The Revolution began at the top,—in the world of fashion, birth, and intellect,—and propagated itself downwards. - Francis Parkman

A happier calamity never befell a people than the conquest of Canada by the British arms.

France built its best colony on a principle of exclusion, and failed; England reversed the system, and succeeded.

When America was first made known to Europe, the part assumed by France on the borders of that new world was peculiar, and is little recognized. While the Spaniard roamed sea and land, burning for achievement, red-hot with bigotry and avarice, and while England, with soberer steps and a less dazzling result, followed in the path of discovery and gold-hunting, it was from France that those barbarous shores first learned to serve the ends of peaceful commercial industry.