There was no temptation to them to take possession of Canada.

The lands south of the Lakes were more fertile than those north of the Lakes, and the climate was better.

The few American settlers who did care to go into Canada found people speaking their own tongue, and with much the same ways of life; so that they readily assimilated with them, as they could not assimilate with the French and Spanish creoles.

Canada lay north, and the tendency of the backwoodsman was to thrust west; among the Southern backwoodsmen, the tendency was south and southwest.

The Mississippi formed no natural barrier whatever.