general sent out to take command of the troops from
France. We shall soon hear more of Vaudreuil the governor.




CHAPTER II

MONTCALM IN CANADA
1756

The French colonies in North America consisted of nothing
more than two very long and very thin lines of scattered
posts and settlements, running up the St Lawrence and
the Mississippi to meet, in the far interior, at the
Great Lakes. Along the whole of these four thousand miles
there were not one hundred thousand people. Only two
parts of the country were really settled at all: one
Acadia, the other the shores of the St Lawrence between
Bic and Montreal; and both regions together covered not
more than four hundred of the whole four thousand miles.
There were but three considerable towns--Louisbourg,
Quebec, and Montreal--and Quebec, which was much the
largest, had only twelve thousand inhabitants.

The territory bordering on the Mississippi was called
Louisiana. That in the St Lawrence region was called New
France along the river and Acadia down by the Gulf; though
Canada is much the best word to cover both. Now, Canada
had ten times as many people as Louisiana; and Louisiana