in its full latitude, by the law of nations, was preposterous; by a candid interpretation of treaties, was untenable. In their reply to the British claim, the French commissaries, in like manner disregarding the obvious construction of treaties, narrowed Acadia to the strip of land on the Atlantic, between Cape St. Mary and Cape Canso.

There existed in France statesmen who thought Canada itself an incumbrance, difficult to be defended, entailing expenses more than benefits. But La Galissonière pleaded to the ministry, that honor, glory, and religion forbade the abandonment of faithful and affectionate colonists, and the renunciation of the great work of converting the infidels of the wilderness; that Detroit was the natural centre of a boundless inland commerce; that the country of Illinois, in a delightful climate, was an open prairie, waiting for the plough; that Canada and Louisiana were the bulwarks of France in America against English ambition. De Puysieux, the French minister for foreign affairs, like the English secretary, Bedford, was earnestly desirous of avoiding war; but a fresh collision in America touched the sense of honor of the French nation, and made negotiation hopeless.

A French brigantine with a schooner, laden with provisions and warlike stores, and bound from Quebec to the river St. John's, was met by Rous in the British ship-of-war "Albany," off Cape Sable. He fired a gun to bring her to; she kept on her course: he fired another and a third; and the brigantine prepared for action. The English instantly poured into her a broadside and a volley of small arms; and, after a short action, compelled her to strike. "Albany" had a midshipman and two mariners killed; the French lost five men. The brigantine was taken to Halifax, and condemned in the admiralty court. On the side of France, indignation knew no bounds; it seemed that its flag had been insulted, its maritime rights disregarded, its men wantonly slain in time of peace, its property piratid and confiscated.

The

rritory which is now Vermont was equally in disew York carried its limits to the Connecticut France, which had command of Lake Champlain, ex

tended her pretensions to the crest of the Green Mountains; while Wentworth, the only royal governor in New England, began to convey the soil between the Connecticut and Lake Champlain by grants under the seal of New Hampshire.

A deeper interest hung over the region drained by the Ohio. What language shall be the mother tongue of its future millions? Shall the Romanic or the Teutonic race form the seed of its people? This year, Thomas Walker, of Virginia, conducted an exploring party into the south-west, and gave the name of Cumberland to a range of mountains, a pass, and a river; Ambrose Powell carved on a beech-tree his name, which is still borne by a river and a valley.

For their friends and allies on the north of the Ohio, against whom the French were making preparations, the Six Nations asked the protection of New York. After concert with the governor of Pennsylvania, Clinton, in September, 1750, appealed to the assembly for means to confirm their Indian alliances, and to assist "in securing the fidelity of the Indians on Ohio River." The assembly refused; and the Onondagas, whose chief was a professed Roman Catholic, whose castles contained a hundred neophytes, whose warriors glittered in brave apparel from France, scoffed with one another at the parsimonious colonists.

The French, by their system of administration, insured obedience to "one council and one voice." To counteract their designs, the best minds in New York and other provinces were devising methods for "uniting the colonies. on the main." Of all the southern provinces, South Carolina was most ready to join with the rest of the continent. Doubting whether union could be effected "without an immediate application to his majesty for that purpose," the council of New York still determined that the governor "should write to all the governors upon the continent, that have Indian nations in their alliance, to invite commissioners from their respective governments" to meet the savage chiefs at Albany. But, from what Clinton called "the penurious temper of American assemblies," this invitation. was not generally accepted, though it forms one important step in the progress of America towards union.

While Pennsylvania, in strife with its proprietaries, neglected its western frontier, the Ohio company of Virginia, profiting by the intelligence of Indian hunters, who had followed every stream to its head-spring and crossed every gap in the mountain ranges, discovered the path by Will's Creek to the Ohio. Their stores of goods, in 1750, were carried no further than that creek. There they were sold to traders, who, with rivals from Pennsylvania, penetrated the west as far as the Miamis.

To search out and discover the lands westward of "the Great Mountains," the Ohio company summoned the adventurous Christopher Gist from his frontier home on the Yadkin. He was instructed to examine the western country as far as the falls of the Ohio; to look for a large tract of good level land; to mark the passes in the mountains; to trace the courses of the rivers; to count the falls; to observe the strength and numbers of the Indian nations.

On the last day of October, the bold messenger of civilization parted from the Potomac. He passed through snows over "the stony and broken land" of the Alleghanies; he halted among the twenty Delaware families that composed Shanoppin's town on the south-east side of the Ohio; swimming his horses across the river, he descended through the rich but narrow valley to Logstown. "You are come," said the jealous people, "to settle the Indians' lands: you never shall go home safe." Yet they respected him as a messenger from the English king. From the Great Beaver Creek he crossed to the Muskingum, killing deer and wild turkeys. On Elk's Eye Creek he found a village of the Ottawas, friends to the French. The hundred families of Wyandots, or Little Mingoes, at Muskingum, were divided; one half adhering to the English. George Croghan, the missary from Pennsylvania, was already there; and traders ame with the news that two of his people were taken by a Darty of French and Indians, and carried to the new fort at Sandusky. "Come and live with us," said the Wyandots o Gist; "bring great guns and make a fort. If the French claim the branches of the lakes, those of the Ohio belong to us and our brothers, the English." When they heard that

1751.

still another English trader had been taken, they would have killed three French deserters for revenge. In January, 1751, after a delay of more than a month, the Wyandots held a council at Muskingum; but, while they welcomed the English agents, and accepted their strings of wampum, they deferred their decision to a general council of their several nations. Leaving the Wyandots, and crossing at White Woman's Creek, where had long stood the home of a weary New England captive, the agent of Virginia reached the last town of the Delawares, five miles above the mouth of the Scioto. These, like the others of their tribe, who counted in all five hundred warriors, promised good-will and love to the English.

Just below the mouth of the Scioto lay the houses of the Shawnees, on each side of the Ohio. Their room of state was on the north side, in length ninety feet, roofed with bark. They gratefully adhered to the English, who had averted from them the wrath of the Six Nations.

From the Shawnee town the envoys of the English world crossed the Little Miami, and journeyed in February towards the Miami River; first of white men on record, they saw that the land beyond the Scioto, except the first twenty miles, is rich and level, bearing walnut-trees of huge size, the maple, the wild cherry, and the ash; full of little streams and rivulets; variegated by beautiful natural prairies, covered with wild rye, blue grass, and white clover. Turkeys abounded, and deer, and elks, and most sorts of game; of buffaloes, thirty or forty were frequently seen feeding in one meadow. "Nothing," they cried, "is wanting but cultivation to make this a most delightful country." Their horses swam over the swollen current of the Great Miami; on a raft of logs they transported their goods and saddles; outside of the town of the Picqualennees, the warriors came forth with the peace-pipe, to smoke with them the sacred welcome. They entered the village with the English colors, were received as guests into the king's house, and planted the red cross upon its roof.

The Miamis were the most powerful confederacy of the west, excelling the Six Nations, with whom they were in

amity. Each tribe had its own chief; of whom one, at that time the chief of the Piankeshaws, was chosen indifferently to rule the whole nation. They formerly dwelt on the Wabash, but, for the sake of trading with the English, drew nearer the east. Their influence reached to the Mississippi, and they received frequent visits from tribes beyond that river. The town of Picqua contained about four hundred families, and was one of the strongest in that part of the continent.

On the night of the arrival of the envoys from Virginia and Pennsylvania, two strings of wampum, given at the Long House of the villages, removed trouble from their hearts and cleared their eyes; and four other belts confirmed the message from the Wyandots and Delawares, commending the English to their care.

In the days that followed, the traders' men helped the men of Picqua repair their fort; and distributed clothes and paint, that they might array themselves for the council. When it was told that deputies from the Wawiachtas, or, as we call them, Weas, and from the Piankeshaws, were coming, deputies from the Picquas went forth to meet them. The English were summoned to the Long House, to sit for a quarter of an hour in the silence of expectation, when two from each tribe, commissioned by their nations to bring the long pipe, entered with their message and their calumet.

On the twenty-first of February, after a distribution of presents, articles of peace and alliance were drawn up between the English of Pennsylvania on the one side, and the Weas and Piankeshaws on the other; were signed and sealed in duplicate, and delivered on both sides. All the friendly tribes of the west were to meet the next summer at Logstown, for a general treaty with Virginia.

The indentures had just been exchanged, when four Ottawas drew near, with a present from the governor of Canada; were admitted to the council, and desired a renewal of friendship with their fathers, the French. The king of the Piankeshaws, setting up the English colors in the council, as well as the French, rose and replied: "The path to the French is bloody, and was made so by them. We have