ceased, leaving the Canadians better contented with the Government under which they lived, and less disposed to form relationships with the colonists by whom the authority of that Government had been cast off. CHAPTER IX. CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. In course of years the English Government fought out its quarrel with the revolted American colonists and was defeated. [Sidenote: 1783 A.D.] A treaty of peace was concluded, and the independence which America had proved herself able to maintain was now acknowledged. At the opening of the war England had borrowed a suggestion from France, and sought, by attaching the valley of the Mississippi to Canada, to shut in the Americans on the west as on the north by Canadian settlements breathing the spirit of loyalty and submissiveness. The Americans would endure no such restriction. The southern boundary of Canada was now the St. Lawrence river and the great lakes out of which it flows. The vast western region with its boundless capability was made over to the victorious colonists. England held only the north. The two branches of the Anglo-Saxon family had divided in nearly equal proportions the whole enormous area of the North American continent. As one of the results of the revolutionary war, Canada gained a large accession to her population and her prosperity. There were among the Americans a considerable number of persons who did not sympathize with the aims of the majority, and who had given good wishes and occasionally active support to the royal cause. Congress had given to the British Government a promise that it would endeavour to mitigate the discomforts which the unpopularity of the cause those persons had clung to now entailed. But the victors did not at once forgive those who resisted the national desire, and the position of the royalists became intolerable. It was resolved to make provision for them in Canada, where they could still enjoy those relations with the English monarchy their love for which had cost them so dear. Western Canada was still almost wholly unpeopled. There were a few soldiers at Niagara, and some inconsiderable French settlements near Detroit. Kingston had been abandoned; the settlers at Toronto had been chased away during the troubles which preceded the conquest, and the traces which they left had been long covered by the luxuriant growth of the fertile wilderness. The vast expanse of rich land which lies along the upper waters of the St. Lawrence and the northern shores of Lake Ontario still waited the coming of the husbandman.