France by the loss of Florida, which became a British possession; in turn she received from France Louisiana. Thus the Seven Years' War ended, {328} closing the story of New France; and on the line of the St. Lawrence, under British rule, grew up the Canadian nation. [Footnote 39: Lord Chesterfield's views on the preliminaries of the Peace of Paris, not yet fully known when he wrote, are interesting. In a letter dated Nov. 13, 1762 (1775 ed., vol. iv, pp. 190, 191, Letter 328), he writes, 'We have by no means made so good a bargain with France (i.e. as with Spain), for in truth what do we get by it except Canada, with a very proper boundary of the river Mississippi, and that is all? As for the restrictions upon the French fishery in Newfoundland, they are very well _per la predica_, and for the Commissary whom we shall employ, for he will have a good salary from hence to see that those restrictions are complied with, and the French will double that salary, that he may allow them all to be broken through. It is plain to me that the French fishery will be exactly what it was before the war.... But, after all I have said, the articles are as good as I expected with France, when I considered that no one single person, who carried on this negotiation on our parts, was ever concerned or consulted in any negotiation before. Upon the whole then the acquisition of Canada has cost us four score millions sterling.'] NOTE.--For the above, see the books specified at the end of the preceding chapter. In these two chapters the original dispatches have been consulted, and much use has been made of KNOX'S _Historical Journal of the Campaigns in North America_ (London, 1769). {329} CHAPTER XI GENERAL SUMMARY In order to sum up the story of New France, it is proposed in the present chapter to try to answer the four following questions. What effect had geography on the history of Canada down to the year 1763? Why did France lose Canada? What were the respective merits and defects of the French and English systems and policies in North America? And lastly, was the contest between the two powers and the victory of one inevitable, and was it beneficial? These four questions overlap each other, and the answers involve considerable repetition of what has gone before; but a short general summary may be useful to those who care to study the earlier history of Canada in reference to the general history of colonization. [Sidenote: _Position of the French among colonizing nations._]