Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/151

 1748-9] French and British claims. 119 Indian-haunted wilderness, known only to a few hundred traders, hunters and voyageurs of both British and French nationality. The British provinces vaguely claimed everything that lay to the westward within their respective parallels. The French, on the strength of La Sailed early discoveries, claimed with equal vagueness the entire basin of the Mississippi, whose head-waters extended to Lake Erie. In other words, the English denied the right of the French to cross the Canadian lakes, while the French, on their part, desired to confine the English to the strip of country which they then occupied between the Alleghanies and the sea. But the French were preparing to put their theories into practice, and to secure the whole fur-trade of Western America. De la Gallissoniere hoped to plant French settlements in the Ohio Valley as they had been planted in Canada. He intended that forts should be built and garrisoned, and that a firm alliance should be made with the Indian tribes on the strength of their instinctive dread of the English cultivator. Thus Canada and Louisiana would be linked together by a chain of forts and a combination of military force that would certainly intimidate any land hunters or traders from the Atlantic colonies, at any rate till emigration from France should give substance to the settlements and add strength to the barrier which was designed to shut out the Anglo-Saxon from the West. Nor was it territorial greed only that prompted this ambitious scheme. It was felt that if the growing power of England in America remained unchecked it would so stimulate her prosperity as to make her a menace to France in every part of the world. In 1749 de la Gallissoniere made the first move in the game by sending his notable expedition of two hundred persons under Celeron into the heart of the Ohio wilderness. Here at certain spots they buried leaden plates on which the French monarch's claim to the country was inscribed. At others they nailed shields bearing the arms of France upon the trees. Much rhetoric was expended on Indian audiences with the object of convincing them that Louis XV, not George II, was their father. British traders found in the Indian settlements were summarily expelled and letters written to the British authorities professing surprise that British subjects should be found poaching on French territory. The French were beyond a doubt less distasteful to the Indians than their rivals. They had more natural genius for winning the affection of the natives, and had no desire to settle their lands to the detriment of the game. On the other hand the French traders could not compete with the English in the matter of good wares and low prices a very serious consideration and another urgent reason for checking if possible the British advance. De la Jonquiere and Duquesne, who succeeded de la Gallissoniere in the government of Canada, continued his policy. The harassed English traders went eastward with their grievances, while the communication of the formal and reiterated claims of the Canadian CH. IV.