hour ago with a good-looking horse which he wants to sell. I have no
doubt he is in the camp, still."

Captain Hall went to the door of the tent, and told two of the men
there to find the farmer, and tell him he had a purchaser for his
horse.

Ten minutes later the farmer came up, and James bought the horse,
Captain Hall doing the bargaining for him.

"Now," Washington said, "we will go round to the storekeeper I spoke
of, and deposit the best part of your money with him. I should only
take a pound or two, if I were you, for you will find no means of
spending money when you once set forward, and, should anything happen
to you, the Indians would not appreciate the value of those English
notes of yours. You will want a brace of pistols and a sword, a
blanket, and cooking pot--that is about the extent of your camp
equipment."

Chapter 9: The Defeat Of Braddock.

England and France were, at this time, at peace in Europe, although the
troops of both nations were about to engage in conflict, in the forests
of America. Their position there was an anomalous one. England owned
the belt of colonies on the east coast. France was mistress of Canada
in the north, of Louisiana in the south, and, moreover, claimed the
whole of the vast country lying behind the British colonies, which were
thus cooped up on the seaboard. Her hold, however, of this great
territory was extremely slight. She had strong posts along the chain of
lakes from the Saint Lawrence to Lake Superior, but between these and
Louisiana, her supremacy was little more than nominal.

The Canadian population were frugal and hardy, but they were deficient
in enterprise; and the priests, who ruled them with a rod of iron, for
Canada was intensely Catholic, discouraged any movements which would
take their flocks from under their charge. Upon the other hand, the
colonists of New England, Pennsylvania, and Virginia were men of
enterprise and energy, and their traders, pushing in large numbers
across the Alleghenies, carried on an extensive trade with the Indians
in the valley of the Ohio, thereby greatly exciting the jealousy of the
French, who feared that the Indians would ally themselves with the
British colonists, and that the connection between Canada and Louisiana
would be thereby cut.

The English colonists were greatly superior to the French in number;
but they laboured under the disadvantage that the colonies were wholly
independent of each other, with s