fell into the hands of the British. General Wolfe died upon the field of battle.
In 1760, the French made an unsuccessful attempt to recover Quebec. In less than a year from the capture of that city, Montreal, Detroit, and all other places in the possession of the French, were surrendered to the British, and the conquest of Canada was completed.
By the treaty of peace definitively concluded at Paris in 1763, Nova Scotia, Canada, Cape Breton, and all other islands in the gulf and river St. Lawrence, were ceded to the British crown.
The protracted contest with the French and the Indians being brought to a close by the complete triumph of the English, the American Colonies were seemingly in the full tide of prosperity. The great exertions they had made during the last war had taught them the secret of their strength; that war had cost them, it was computed, about 30,000 lives and over sixteen millions of dollars, of which only five millions were repaid by the British ministry. Immigration rapidly increased, and the vast forest in the interior began to be explored by those who were in search of a new home. The Delaware and Hudson rivers were crossed by a thronging multitude, the Alleghanies were surmounted, and white settlements were formed upon the upper tributaries of the Ohio. No longer hemmed in, as with a ring of iron, by the French and the savages, the internal principle of expansion, which has been at work ever since, received its first free development, and carried the limits of civilization every year farther west. Trade flourished on the sea-coast; Boston had long been distinguished for enterprising traffic, and Newport, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore were rising rapidly in commercial importance. Printing presses and newspapers, schools and colleges, flourished, though the literature of the Colonies as yet existed only in the humble form of sermons. Yet the metaphysical writings of Jonathan Edwards slowly acquired a European reputation, and the fame of Dr. Franklin was carried, by his brilliant discoveries in electricity, to the bounds of the civilized world.
THE WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.
But the prosperity of America was now to receive a sudden check, and a contest to begin, more important to her and more momentous in its consequences, than any which the world had ever witnessed. England was oppressed by a heavy debt, which had been more than doubled by the heavy expenses of the late war, and the people were overburdened with taxes. In an evil hour, it occurred to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that this pressure might be lightened, if the American Colonies could be made to contribute to the general expenses of the empire.
Mr. Grenville introduced into parliament his bill for imposing a stamp tax on the American Colonies, and it became a law with little opposition February 6th, 1765. Stamped papers, upon which a considerable impost was to be paid, were required for all judicial proceedings, clearances at the custom-house, bills of lading, and even the diplomas granted by seminaries of learning. The law was not to take effect for about seven or eight months after its passage. The news that the bill had become a law arrived in Boston early in April; and the effect was as if a cannon had been fired so near the ears of the people that they were all stunned by the ex-
