Terre Napoleón; a History of French Explorations and Projects in Australia by Ernest Scott
page 29 of 287 (10%)
page 29 of 287 (10%)
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the French Canadians. But throughout the great wars Canada remained loyal
to the British connection, despite internal difficulties and discontents. Great Britain also held Newfoundland, as well as those maritime provinces which have since become federated as part of the Dominion. In South America she possessed British Guiana, and for a period, as related above, French Guiana also. In the West Indies, in 1800, her flag flew over the entire crescent of the Windward and Leeward groups from Granada to the Virgins; she was mistress of Trinidad, Tobago, Jamaica, the "still vexd" Bermudas and the whole bunch of the Bahamas; and she had interests in San Domingo. At the Peace of Amiens she retained only Trinidad of the islands captured during the war; and she presented no very stubborn resistance to the negro revolt that lost her any further control over the largest of the sugar islands. She had the Cape of Good Hope in her custody in 1800, but weakly allowed it to be bartered away by diplomacy at Amiens; only, however, to reassert her power there six years later, when it became at length apparent to British statesmen--as it surely should have been obvious to them throughout--that Australia and India could not be secure while the chief southern harbour of Africa was in foreign possession. Ceylon was retained as a sparkling jewel for the British crown when so much that had been won in fair fight was allowed to slip away. The capture of Java (1811) and its restoration to the Dutch belong to a later period; whilst the growth of British power in India scarcely falls within the scope of a brief review of the colonial situation, though of great |
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