s party across the long
and difficult portage to the French post on the Maumee, where he found
Raymond, the commander, and all his men, shivering with fever and ague.
They supplied him with wooden canoes for his voyage down the river; and,
early in October, he reached Lake Erie, where he was detained for a time
by a drunken debauch of his Indians, who are called by the chaplain "a
species of men made to exercise the patience of those who have the
misfortune to travel with them." In a month more he was at Fort
Frontenac; and as he descended thence to Montreal, he stopped at the
Oswegatchie, in obedience to the Governor, who had directed him to
report the progress made by the Sulpitian, Abbe Piquet, at his new
mission. Piquet's new fort had been burned by Indians, prompted, as he
thought, by the English of Oswego; but the priest, buoyant and
undaunted, was still resolute for the glory of God and the confusion of
the heretics.

At length Celoron reached Montreal; and, closing his Journal, wrote
thus: "Father Bonnecamp, who is a Jesuit and a great mathematician,
reckons that we have travelled twelve hundred leagues; I and my officers
think we have travelled more. All I can say is, that the nations of
these countries are very ill-disposed towards the French, and devoted
entirely to the English."[12] If his expedition had done no more, it had
at least revealed clearly the deplorable condition of French interests
in the West.

[Footnote 12: _Journal de la Campagne que moy Celoron, Chevalier de
l'Ordre Royal et Militaire de St. Louis, Capitaine Commandant un
detachement envoye dans la Belle Riviere par les ordres de M. le Marquis
de La Galissoniere_, etc.

_Relation d'un voyage dans la Belle Riviere sous les ordres de M. de
Celoron, par le Pere Bonnecamp, en_ 1749.]

While Celoron was warning English traders from the Ohio, a plan was on
foot in Virginia for a new invasion of the French domain. An association
was formed to settle the Ohio country; and a grant of five hundred
thousand acres was procured from the King, on condition that a hundred
families should be established upon it within seven years, a fort built,
and a garrison maintained. The Ohio Company numbered among its members
some of the chief men of Virginia, including two brothers of Washington;
and it had also a London partner, one Hanbury, a person of influence,
who acted as its agent in England. In the year after the expedition of
Celoron, its governing commi