It was fortunate for British supremacy in Canada that the French Canadians had been so often at war with the Yankees that at the War of Independence they were all instinctively on the side of the Power that was hostile to the Yankees. The French Canadians could have wished for nothing less than incorporation with the Puritan New England States and the Quaker State of Pennsylvania. They were already feeling the good effects of English government and were settling down to the peaceful development of their lands. There might have been danger of them instinctively favouring France in future wars between England and France, but the Revolution of 1789 put an end to all that. The Revolution was the end of the ancient _régime_ in France and with it of the colonial domination of the Gallican Catholic Church. The French Canadians belonged to the ancient _régime_ and had been preserved from the worst vices and corruptions of the Roman Catholic Church in the Old Country. Canada offered a refuge to a large number of priests and _émigrés_, and the French Roman Catholics brought with them appalling stories of the horrors and blasphemies of the Revolution. The French Canadians regarded the English, during their long war with the Republic and then with Napoleon, as the restorers alike of Royalty and Catholicism in France, and they thanked heaven every day that they were living under the Union Jack rather than under the Imperial standard of the Corsican usurper. When in 1812 the United States declared war against Great Britain, the French Canadians fought as patriotically and valiantly as the English Canadians against the Yankee invaders, and shared in the glory of driving back the Americans and defeating them on their own soil. A long period followed in which little interest was taken by the Old Country in Canada. England attached small value to its Dominion across the Atlantic. Then there came political troubles which might have led to serious insurrection and civil war between the English Colonials and the French Canadians. The population was increasing and the French were not satisfied with the share they were taking in the government. The troubles were settled by a wise measure of conciliation which led to the laying of the foundation for the federation of the Canadian Provinces in the present Dominion. Now, though the French Canadians still keep themselves very much to themselves and regard their religion and their language almost as superstitiously as savages their fetishes, the only rivalry between the French and English-speaking Canadians is rivalry as to which are the best Canadians, the most fervent patriots, and the most loyal British Imperialists.