Yet, sometimes, even the most important of them, sweeping though they were, were in parts less sweeping than they seemed.

It would be impossible to overestimate the far-reaching effects of the overthrow of the French power in America; but Lower Canada, where the fatal blow was given, itself suffered nothing but a political conquest, which did not interfere in the least with the growth of a French state along both sides of the lower St.Lawrence.In a somewhat similar way Dutch communities have held their own, and indeed have sprung up in South Africa.
All the European nations touching on the Atlantic seaboard took part in the new work, with very varying success; Germany alone, then rent by many feuds, having no share therein.

Portugal founded a single state, Brazil.

The Scandinavian nations did little: their chief colony fell under the control of the Dutch.

The English and the Spaniards were the two nations to whom the bulk of the new lands fell: the former getting much the greater portion.