Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/122

90 The Canadian power. [i683- enemies into cordial allies, whose friendship opened the way across the frontiers of New York. The English Revolution gave the opportunity for attack ; and Canada with a population of some 12,000 prepared to pit herself not only against New York, with a mixed population of some 18,000, but also against New England with a fairly united population seven or eight times as large as her own. That New York would fall was thought to be sufficiently within the range of possibilities to make it worth while to sketch a whole scheme of government for the conquered province, in which Protestants were not to be allowed to live. The raid was so far successful that Schenectady was destroyed (February, 1690), a feat which served to glorify the French in the eyes of the Indians. Although schemes so bold as to include the thought of bombarding both Boston and New York served, as they were intended, to divert attention from the inherent weaknesses of the Canadian colony, the risk was very serious of exciting a community of feeling in the English colonies. The historian Charlevoix observes that it was not so well known in France as it was in Canada how important it was to destroy the English power in America: perhaps the difficulty of doing so was better understood in France than in Canada. But just as Frontenac was not supported by the French fleet, so Phipps 1 counter-attack on Quebec (October, 1690) was unsupported by England, absorbed in her own troubles. Yet ill-organised as it was, it came far nearer to completion than Frontenac's attack on New York. Had the latter been renewed in the next year it might have been wholly successful ; but the Peace of Ryswick put an end for a while to the contemplated hostilities. The death of the aged Frontenac followed in 1698 ; but his successors, satisfied with their peaceful relations with the Indians, adopted an equally bold tone in their correspondence with the home government when the European war reopened. Dlberville alone wrote of the grave dangers involved in an attack on Boston. In 1709 de Vaudreuil with 1500 picked men resumed the offensive; and the total collapse of the English naval expedition up the St Lawrence left the Canadians fairly satisfied that, small as their population was, their position was impregnable. In 1713 they numbered some 20,000, as opposed to the 158,000 settlers in New England, and the 218,750 in the other British colonies on the coast of America. While the military effectiveness of Canada was well maintained, its commercial and agricultural development lagged far behind what might reasonably be expected of the small population. During the military disturbances of Frontenac*s time land had gone out of cultivation, and the heavy government taxation of 25 per cent, on the country's one profitable trade, the fur-trade, had by 1712 driven it very largely into the hands of the English. In 1674, on the transfer of the colony from the Company of the West to the Crown, the Company's fur-trade