Never had French opinion been more arrogant in asserting France's right to North America than after the Treaty of Utrecht.At the dinner-table of the Governor in Quebec there was incessant talk of Britain's incapacity, of the sheer luck by which she had blundered into the occupation of great areas, while in truth she was weak through lack of union and organization.A natural antipathy, it was said, existed between her colonies and herself;she was a monarchy while they were really independent republics.
France, on the other hand, had grown stronger since the last war.
In 1713 she had retained the island of Cape Breton and now she had made it a new menace to British power.Boston, which had breathed more freely after the fall of Port Royal in 1710, soon had renewed cause for alarm in regard to its shipping.On the southern coast of Cape Breton, there was a spacious harbor with a narrow entrance easily fortified, and here France began to build the fortress of Louisbourg.It was planned on the most approved military principles of the time.Through its strength, the boastful talk went, France should master North America.The King sent out cannon, undertook to build a hospital, to furnish chaplains for the service of the Church, to help education, and so on.Above all, he sent to Louisbourg soldiers.
Reports of these wonderful things reached the English colonies and caused fears and misgivings.New England believed that Louisbourg reflected the pomp and wealth of Versailles.The fortress was, in truth, slow in building and never more than a rather desolate outpost of France.It contained in all about four thousand people.During the thirty years of the long truce it became so strong that it was without a rival on the Atlantic coast.The excellent harbor was a haven for the fishermen of adjacent waters and a base for French privateers, who were a terror to all the near trade routes of the Atlantic.On the military side Louisbourg seemed a success.But the French failed in their effort to colonize the island of Cape Breton on which the fortress stood.Today this island has great iron and other industries.There are coal-mines near Louisbourg; and its harbor, long deserted after the fall of the power of France, has now an extensive commerce.The island was indeed fabulously rich in coals and minerals.To use these things, however, was to be the task of a new age of industry.The colonist of the eighteenth century--a merchant, a farmer, or a fur trader--thought that Cape Breton was bleak and infertile and refused to settle there.
Louisbourg remained a compact fortress with a good harbor, free from ice during most of the year, but too much haunted by fog.It looked out on a much-traveled sea.But it remained set in the wilderness.
Even if Louisbourg made up for the loss of Port Royal, this did not, however, console France for the cession of Acadia.The fixed idea of those who shaped the policy of Canada was to recover Acadia and meanwhile to keep its French settlers loyal to France.
The Acadians were not a promising people with whom to work.In Acadia, or Nova Scotia, as the English called it, these backward people had slowly gathered during a hundred years and had remained remote and neglected.They had cleared farms, built primitive houses, planted orchards, and reared cattle.In 1713their number did not exceed two or three thousand, but already they were showing the amazing fertility of the French race in America.They were prosperous but ignorant.Almost none of them could read.After the cession of their land to Britain in 1713they had been guaranteed by treaty the free exercise of their religion and they were Catholics to a man.It seems as if history need hardly mention a people so feeble and obscure.
Circumstances, however, made the role of the Acadians important.
Their position was unique.The Treaty of Utrecht gave them the right to leave Acadia within a year, taking with them their personal effects.To this Queen Anne added the just privilege of selling their lands and houses.Neither the Acadians themselves, however, nor their new British masters were desirous that they should leave.The Acadians were content in their old homes; and the British did not wish them to help in building up the neighboring French stronghold on Cape Breton.It thus happened that the French officials could induce few of the Acadians to migrate and the English troubled them little.Having been resolute in acquiring Nova Scotia, Britain proceeded straightway to neglect it.She brought in few settlers.She kept there less than two hundred soldiers and even to these she paid so little attention that sometimes they had no uniforms.The Acadians prospered, multiplied, and quarreled as to the boundaries of their lands.They rendered no military service, paid no taxes, and had the country to themselves as completely as if there had been no British conquest.They rarely saw a British official.If they asked the British Governor at Annapolis to settle for them some vexed question of rights or ownership he did so and they did not even pay a fee.
