V. THE YEARS OF FULFILMENT

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

THE CANADIAN DOMINION

CHAPTER I. THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS

Scarcely more than half a century has passed since the Dominion
of Canada, in its present form, came into existence. But thrice
that period has elapsed since the fateful day when Montcalm and
Wolfe laid down their lives in battle on the Plains of Abraham,
and the lands which now comprise the Dominion finally passed from
French hands and came under British rule.

The Peace of Paris, which brought the Seven Years' War to a close
in 1763, marked the termination of the empire of France in the
New World. Over the continent of North America, after that
peacee, only two flags floated, the red and yellow banner of
Spain and the Union Jack of Great Britain. Of these the Union
Jack held sway over by far the larger domain--over the vague
territories about Hudson Bay, over the great valley of the St.
Lawrence, and over all the lands lying east of the Mississippi,
save only New Orleans. To whom it would fall to develop this vast
claim, what mighty empires would be carved out of the wilderness,
where the boundary lines would run between the nations yet to be,
were secrets the future held. Yet in retrospect it is now clear
that in solving these questions the Peace of Paris played no
inconsiderable part. By removing from the American colonies the