New France has passed and New England, too, but in their stead the new
republic, recruited from all nations under heaven, ties their lost
dominions into a power which is immensely greater than the sum of the two
could have been, greater than it could have been in the hands of either
alone.
There was for a little time a dream of the revival of New France out
beyond the Mississippi, for there was a vast part of that valley that did
not pass to England in 1763. The great territory between the Mississippi
and the mountains, whose "snow-encumbered" peaks the Verendrye brothers
had so longingly looked upon, was abandoned to Spain, or rather thrust
upon Spain, already claiming it. France wanted to give it to England in
order that Florida might be saved to Spain, her ally, but England did not
hesitate as she did in making choice between the eastern half of the
valley and Guadeloupe. She declined. So with an apparent magnanimity,
which is greatly to be discounted when we come to know how worthless even
the people of the United States, years later, considered this trans-
Mississippi country, France, "secretly tired of her colony," finally
induced Spain to accept it.
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