It is not easy to determine why the better lot in North America, as regards geography, fell to Great Britain and not to France. It was hardly a question of prior discovery. The first pioneer for England, Cabot, struck the New World at Newfoundland or Cape Breton, far north of what became the main sphere of British colonization. The first authenticated pioneer on behalf of France, Verrazano, found his way to the present shores of the United States. The French connexion with the St. Lawrence dated from Cartier's voyages; but those voyages, though they gave the right of discovery, did not result at the time in effective occupation. It was little more than an accident that the English settled in Virginia and New England, and the French in Acadia and on the St. Lawrence; though the fact of having found the St. Lawrence, and the attraction of a great river, which might be the long-wished-for, and long-dreamt-of, highroad to the far East, may well have dictated to French instincts where New France should be. At any rate, the English gained the great initial advantage of a far larger seaboard, open at all times of the year, and a climate which was more favourable to European colonization. 'Along the continent of America which we possess,' wrote Wolfe from Louisbourg in 1758, 'there is a variety of climate, and, for the most part, healthy and pleasant.... Such is our extent of territory upon this fine continent, that an inhabitant may enjoy the kind influence of moderate warmth all the year round.'[5] [Footnote 5: Wolfe to his mother, Aug. 11, 1758 (Wright, p. 454).] [Sidenote: _English superiority in numbers mainly due to French policy towards the Huguenots._] With this advantage, it was natural that there should be greater immigration into the English colonies than into Canada. But this was not the only, or the main, cause of the superior numbers in the English colonies. The main {338} cause was the policy of the French Government, and especially its religious policy. The most fatal mistake made by the French in regard to North America was the exclusion of the Huguenots. The men who wished to leave England went to the present United States. The men who wished to leave France were not allowed to go to Canada, and went in considerable numbers to England and her colonies. The effect, therefore, of Roman Catholic exclusiveness was that, though France had a far greater population than England, the greatest French colony failed for want of colonists. Nor was it only a matter of quantity, but a matter of quality also. The Huguenots were the type of men who would make homes, create business, and build up communities beyond the seas. They were of the same strong fibre as the New England Puritans. In the competition of the coming time, New France was doomed in consequence of being closed to the French Protestants. [Sidenote: _Numerical superiority of the English forces in North America in the Seven Years' War._]