[Footnote: Bancroft, "History of
the United States," 4:460.] Burke [Footnote: William Burke, "Remarks on
the Letter Addressed to Two Great Men."] prophesied that the removal of
France from North America would precipitate, as it did, the division of
the British Empire. And Richard Henry Greene, the great English historian,
dates the foundation of the great independent republic of the west (the
United States) from the triumph of Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham.
It is interesting testimony in support of this fear of the eventual loss
of all the colonies in such a cession, or such an acceptance, that the
English commissioners debated long whether it might be more profitable to
retain the little island of Guadeloupe instead of all New France. And it
would appear that except for the advice of Benjamin Franklin this
substitution would probably have been made.
France, then, having borne the brunt of conflict with nature and the
natives in that valley, having revealed the riches of that valley to the
world, having consecrated its entire length and breadth by high valor and
sacrifice, having possessed that valley practically to the very eve of the
birth of the nation that now occupies it, and having helped by substantial
aid the struggling colonies to their independence, deserves (not through
her monarchs or ministers chiefly, but through the new-world pioneers, who
gave illustration of the spirit and stuff of Frenchmen) a lasting and a
large share of credit for the establishment of the republic which has its
most vigorous life in that valley.
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