Quote:
Originally Posted by kool maudit
What about... Montcalm defeats Wolfe but New France remains a desultory imperial afterthought. American Revolution still occurs despite absence of Quebec Act (there were other Intolerable Acts, after all), Halifax becomes largest city of British North America and a major naval port in the buildup to avenge the loss on the Plains.
Nova Scotian British troops sweep upriver in 1837, capturing Montreal and Quebec City. The latter is burned, the former becomes a sizeable British port, albeit with no Lachine Canal power-up as BNA's nascent industrial revolution is centered in Halifax and New Glasgow.
Maritime reign of the New Atlantis, Hollis Street metonym for BNA finance, lobster roll hyperorgy, oligarch palaces out to Chester.
I might be missing some stuff.
Edit: my time gap sucks but its because I'm trying to do a stich from the Plains to the industrial revolution.
|
That is an unlikely scenario. The most likely one, if France had invested more in New France and sent enough troops and men, Québec City would never have been captured, New France would have remained for some decades (until eventual independence? but probably a more peaceful one, like Australia becoming independent from the UK). Montréal would probably have become the Chicago of North America. There would be basically two primary megacities in North America: an English-speaking one (NYC) and a French-speaking one (Montréal). It's very unlikely that a rump small British North America in Nova Scotia would have launched an invasion of French Canada (not enough men and financial means, and no interest from the British motherland after the independence of the US, they were far more focused on India, Nova Scotia would have been a backwater for them).
More likely, the real risk would have been endless Franco-US wars. The USA would never have accepted to border a large French empire, and would have invaded countless times. Whether the French government in Paris would have been willing to spend the enormous capital needed to defend New France against an independent USA is debatable... My feeling is no (they did not even spend the much smaller capital needed to defend it against Great Britain), but demographics could have made a difference. With enough French settlers in New France, there's not much the USA could have done if they had invaded New France. You cannot subjugate a country that is already inhabited by many people. Of course all of this assumes more interest from France in New France and more French people migrating to New France, which, in the real world, never took place. Less than 10,000 French people migrated to New France, compared to 600,000 people who migrated from the UK to the 13 colonies, despite France having more than twice the population of the UK at the time.