As
they very naturally desired to keep their own country
for themselves in their own way they always wished to
side with the stronger of the two white rivals, if they
could not get rid of both.
Such was the Canada of 1756, a country in quite as much
danger from French parasites as from British patriots.
It might have lasted for some years longer if there had
been no general war. The American colonists, though more
than twelve to one, could not have conquered it alone,
because they had no fleet and no regular army. But the
war came, and it was a great one. In a great war a country
of parasites has no chance against a country of patriots.
All the sins of sloth and wilful weakness, of demagogues
and courtiers, and whatever else is rotten in the state,
are soon found out and punished by war. Canada under
Vaudreuil and Bigot was no match for an empire under
Pitt. For one's own parasites are always the worst of
one's enemies. So the last great fight for Canada was
not a fight of three against three; but of one against
five. Montcalm the lion stood utterly alone, with two
secret foes behind him and three open foes in front--
Vaudreuil the owl, and Bigot the fox, behind; Pitt,
Saunders and Wolfe, three lions like himself, in front.
CHAPTER III
OSWEGO
1756
In 1753 the governor of Virginia had sent Washington,
then a young major of only twenty-one, to see what the
French were doing in the valley of the Ohio, where they
had been busy building forts to shut the gateway of the
West against the British and to keep it open for themselves.
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