Colonial History Vol.II page 293-295

My plan is to share the words of this book each day by adding a page of informative history.

With enlightenment to my mind, I am reading Ridpath's History of the United States with copyright of 1874 by J. T. Jones.

Each colony as it added itself to Colonial History has a unique story to tell. From 1754-1763 the American colonies began to act together. The unfolding of a union began to blossom.

COLONIAL HISTORY VOL.II page 293-295
Chapter I

“From the beginning they had been kept apart by prejudice, suspicion, and mutual jealousy. But the fathers were now dead, old antagonisms had passed away, a new generation had arisen with kindlier feelings and more charitable sentiments. But it was not so much the growth of a more liberal public opinion as it was the sense of a common danger that at last led the colonists to make a united effort. The final struggle between France and England for colonial supremacy in America was at hand. Necessity compelled the English colonies to join in a common cause against a common foe. This is the conflict known as the French and Indian War; with this great event the separate histories of the colonies are lost in the more general history of the nation. The contest began in 1754, but the causes of the war had existed for many years.

The first and greatest of these causes was the conflicting territorial claims of the two nations. England had colonized the sea-coast; France had colonized the interior of the continent. From Maine to Florida the Atlantic shore was spread with English colonies; but there were no inland settlements. The great towns were on the ocean's edge. But the claims of England reached far beyond her colonies. Based on the discoveries of the Cabots, and not limited by actual occupation, those claims extended westward to the Pacific. Far different, however, were the claims of France; the French had first colonized the valley of the St Lawrence. Montreal, one of the earliest settlements, is more than five hundred miles from the sea. If the French colonies had been limited to the St. Lawrence and its tributaries there would have been little danger of a conflict about territorial dominion. But in the latter half of the seventeenth century the French began to push their way westward and southward; first, along the shores of the great lakes, then to the headwaters of the Wabash, the Illinois, the Wisconsin, and the St. Croix, then down these streams to the Mississippi, and then to the Gulf of Mexico. The purpose of the French, as manifested in these movements, was no less than to divide the American continent and to take the larger portion for France.”