Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/308

288 1. French adventure and enterprise had precedence in the actual colonization of the northern half of this continent. Spain was long content with conquest without colonization. She has in Mexico and in South America all that can be said to be rightfully hers in the perpetuation of her language, in exclusive privileges of commerce, in the mixture of Spanish with native blood, and in the still effective, though strained and fretting, ties of traditional loyalty recognized by her transatlantic subjects on main and island. But France had won something more than these, and has less, indeed nothing, here. Her navigators had given her the basis of what was then a rightful claim, in discovery. This was followed by actual occupancy, almost simultaneously, of the Peninsula of Florida, of the bays, islands, and shores of Acadia, of the St. Lawrence, of Canada, and afterwards of Louisiana and Mississippi. From the moment France had her foothold on our soil, there began in her interest that marvellously romantic and heroic work of exploration, discovery, and description of the features and scenes of this continent which made the title of New France as justly applicable to the whole of it as that of New England was to a small section of it. And this work of French colonization and exploration was pursued, not by the scant resources and ventures of a few expatriated outlaws and exiles, but under the patronage of one of the greatest of monarchs, through his ministers and viceroys, with the outlays and vigorous energies of the nobles of the realm, and the mighty prestige and the benediction of the Church, through Pope and cardinals, priests and missionaries.

2. A century and a half ago, France — though from fundamental mistakes in policy she had not strengthened herself in numbers, nor in the sure hold of the soil which comes from its improvement by agriculture and by industry — had actual possession of the inner strongholds of this continent. A line of forts, with mission chapels and trading