Page:The story of geographical discovery.djvu/140

 136 the two spheres that George Washington learned his first lesson in diplomacy and strategy. The French and English American colonies were almost perpetually at war with one another, the objective being the spot where Pittsburg now stands, which was regarded as the gate of the west, overlooking as it did the valley of the Ohio. Here Duquesne founded the fort named after himself, and it was not till 1758 that this was finally wrested from French hands; while, in the following year, Wolfe, by his capture of Quebec, overthrew the whole French power in North America. Throughout the long fight the English had been much assisted by the guerilla warfare of the Iroquois against the French.

By the Treaty of Paris in 1763 the whole of French America was ceded to England, which also obtained possession of Florida from Spain, in exchange for the Philippines, captured during the war. As a compensation all the country west of the Mississippi became joined on to the Spanish possessions in Mexico. These of course became nominally French when Napoleon's brother Joseph was placed on the Spanish throne, but Napoleon sold them to the United States in 1803, so that no barrier existed to the westward spread of the States. Long previously to this, a Chartered Company had been formed in 1670, with Prince Rupert at its head, to trade with the Indians for furs.in Hudson's Bay, then and for some time afterwards called Rupertsland. The Hudson Bay Company gradually extended its knowledge of the northerly parts of America towards the Rocky Mountains, but it was not till 1740 that Varenne de la Varanderye discovered their extent. In 1769-71 a fur trader named Hearne