There is nothing more striking in the history of the British Colonies in North America than the fact that when what now the United States were mainly British, and what is now Canada was mainly French, every far-sighted observer recognised from 150 years ago up to the American Revolution that it was the presence of the French in Canada which was the essential condition of the maintenance of British rule on the American Continent. A well-known passage in the work of a Swedish traveller. written in 1748, proies the const mn by "the English colonies in America," of "a separate State entirely independent of England." This traveller saw that the colonies being threatened by the French, and the British commanding the sea, there was reason to regard the French in North America as the chief power which urges" the "colonies to submission." Later in the century Mont-calm, as quoted by Mr. Hugh Egerton, consoled himself for his defeat by the reflection that the loss of Canada would be "'of more service to my country than a victory."
The strongest reason which urges even the most advanced of native-born Australians to scccépt British rule is somewhat similar to that which long kept the American
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.