Page:The Ifs of History (1907).pdf/79

 have gone to Virginia or Georgia. The steely Yankee wedge which, on one side, was to force the Dutch out of New Amsterdam, and on the other the French out of Port Royal and Acadia, would never have been driven. New England would have been French forever, and New York Dutch.

The principle of the hinterland was asserted so successfully in our early history that Massachusetts and Connecticut were able to claim territory as far west as the Mississippi River. It was by means of this hinterland claim that the young American republic succeeded in rounding out its northwestern possessions, after the War of the Revolution, and obtaining Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois. All these would have been French if Champlain had made New England French; and the English colonies, if they had ever become strong enough to throw off the British yoke, would have consisted