had been separated by a wide zone of wilderness. The expansion of both races brought them face to face at the junction of the Alleghany and the Monongahela. Should the stronghold built in this angle be called Fort Duquesne or Pitts burgh? Here was an issue on which hinged the future of a continent. It was the misfortune of the French both at home and in Canada that their administrative system suffered from the worst evils of a corrupt absolutism. At Ver sailles the folly and extravagance of Louis XV, at Quebec the unblemishing thefts of the In tendant Bigot, were but a poor preparation for war. And so the small but valiant race of the Canadian French bore the burden of vices not their own when they entered upon the last act of an irrepressible conflict. See also the articles in this section — GREAT BRITAIN'S FIGHT WITH FRANCE FOR NORTH AMERICA; THE CLERGY RE SERVES; SEIGNORIAL TENURE.