The Making of the Great West (Illustrated Edition). Samuel Adams Drake

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The Making of the Great West (Illustrated Edition) - Samuel Adams  Drake


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of universal dominion, as the Spaniards were doing, as to seek new outlets or new sources of supply for their commerce and fisheries.

      Spain, as we have seen, forced other nations to follow her lead at a respectful distance. With one foot planted in Europe and the other in America, she bestrode the Atlantic as the colossus of the age.

      But the newly awakened spirit of discovery would not down at the bidding of prince or pontiff, let him be never so great or so powerful. Once aroused it was sure to find ways by which some part of the benefits to accrue to mankind from this grand discovery should not be monopolized by a single nation. We might even say that all the nations of Europe instinctively felt this to be their opportunity,—the opportunity of the human race.

      France had the ships, and France had the sailors. Sir Walter Raleigh tells us—and surely he is an unbiassed witness—that in Cæsar's time the French Bretons were the best sailors in the world. Were we disposed to call in question their right to this title at a later day,—the time of Columbus, Cabot, Cortereal, and Magellan,—what can be said of their boldly setting sail across an unknown ocean, like the Atlantic, in vessels not larger than a modern oyster-boat?

      Yet the names they left behind them in their adventurous voyages make it certain that these Basque and Breton fishermen pushed their way into the Gulf of St. Lawrence soon after Cabot carried home to England the news that he had been in seas alive with codfish.

      SHIPS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

      The knowledge thus gained pointed with unerring finger to the St. Lawrence as the open door through which French discoverers should pass into the spacious interior of our broad continent, though never, in their wildest flights of fancy, could they have conceived what lay beyond this door. So accident rather than choice led them on through the colder region of the north. And while the Spaniards had missed the Mississippi, a more fortunate chance led Frenchmen to find it by a very different, though no less certain, route. To them be the honor of the achievement!

      Just as the march of Spanish civilization is traced in the names given by explorers of that nation, so, in like manner, those conferred by Frenchmen shall direct us in the lines by which they journeyed onward toward the setting sun.

      Astonished to find themselves only on the threshold, as it were, of the continent, the adventurous pioneers caught their first glimpses of its undoubted grandeur. That they were dazzled by it, is something we may easily conceive.

      To such questions as these the future must make answer. All believed it would lead to India. But Champlain and those who, like him, looked at things broadly and deeply, were convinced that whoever should hold that river throughout its course would be masters of the continent it undoubtedly drained. And as Frenchmen ever loyal to their king and country, whose glory they would see increased, they purposed making here, in the wilderness, a New France which some day, perhaps, should rival, if not eclipse, the old.

      To this work the French brought one qualification peculiarly their own. It was this. Of the three nations who have contended for control in our country, none have so readily adapted themselves to the original people as the French have. None have so thoroughly respected their feelings and prejudices. And none have so easily won their confidence, or so fully commanded their services.

      A WOOD RANGER.

      If we add to this that the French are a nation of explorers, in whom discovery speedily develops into a passion, we shall get at the true animating spirit which carried them so far into the interior, whether as simple traders, soldiers, or missionaries.

      The world could ill spare one of its pioneers. They are heralds of civilization following the guiding star of its destiny.

      Footnotes

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