The first English settlement which became permanent in Virginia was founded in 1606. Seven years later--while the settlement was still struggling for existence--the colonists began to form purposes of aggression against their still feebler neighbours in the far north. It was their custom to send annually to the great banks of Newfoundland a fleet of fishing-boats under convoy of an armed ship. Once the commander of this escort was a warlike person named Samuel Argall, whose lofty aims could not be restricted to the narrow sphere which had been assigned to him. While the boats which were his charge industriously plied their calling, Argall turned his thoughts to the larger pursuit of national aggrandizement. [Sidenote: 1613 A.D.] He affirmed the right of England to all the lands in his neighbourhood. The French had an armed vessel on the coast: Argall attacked and captured her. The French had formed a very feeble settlement on Penobscot Bay: Argall landed and laid in ruins the few buildings which composed it. He crammed seventeen of his prisoners into an open boat and turned them adrift at sea. The others were carried to Jamestown, where they came near to being hanged as pirates. Thus early and thus lawlessly opened the strife which was to close, a century and a half later, with the victory of the English on the Heights of Abraham and the expulsion of French rule from the American continent. During the greater portion of that time England and France were at war, and the infant settlements of Acadie and Canada formed a natural prey to English adventurers. [Sidenote: 1628 A.D.] King James bestowed Acadie upon a countryman whom he befriended, and this new proprietor sent out a fleet to establish his claims. The lawless commander of this expedition did not scruple, in a time of peace, to possess himself of Quebec. Three times the English took Acadie: once they held it jointly with France for eleven years; then they restored it. [Sidenote: 1713 A.D.] Finally, it became theirs by the Treaty of Utrecht, and was henceforth known as Nova Scotia. As the New England colonies increased in strength they waged independent war with Canada. [Sidenote: 1664 A.D.] A little farther on the English conquered New York, and gradually extended their occupation northward to the Great Lakes. The Frenchmen of the St. Lawrence were their natural enemies. The English sought to possess themselves of the Canadian fur trade, and to that end made alliance with the Iroquois Indians, who were then a controlling power in the valley of the Hudson. There were perpetual border wars--cruel and wasteful. Often the Englishmen of New York attacked the Frenchmen of Canada; still more frequently they stimulated the Indians to hostility. Always there was strife, which made the colonies weak, and often threatened their extinction. It was not at first that England cared to possess Canada; it was rather that she could not witness the undisturbed possession by France of any territory