After ridding the continent of the Dutch and the Swedes the French and English fought for dominance of the North American fur trade. This lucrative trade financed in large part the colonisation of the continent, from the time of the pilgrims until the late 19th century. The English and French worked hard to get the native Americans on side and to fight for them against the other. Eventually and predictably after numerous skirmishes war broke out in 1754 around Forks of Ohio (on the Ohio River, an eastern tributary of the Mississippi.) Shots fired on 24 May that year sparked the “French and Indian War in America (1754 – 63), which morphed into the Seven Year War in Europe (1756 – 63). These wars lead to the expulsion of France from North America.
The French were equivocal – King Louis XV’s mistress Madame de Pompadour commented, on the fall of Quebec, “It makes little difference; Canada is useful only to provide me with furs.” Voltaire said at the time “I like peace better than I like Canada”.
Interestingly two small fishing islands in Canada remained in French hands – Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, both off the Gulf of St Lawrence. These islands are still French possessions today. The French also retained the right to fish on the Grand Banks southeast of Newfoundland, which had long been the worlds most productive cod fishing grounds.
A sense of joy and expectation that the British felt in conquering New France comes though the writings of Jonathan Mayhew, a pastor at the West Church in Boston. In a speech he delivered on October 25, 1759, a month or so after the fall of Quebec, Mayhew expounded upon what he and many other Britains believed would ensue now that Britain had beaten back the French. “An extensive trade will of course be opened with all the savage nations back of us: particularly the fur trade, of late years almost engrossed by the French who have had those savages in their interest. They must now hunt for us in our turn, in order to pay us for the necessaries which they must come to us for. Which is also in some measure applicable to the Canadians themselves, that country being reduced, if any of them shall remain therein. They must all be supplied by us, and pay us for it in some way or other. So that in short, all the commerce of this part of the world, from the northward of Hudson’s Bay to Florida, and back to the Mississippi, or near it, will of course be in the hands of British subjects: A commerce, which will greatly increase the demand for British manufactures, and both well employ and maintain many thousand more people in Great-Britain, than do or can get a livelihood here at present in any honest way. It will also much increase her navigation and that of her colonies.
(From Fur Fortune and Empire, E J Dolin 2010)