Their position there was an anomalous one. England owned
the belt of colonies on the east coast. France was mistress of Canada
in the north, of Louisiana in the south, and, moreover, claimed the
whole of the vast country lying behind the British colonies, which were
thus cooped up on the seaboard. Her hold, however, of this great
territory was extremely slight. She had strong posts along the chain of
lakes from the Saint Lawrence to Lake Superior, but between these and
Louisiana, her supremacy was little more than nominal.
The Canadian population were frugal and hardy, but they were deficient
in enterprise; and the priests, who ruled them with a rod of iron, for
Canada was intensely Catholic, discouraged any movements which would
take their flocks from under their charge. Upon the other hand, the
colonists of New England, Pennsylvania, and Virginia were men of
enterprise and energy, and their traders, pushing in large numbers
across the Alleghenies, carried on an extensive trade with the Indians
in the valley of the Ohio, thereby greatly exciting the jealousy of the
French, who feared that the Indians would ally themselves with the
British colonists, and that the connection between Canada and Louisiana
would be thereby cut.
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