Edward Everett Hale

The Story of Massachusettes Edward Everett Hale

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1891. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIV. LOUISBURG. THE most important military operation undertaken in the earlier part of the eighteenth century, by the New England colonies under the lead of Massachusetts, was the capture of Louisburg. Its full importance of the victory did not then appear. A worthy achievement in itself, a part of its apparent value was given away when the whole island of Cape Breton was ceded back to France at the end of the war. But the importance of the expedition, then not apparent, lay largely in that it was the united act of the Colonies, and not only the united act but the practical proof of the united military power of the New England colonists. The union of the American Colonies, in so far as it was accomplished, for military purposes, both before this and after it, had an importance not so easily seen at the time as now. It made familiar to them the idea of union for military purposes which readily became actual fact in the year 1776. Cape Breton was one of the recent colonies of the French in America. Neglected until the time of the treaty of Utrecht, it subsequently sprang into great importance which it retained for some fifty years and then sank back into a state resembling its primeval quiescence. Ever since the discovery and exploration of the Mississippi by La Salle, the colonial mind of France had been inflamed by the great idea of an empire embracing the valleys of the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence, each communicating with the mother country by sea and bound to each other by a row of forts ensuring the free navigation of the Great Lakes. A great colony with two capitals, New Orleans and Quebec, surrounding and hemming in the English colonies on the Atlantic seaboard would insure to France the practical sovereignty over the vast spaces of undiscover...