and thriving very largely because these institutions enabled local
needs to be duly considered and attracted settlers of many types.

(b) The Period of Systematic Colonial Policy, 1660-1713

The second half of the seventeenth century was a period of
systematic imperial policy on the part of both England and France;
for both countries now realised that in the profitable field of
commerce, at any rate, the Dutch had won a great advantage over
them.

France, after many internal troubles and many foreign wars, had at
last achieved, under the government of Louis XIV., the boon of
firmly established order. She was now beyond all rivalry the
greatest of the European states, and her king and his great
finance minister, Colbert, resolved to win for her also supremacy
in trade and colonisation. But this was to be done absolutely
under the control and direction of the central government. Until
the establishment of the German Empire, there has never been so
marked an instance of the centralised organisation of the whole
national activity as France presented in this period. The French
East India Company was revived under government direction, and
began for the first time to be a serious competitor for Indian
trade. An attempt was made to conquer Madagascar as a useful base
for Eastern enterprises. The sugar industry in the French West
Indian islands was scientifically encouraged and developed, though
the full results of this work were not apparent until the next
century. France began to take an active share in the West African
trade in slaves and other commodities. In Canada a new era of
prosperity began; the population was rapidly increased by the