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 West Indies such products as staves, tar, tobacco, flour, pease, and pork. She brought in rum, sugar, molasses, and most of the manufactured goods she needed. Roads were opened up between the parishes, and a letter-post established. Law was better administered than in the earlier days of the colony. With all these improvements it made but slow progress. The feudal system of land tenure, while good for military purposes, did not encourage the peasants who held the land from their seigneurs, to make many improvements. The people had no say in making their own laws, and the general want of education kept the colony ina dull and lifeless state. Young men tired of the quiet home-life of the farm took to the woods, and lived and traded with the Indians. In 1702-22, Quebec had a population of seven thousand, and an agreeable society, whose principal element was the military class. Montreal had about two thousand inhabitants, and the whole of Canada about twenty-five thousand. The whole country to the west was a forest with a few trading posts and forts at Kingston, Niagara, and Detroit.

9. Braddock’s Expedition.—Vaudreuil died in 1725, and was succeeded by the Marquis de Beauharnois. In his time Fort Frederic, at Crown Point, on Lake Champlain was built, and soon became an important post in the wars between the rival colonies. No new stirring events took place until the outbreak of the War of the Austrian Succession, which brought England and France once more into conflict. It was not long before their colonies were engaged in a deadly struggle, a struggle that lasted, with a brief intermission, until the flag of England floated over the walls of Quebec. In 1745, Louisburg was taken after a brave defence, by an army of New England farmers and fishermen under Sir William Pepperell. The French tried to retake this the second strongest fortress of the New World, but without success. Peace was for a short time restored in 1748, and Louisburg, to the great annoyance of the people of New England, was given back to France. In these days, it often happened that while the mother countries, France and England, were at peace, their children in India and America carried on a bitter strife. Not until 1756 was war once more declared in Europe; yet, in 1754, hostilities broke out in the valley of the Ohio. The French claimed the Great West, and sought to shut in the English to the strip of territory between the Atlantic and the Alleghany Mountains. To carry out this plan, a fort was