he Halifax people; nor till a long time after, that La Corne
could be dislodged from his stockades, and sent packing. [--Gentleman's
Magazine,--xx. 539, 295.] September, 1750, a new Expedition on Chignecto
found the place populous again, Indians, French "Peasants" (seemingly
Soldiers of a sort); who stood very fiercely behind their defences, and
needed a determined on-rush, and "volley close into their noses," before
disappearing. This was reckoned the first military bloodshed (if this
were really military on the French side). And in November following,
some small British Cruiser on those Coasts, falling in with a French
Brigantine, from Quebec, evidently carrying military stores and
solacements for La Corne, seized the same; by force of battle, since
not otherwise,--three men lost to the British, five to the French,--and
brought it to Halifax. "Lawful and necessary!" says the Admiralty Court;
"Sheer Piracy!" shriek the French;--matters breaking out into actual
flashes of flame, in this manner.

British Commissions, two in number, names not worth mention, have,
at last, in this Year 1750, gone to Paris; and are holding manifold
conferences with French ditto,--to no "purpose, any of them. One reads
the dreary tattle of the Duke of Newcastle upon it, in the Years
onward: "Just going to agree," the Duke hopes; "some difficulties, but
everybody, French and English, wanting mere justice; and our and their
Commissioners being in such a generous spirit, surely they will soon
settle it." [His Letters, in Coxe's--Pelham,--ii. 407 ("September,
1751"), &c.] They never did or could; and steadily it went on worsening.

That notable private assertion of the French, That Canada and Louisiana
mean all America West of the Alleghanies, had not yet oozed out to the
English; but it is gradually oozing out, and that England will have to
content itself with the moderate Country lying east of that Blue range.
"Not much above a million of you", say the French; "and surely there is
room enough East of the Alleghanies? We, with our couple of Colonies,
are the real America;--counting, it is true, few settlers as yet;
but there shall be innumerable; and, in the mean while, there are
Army-Detachments, Block-houses, fortified Posts, command of the Rivers,
of the Indian Nations, of the water-highways and military keys (to you
unintelligible); and we will make it good!"

The exact cipher of the French (guessed to be 50,000), and their
precise relati