English conquests in America. Besides the Ohio country, the ostensible
object of the war, Great Britain held both Canada and the French West
Indies. The time seemed ripe to relieve the colonies from the dangers
arising from the French settlements on the north, and the Spanish colonies
in Florida and Cuba. The ministry wavered between keeping Guadeloupe and
keeping Canada; but if they were unable to deal with 8,000 Acadians in
1755, what should they do with 80,000 Canadians in 1763? Was the
inhospitable valley of the Lower St. Lawrence worth the occupation. And if
the French were excluded from North America, could the loyalty of the
colonies be guaranteed? France, however, humbled by the war, was forced to
yield territory somewhere; Canada had long been a burden on the French
treasury; since concession must be made, it seemed better to sacrifice the
northern colonies rather than the profitable West Indies. Choiseul, the
French Minister of Foreign Affairs, therefore ceded to England all the
French possessions east of the Mississippi except the tract between the
Amitic and the Mississippi, in which lay the town of New Orleans. The
island of Cape Breton went with Canada, of which it was an outlyer. The
wound to the prestige of France he passed over with a jaunty apothegm: "I
ceded it," he said, "on purpose to destroy the English nation. They were
fond of American dominion, and I resolved they should have enough of it."

[Sidenote: Louisiana ceded.]

Meanwhile, the Spaniards clamored for some compensation for their own
losses. The English yielded up Havana, and kept the two provinces of
Florida lying along the Gulf; and France transferred to Spain all the
province of Louisiana not already given to England, that is, the western
half of the Mississippi valley, and the Isle d'Orleans. The population was
stretched along the river front of the Mississippi and its lower branches;
it was devotedly French, and it was furious at the transfer. Of all her