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116 proper support from the colonies, was accomplishing the eighth wonder of the world. It was desperate work. But a Bull-dog was creeping nearer each day.

Throughout the winter the British ministry and the Court of Versailles had been exchanging the most ridiculous pretenses of peace while secretly preparing for war with dispatch. For every ill-recruited regiment King George sent to Virginia, King Louis sent two famous regiments to Canada, and they arrived there despite Boscawen, the English admiral, who captured two unimportant ships. Yet that was enough to precipitate the struggle and save more fables from the respective ambassadors; "I will not pardon the piracies of that insolent nation," exclaimed Louis—and open war was inevitable.

At his landing at Quebec Vaudreuil found not less than twelve thousand soldiers in Canada to defend the claims of his King. But that was a long frontier to man, from Quebec to New Orleans, and in April only about one thousand men were forwarded to defend the Ohio river. Of these Contrecœur had not more than three hundred, probably