At the time there was a substantial debate during the peace negotiations whether it would be more valuable to control Canada or Guadeloupe. At the negotiations France decided that Canada was untenable given the much larger British presence on the Continent and the expense of garrisoning a such a large area that Canada (famously characterized by Voltaire at the time as "
a few acres of snow") was less valuable to than the commercially lucrative (based on sugar production) and much more defensible Guadeloupe and the other French sugar islands in the Caribbean. In the UK, it was decided, although they were victorious over France and Spain, that much of their conquests would be returned in order to prevent provoking a future war with France (we all know how well that strategy worked out

) and it was debated whether it would be Canada or Guadeloupe that would be returned to France. Although from a modern perspective it seems an absurd debate to have, at the time there was actually some very good reasons for potentially choosing to keep Guadeloupe rather than Canada: In addition to being much easier to defend,
Guadeloupe was much more economically productive than Canada exporting £6 million (and more sugar than all the British West Indies combined) to Canada's mere £14 thousand. Ultimately the British decided to keep Canada for strategic reasons, wanting to get end large scale French presence of the North American mainland.
However, what would have happened if the choice had been different? What if France had decided to try and keep Canada even at the cost of Guadeloupe at the negotiation table, and/or what if the commercial lure of Guadeloupe and all its sugar overrode British strategic concerns on the Continent, resulting in a situation where Guadeloupe is ceded to Great Britain, but France keeps Canada? How would this have changed the development of North America, including the upcoming American Revolution; would a large French territory to their north and west straighten the revolutionaries' position, or would it make the American populace more fearful of revolting against Britain with another recently hostile European power on its borders? Would this have any major effects on European history? How do you think the land that we now know as Canada and the US would be like today?