[Footnote 158: "The great Colbert introduced order into the French finances in the reign of Louis XIV.; he encouraged the arts, promoted manufactures with extraordinary success (only arrested by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes), and may be said to have created the French navy. 'Je vous dois tout, sire,' said the dying Mazarin to Louis XIV., 'mais je crois m'acquitter en quelque sorte avec votre Majesté en vous donnant Colbert.'"--_Biographie Universelle_, art. Colbert.] [Footnote 159: "Unlike their Anglo-American neighbors ... and now they founded schools and courts of justice (in Virginia), and the plantation was extended 140 miles up the river on both sides. But now, when the English were secure, and thought of nothing but peace, the savages came suddenly upon them, and slew of them 347 men, women, and children.... This massacre happened by reason they had built their plantations remote from one another in above thirty several places, which made them now, upon consultation, to reduce them all to five or six places, whereby they may better assist each other, since which time they have always lived in good security."--Baker's _Chronicle_, p. 447. 1674.] [Footnote 160: These Indians lost their possessions in the States by adhering to Great Britain in the Revolutionary war, and received in compensation a settlement in Canada of 160,000 acres. Since that time they have decreased considerably, and now consist of not more than 2200 souls.] CHAPTER VII. During the early part of the eighteenth century, the British North American provinces had made extraordinary progress in population and wealth--a progress then unequaled in the world's history, and only now excelled by that of the Australian settlements. From many of the European nations, swarms of the energetic and discontented poured into the land of plenty and comparative freedom. By far the greater number of immigrants, however, were from the British islands, and their national character in a great measure, absorbed the peculiarities of all the rest. The natural increase of the population also far exceeded that of European states; the abundant supply of the necessaries of life, and immunity from oppressive restraint, produced their invariable results. In the absence of any harassing care for the future, early marriages were almost universally contracted. The man who possessed no capital but his labor found in it the means of present support, and even of future wealth; if he failed to obtain remunerative employment in the old districts, he needed only to carve out his way in the new. The fertile wilderness ever welcomed him with rude but abundant hospitality; every tree that fell beneath his ax was an obstacle removed from the road to competence; every harvest home, an earnest of yet richer rewards to come.