es between the possessions of the
rival powers in America.

So far as the French and English colonies were concerned the treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle scarcely deserved the name of a truce. It was merely a
breathing time in which preparations were being made for the final
struggle. The treaty was so indefinite that a vast amount of territory
was claimed by both parties. The English were naturally the most
aggressive for the population of the English colonies was 1,200,000
while Canada had but 60,000 people.

Count de la Galissonniere, the governor-general of Canada, though
diminutive in stature and slightly deformed, was resolute and
energetic; moreover he was a statesman, and had his policy been
followed it might have been better for France. He advised the
government to send out ten thousand peasants from the rural districts
and settle them along the frontiers of the disputed territory, but the
French court thought it unadvisable to depopulate France in order to
people the wilds of Canada. Failing in this design, the Count
determined vigorously to assert the sovereignty of France over the
immense territory in dispute. Accordingly he claimed for his royal
master the country north of the Bay of Fundy and west to the Kennebec,
and his officers established fortified posts on the River St. John and
at the Isthmus of Chignecto. He at the same time stirred up the
Indians to hostilities in order to render the position of the English
in Nova Scotia and New England as uncomfortable as possible, and
further to strengthen his hands he endeavored to get the Acadians in
the peninsula of Nova Scotia to remove to the St. John river and other
parts of "the debatable territory." His policy led to a counter policy
on the part of Shirley and Lawrence (governors respectively of
Massachusetts and Nova Scotia) namely, that the Acadians should not be
allowed to go where they liked and to do as they pleased but must
remain on their lands and take the oath of allegiance to the English
sovereign or be removed to situations where they could do no harm to
the interests of the British colonies in the then critical condition
of affairs.

Ostensibly there was peace from the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle until
war was declared between the rival powers in 1756. But in the meantime
there was a collision between them on the Ohio river, where the French
built Fort Duquesne on the site now occupied by Pittsburg. The
governors of the English colonies held a con