more correct when they assure him that its surface is a "pimply" one.]

As the largest part of Roger's fame rests upon his achievements in the
ranging service of our Seven Years' War, we must recall for a moment the
condition of things in the British Colonies and in Canada at the
beginning of this war.

The thirteen American Colonies had, at that time, all told, of both
white and black, a population of about one million and a half of souls
(1,425,000.)[A] The French people of Canada numbered less than one
hundred thousand.[B]

[Footnote A: Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. 4, p. 127.]

[Footnote B: Encyclopedia Brittanica.]

The respective claims to the Central part of the North American
Continent by England and France were conflicting and irreconcilable. The
former, by right of discovery, claimed all the territory upon the
Atlantic coast from New Foundland to Florida, and by virtue of numerous
grants the right to all west of this to the Pacific Ocean. The latter,
by right of occupation and exploration, claimed Canada, a portion of New
England and New York, and the basins of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers,
together with all the territory upon the streams tributary to these, or
a large part of the indefinite West.

To maintain her claims France had erected a cordon of forts extending
diagonally across the continent from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to
the Gulf of Mexico. If one will follow, in thought, a line starting at
Louisburg, and thence running up this great river to Quebec and