--Queen Anne's War--King George's War--The French and
Indian War--England and France Rivals in the Old World and the New--The
Early French Settlements--The Disputed Territory--France's Fatal
Weakness--Washington's Journey Through the Wilderness--The First Fight
of the War--The War Wholly American for Two Years--The Braddock
Massacre--The Great Change Wrought by William Pitt--Fall of
Quebec--Momentous Consequences of the Great English Victory--The Growth
and Progress of the Colonies and Their Home Life.

KING WILLIAM'S WAR.

If anything were needed to prove the utter uselessness and horrible
barbarity of war, it is found in a history of the strife in which the
American colonies were involved through the quarrels of their rulers,
thousands of miles away on the other side of the Atlantic. Men lived for
years in America as neighbors, meeting and exchanging visits on the most
friendly terms, and with no thought of enmity, until the arrival of some
ship with news that their respective governments in Europe had gone to
war. Straightway, the neighbors became enemies, and, catching up their
guns, did their best to kill one another. Untold misery and hundreds of
lives were lost, merely because two ambitious men had gotten into a
wrangle. The result of such a dispute possessed no earthly interest to
the people in the depths of the American wilderness, but loyalty to
their sovereigns demanded that they should plunge into strife.

As time passed, Spain and Holland declined in power, and England and
France became formidable rivals in the New World as well as in the Old.
In 1689, when William III. was on the throne of England, war broke out
between that country and France and lasted until 1697. The French,
having settled in Canada, were wise enough to cultivate the friendship
of the Indians, who helped them in their savage manner in desolating the
English settlements. Dover, New Hampshire, was attacked by the French
and Indians, who killed more than a score of persons and carried away a
number of captives. In other places, settlers were surprised in the
fields and shot down. Early in 1690, another party came down from
Canada, and, when the snow lay deep on the ground and the people were
sleeping in their beds, made a furious attack upon Schenectady. The town
was burned and sixty persons tomahawked, while the survivors, half-clad,
struggled through the snow to Albany, sixteen miles distant.

The Americans in retaliation attempted