an open rupture soon took place between the two nations. The war which followed—commonly known as the French war—I have not space to treat of in detail. It lasted for nine years, first in America, then in Europe, and was terminated, in 1763, by the treaty of Paris.
This treaty ceded from France to England Canada, Nova Scotia and the Island of Cape Breton, with their dependencies; fixed the boundary between the dominions of the two nations by a line drawn along the middle of the river Mississippi from its source to the river Iberville, and from thence by a line drawn along the middle of this river and the lakes Maurepas and Ponchartrain, to the sea, and withdrew all claim on the part of France to any territory east of the Mississippi. The vast territory, thus acquired by England west of the Alleghanies, was divided out among the colonies along the Atlantic coasts and held by them by charters from their mother country until after their independence.
Spain, who had stood aloof from the conflict of the two nations until she had seen the vast territory in America wrested from France, alarmed at the increasing greatness of Britain and the danger of losing her own possessions across the Atlantic, in 1762, determined to make common cause with France, and declared war against England. But by this step she suffered what she sought to avert; for before another year had passed, she, with France, was compelled to treat for peace by relinquishing Florida in favor of England.
But France undervaluing her remnant of Louisiana, ceded it, in 1764, to Spain as a compensation for her loss of Florida. Thus the vast and fertile territory included in Canada and Louisiana, which had awakened dazzling hopes in France by the greatness of its prospects, and which had cost her so much solicitude, expense and misfortune, was swept from her by the fortune of war.
This cession of Louisiana to Spain was not made known
