The domestic history of the restored Stuarts cannot be understood without an appreciation of the influence of the French and of the Dutch on English politics. This was equally true of the colonies in North America. There the French colony of Canada, if thinly peopled, was firmly established and vigorous. Indian alliances, the necessities of the fur trade, and the adventurous characters of the French missionaries and fur-traders, led the French towards expansion inland, while the character of the English settlers, their social and economic pattern, and the position of their colonies near open navigable water emphasised their tendency to settle in rigid communities. The English looked towards the Atlantic for trade and supplies, and when they spread inland it was a slow but possessive movement, taking Indian lands for settlement where the French were content to explore, to trade and to intermingle.

By comparison with the Canadian population of about 2000 in 1660, the English colonies were strong and populous. The New England group (Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Haven, Maine and New Hampshire) had reached a population of about 20,800 by 1640, and the southern (Chesapeake) colonies of Virginia and Maryland about 17,300, while the British West Indies already had a total of about 38,000. But there were serious differences between the New England colonies, there was little in common between the New England colonies and the southern plantations, and even the English position on the coast was broken by the French colony of Acadia and by the Dutch colony of New Netherland, commanding the fine harbour of New Amsterdam.