Terre Napoleón; a History of French Explorations and Projects in AustraliaScott, Ernest, Sir
History
Terre Napoleón; a History of French Explorations and Projects in Australia
Scott, Ernest, Sir
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Baudin, Nicolas, 1754-1803; Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821
It would be simple to sum up the colonial situation of Great Britain in
the period under review, by saying that she gained just in the measure
that France lost. But such a crude formula would not convey a sufficient
sense of her actual achievements. The end of the great war left her with
a wider dominion than that with which she was endowed when she plunged
into the struggle; but it left her also with augmented power and
prestige, a settled sense of security, and a steeled spirit of
resolution--elements not measurable on the scale of the map, but counting
as immense factors in the government and development of oversea
possessions.
The details of the British colonial empire during the storm epoch, are as
follow:--
In Canada she governed a belt of country stretching from the Atlantic to
the Pacific, divided for administrative purposes into two areas, one of
which, Lower Canada--embracing the cities of Quebec and Montreal, and
including the basin of the St. Lawrence--was populated principally by
people of French origin. It would be too much to suppose that these
colonists, who jealously preserved the French language and the French
tradition, were indifferent to the doings of their kin across the water;
and there were, indeed, many who cherished the hope that events would so
shape themselves as to restore the authority of France in this part of
the New World. But the habitant was Roman Catholic as well as French, and
the hierarchy was profoundly distrustful of the regime which it regarded
as the heritage of the hateful ideas of 1789. We may speculate as to what
would have happened if Napoleon had set himself to woo the affections of
the French Canadians. But throughout the great wars Canada remained loyal
to the British connection, despite internal difficulties and discontents.
Great Britain also held Newfoundland, as well as those maritime provinces
which have since become federated as part of the Dominion.
In South America she possessed British Guiana, and for a period, as
related above, French Guiana also.
In the West Indies, in 1800, her flag flew over the entire crescent of
the Windward and Leeward groups from Granada to the Virgins; she was
mistress of Trinidad, Tobago, Jamaica, the "still vexd" Bermudas and the
whole bunch of the Bahamas; and she had interests in San Domingo. At the
Peace of Amiens she retained only Trinidad of the islands captured during
the war; and she presented no very stubborn resistance to the negro
revolt that lost her any further control over the largest of the sugar
islands.
She had the Cape of Good Hope in her custody in 1800, but weakly allowed
it to be bartered away by diplomacy at Amiens; only, however, to reassert
her power there six years later, when it became at length apparent to
British statesmen--as it surely should have been obvious to them
throughout--that Australia and India could not be secure while the chief
southern harbour of Africa was in foreign possession.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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