Loud and constant were the complaints of the colonists against these shameful abuses of power; but they fell either upon ears determined not to hear, or were misrepresented and refracted by the medium through which they passed. The outer aspect of New France was bold and formidable, but within all was corruption, languor, and decay. The seignorial tenure[62] and the custom law of Paris fatally embarrassed agricultural improvement, and the monopoly of the Merchant Company paralyzed trade. The absolute system of government, and the intrusive exercise of imperial power in even the most trivial matters of colonial interest, cramped individual energy by the constraining force of centralization. The military[63] system of feudal organization turned the plow-shares and reaping-hooks of the most active among the population into weapons of war, and the settlements, that were little else than scattered barracks for troops, made but small progress in the truly glorious war against the desolation of the wilderness. While the hardy _voyageurs_ of the Ottawa and the farmers of the rich Valley of the St. Lawrence reaped the laurels of the bloody fight at Fort du Quesne, the canoes, once richly laden with the furs of the Western country, floated idly in the stream, and the exuberant soil by the banks of the Great River was overrun with a harvest of useless or noxious weeds. Thus it was that, while the military superstructure of this great French colony was strong and imposing, the social and political foundations were false and feeble. On the other hand, the dangerous British rivals had rapidly advanced to prosperity and to the possession of formidable resources. The State of Massachusetts alone mustered 40,000 men capable of bearing arms, by one third a greater number than all Canada could produce. The militia of Connecticut was 27,000 strong, and that of New Hampshire and Rhode Island also considerable. Pennsylvania, Virginia, and other states were also in themselves powerful, but in military matters New England ever took the lead. The sturdy Nonconformists who first peopled that country had been long accustomed to encounter and overcome difficulties: they had continually waged a war of mutual extermination with the Indians. The unbending spirit of their ancestors lost nothing under such training. Each separate settlement possessed an independent vitality; the habit of self-government engendered a feeling of confidence in their own power, and they who had marched with steady step over the barriers of an almost impenetrable forest, and swept away the warlike hordes of its savage inhabitants, were no mean foes to match even against the brilliant chivalry of France.