Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/231

Rh of the war had been explored and occupied by the whites, by right of discovery and possession; by victory over the French, and the cession through them by treaty of all their claims upon regions explored and held by them; and by conquest of additional portions in wars with the savages. We acceded to whatever territorial rights Great Britain had acquired, and impliedly to some that it had claimed, and would have asserted and vindicated had its dominance continued. If Great Britain had cause of grievance in being compelled to yield this territory, much more (as we shall see) had France to complain of the previous dispossession of it by that conquering power. Only in the later period of the colonization of the country, and when the times of rough and hard beginnings had been passed and rewarding success achieved, did Great Britain in its patronizing or protecting functions of government concern itself with its nominal subjects on this continent; and then it came in not so much for their benefit as from jealousy and hostility to France. France, on the other hand, had from the first reachings forth of its enterprise and its costly outlays over our seas and bays, our lakes and rivers, and the capacities of trade and commerce here, engaged the power and patronage of its monarchs and prime ministers, its nobles and its armies, to secure and improve an inheritance on this broad continent. But when it yielded to British arms in a conflict substantially lasting through a century and a half, our Government succeeded to such benefits and to such controversies and quarrels of the temporary dominion as were left here below our present boundary-line. If Francis of France, for the benefit of his royal successors, had been provided for, as he thought he should have been, by a clause in Adam's will disposing of this continent, those successors would have been in no wise benefited by it.

Whatever compunctions may be felt by any among us as to our method of dispossessing our aborigines, none such