The British colonies were different in every way from
the French. The French held a long, thin line of four
thousand miles, forming an inland loop from the Gulf of
St Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, with only one hundred
thousand people sparsely settled in certain spots; the
British filled up the solid inside of this loop with over
twelve hundred thousand people, who had an open seaboard
on the Atlantic for two thousand miles, from Nova Scotia
down to Florida.

Now, what could have made such a great difference in
growth between the French and the British colonies, when
France had begun with all the odds of European force and
numbers in her favour? The answer is two-fold: France
had no adequate fleets and her colonies had no adequate
freedom.

First, as to fleets. The mere fact that the Old and New
Worlds had a sea between them meant that the power with
the best navy would have a great advantage. The Portuguese,
Spaniards, Dutch, and French all tried to build empires
across the sea. But they all failed whenever they came
to blows with Britain, simply because no empire can live
cut up into separate parts. The sea divided the other
empires, while, strange as it may appear, this same sea
united the British. The French were a nation of landsmen;
for one very good reason that they had two land frontiers
to defend. Their kings and statesmen understood armies
better than navies, and the French people themselves liked