What, then, was the effect of the capture of Canada upon the settlers of the Thirteen Colonies? We stand at the parting of the ways. The Treaty of Paris not only marked the increase of the British dominions beyond the seas, but also carried within it the germ of the future schism within the British Empire. Several of the Thirteen Colonies had for many years been filled with "a spirit of independence, puritan in religion, and republican in politics."[304] Ever since the seventeenth century the people of Massachusetts had kicked against the pricks of the Navigation Act. The danger from the north and the west had undoubtedly had a repressive influence upon the colonists, and had kept them subservient to the English colonial system, which they hated and which was in reality at the root of their disaffection. The Peace of Paris removed all danger from Spain in the south, while the French danger was removed by the victory of Wolfe; and the rising colonies felt themselves as a new race about to start some great venture. They were (they knew it themselves, and the French recognised it most clearly) absolutely free to choose their future. The sagacious Vergennes predicted events that actually occurred. "England," he said, "will soon repent of having removed the only check that could keep her colonies in awe. They stand no longer in need of her protection. She will call on them to contribute towards supporting the burdens they have helped to bring on her, and they will answer by striking off all dependence."[305] The defeat of New France meant the possibilities of a new nation in the Western hemisphere; and Old France revenged herself for the loss of her would-be Empire by throwing in her lot with those aforetime jealous and jarring Thirteen States. Old France, therefore, though she knew her own Empire was gone, largely assisted to create the new nation, the new people, the United States of America. The Thirteen Colonies had scarcely been taught the lessons of unity by the horrors of Indian barbarities and the French border war; but so much as they had learnt they tried to put into practice at the first Philadelphian Congress, and at the time of the Declaration of Independence. The Treaty of Paris, one of the most important of all colonial treaties, was merely the forerunner of that other great Treaty of Versailles; the former gave to us the vast area now known as the Dominion of Canada; the latter marked the disappearance of England's Thirteen Colonies, and the creation of the United States of America. It would not have been any very great or wonderful prophecy for a statesman, after the Treaty of Paris, to have foretold the rise of that new nation which has grown with such marvellous strides; and it would not have been inappropriate for him to have used the words of the poet in which to describe this great evolution, and say, "Methinks, I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation, rousing herself as a strong