Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 4).djvu/15

 PREFACE

HE French were invariably defeated by the British on this continent because the latter overcame natural obstacles which the former blindly trusted as insurmountable. The French made a league with the Alleghenies—and Washington and Braddock and Forbes conquered the Alleghenies; the French, later, blindly trusted the crags at Louisbourg and Quebec—and the dauntless Wolfe, in both instances, accomplished the seemingly impossible.

The building of Braddock's Road in 1755 across the Alleghenies was the first significant token in the West of the British grit which finally overcame. Few roads ever cost so much, ever amounted to so little at first, and then finally played so important a part in the development of any continent.

A. B. H.