A School History of the United States. John Bach McMaster
At the end of the war with France, Great Britain thus found herself in possession of Canada and all that part of the United States which lies between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, the little strip at the mouth of the river alone excepted.
SUMMARY
We have now come to the time when the third European power was driven from our country. The first was Sweden when New Sweden was captured by the Dutch. The second was Holland when New Netherland was captured by the English. The third was France.
1. The struggle for the French possessions in America may be divided into two periods: A. That from 1689 to 1748, when the contest was for Acadia and New France. B. That from 1754 to 1763, when the struggle was for Louisiana as well as New France.
2. The first war, "King William's," was indecisive, but the second, "Queen Anne's," ended (1713) in the transfer of Acadia to England.
3. After the treaty of Utrecht, 1713, the French began seriously to take possession of the Mississippi valley, and began a chain of forts to stretch from New Orleans and Mobile to Montreal.
4. "King George's War" interrupted this work for a few years (1744–1748), but in 1749 Céleron was sent to bury plates in the valleys of the Allegheny and Ohio and claim them in the name of France.
5. The next step after claiming the valleys was to take armed possession, and in 1752 the French began to build forts.
6. This alarmed the governor of Virginia, who sent Washington to bid the French leave the Allegheny valley. When they refused, troops were sent to build a fort on the site of what is now Pittsburg; but these men, under Trent and Ward, were driven away, as were also the reinforcements under Washington (1764).
7. Braddock (with Washington) was next sent against the French, who had built Fort Duquesne. He was surprised by the Indians (July 9, 1755), defeated, and killed.
8. The "French and Indian War" thus opened was fought with varying success till 1760, when the British held Quebec, Montreal, Fort Duquesne, and all the other French strongholds in America. In 1763 peace was made, and nearly all the French possessions east of the Mississippi River were surrendered to the British.
* * * * * THE FRENCH DRIVEN FROM AMERICA:
THE STRUGGLE FOR NEW FRANCE AND ACADIA:
King William's War:
1690. Sir W. Phips takes Port Royal.
Sir W. Phips attacks Quebec.
Montreal attacked.
1690–1697. The New York and New England frontier ravaged by the
French and Indians.
1697. Peace of Ryswick. Port Royal given back to the French.
Queen Anne's War. Acadia lost to the French:
1702–1713. Frontier of New England ravaged. 1710. Port Royal again taken. 1711. Quebec again attacked. 1713. Peace of Utrecht. Acadia held by the English.
King George's War:
1744. French attack Canso and Annapolis (Port Royal). 1745. Louisburg (Cape Breton Island) taken. 1748. Louisburg given back to the French.
THE STRUGGLE FOR NEW FRANCE AND LOUISIANA.
Occupation of Louisiana:
1699. The French at the mouth of the Mississippi.
1701. The occupation of the valley begun.
1701–1748. The chain of forts joining New Orleans and Montreal.
1749. The French on the Allegheny. Céleron's expedition. The buried
plates.
1753. The French fortify the Allegheny valley.
The French and Indian War:
1754–1763. The struggle for final possession. 1758. The capture of Louisburg. 1759. The capture of Quebec. 1760. The capture of Montreal. 1763. The French abandon America.
CHAPTER IX
LIFE IN THE COLONIES IN 1763
%91. Things unknown in 1763.%—Had a traveler landed on our shores in 1763 and made a journey through the English colonies in America, he would have seen a country utterly unlike the United States of to-day. The entire population, white man and black, freeman and slave, was not so great as that of New York or Philadelphia or Chicago in our time. If we were to write a list of all the things we now consider as real necessaries of daily life and mark off those unknown to the men of 1763, not one quarter would remain. No man in the country had ever seen a stove, or a furnace, or a friction match, or an envelope, or a piece of mineral coal. From the farmer we should have to take the reaper, the drill, the mowing machine, and every kind of improved rake and plow, and give him back the scythe, the cradle, and the flail. From our houses would go the sewing machine, the daily newspaper, gas, running water; and from our tables, the tomato, the cauliflower, the eggplant, and many varieties of summer fruits. We should have to destroy every railroad, every steamboat, every factory and mill, pull down every line of telegraph, silence every telephone, put out every electric light, and tear up every telegraphic cable from the beds of innumerable rivers and seas. We should have to take ether and chloroform from the surgeon, and galvanized iron and India rubber from the arts, and give up every sort of machine moved by steam.
[Illustration: Lamp and sadiron]
[Illustration: Postrider (Footnote: From an old print, 1760)]
%92. State of the Arts, Sciences, and Industry.%—The appliances left on the list, because in some form they were known to the men of 1763, would now be thought crude and clumsy. There were printing presses in those days—perhaps fifty in all the colonies. But they were small, were worked by hand, and were so slow that the most expert pressman using one of them could not have printed so much in three working days as a modern steam press can run off in five minutes. There was a general post, and Benjamin Franklin was deputy postmaster-general for the northern district of the colonies. But the letters were carried thirty miles a day by postriders on horseback, and there were never more than three mails a week between even the great towns. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday a postrider left New York city for Philadelphia. Every Monday and Thursday another left New York for Boston. Once each week a rider left for Albany on his way to Quebec. On the first Wednesday of each month a packet boat sailed from New York for Falmouth, England, with the mail, and this was the only mail between Great Britain and her American colonies. We put electricity to a thousand uses; but in 1763 it was a scientific toy. Franklin had just proved by his experiment with the kite that lightning and electricity were one and the same, and several other men were amusing themselves and their hearers by ringing bells, exploding powder, and making colored sparks. But it was put to no other use. If we take up a daily newspaper published in one of our great cities and read the column of wants, we find in them twenty occupations now giving a comfortable living to millions of men. Yet not one of these twenty existed in 1763. The district messenger, the telegraph operator, the typewriter, the stenographer, the bookkeeper, the canvasser, the salesman, the commercial traveler, the engineer, the car driver, the hackman, the conductor, the gripman, the brakeman, the electrician, the lineman, the elevator boy, and a host of others, follow trades and occupations which had no existence in the middle of the eighteenth century.
Run away, the 23d of this Instant January, from Silas Crispin of Burlington, Taylor, a Servant Man named _Joseph Morris, _by Trade a Taylor, aged about 22 Years, of a middle Stature, swarthy Complexion, light gray Eyes, his Hair clipp'd off, mark'd with a large pit of the Small Pox on one Cheek near his Eye, had on when he went away a good Felt Hat, a yelowish Drugget Coat with Pleits behind, an old Ozenbrigs Vest, two Ozenbrigs Shirts, a pair of Leather Breeches