France and Britain had been arch enemies for centuries. New France (Quebec) was taken over by the British. Ben Franklin had a newspaper in Montreal. You’d think there’d be some influence and rationale for Quebec to secede from Britain and join the US during the war of independence, but it didn’t. Why not?
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The very short version:
1. The québécois had just spent 100 years viewing the English colonies as arch-enemies and hated opponents, so they were in no rush to join up.
2. The English had basically just given them self-rule, so independence didn’t offer them anything they didn’t already have.
3. The English had also guaranteed their Catholicism, so they were less than enthused about the idea of chaining themselves to a bunch of Puritans.
4. The French Crown had lost to the British despite having a huge navy, vast wealth, and the world’s best army. So they were rightly skeptical of the chances of victory of a group of amateurs with no money, no training, and no navy.
5. They were used to high taxes and they didn’t have a trade with the Caribbean being strangled by British regulations, so they basically saw the Americans as a bunch of spoiled whiny slave traders who weren’t worth helping.
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