trong mutual jealousies, which
paralysed their action and prevented their embarking upon any concerted
operations. Upon the other hand, Canada was governed by the French as a
military colony. The governor was practically absolute, and every man
capable of bearing arms could, if necessary, be called by him into the
field. He had at his disposal not only the wealth of the colony, but
large assistance from France, and the French agents were, therefore,
able to outbid the agents of the British colonies with the Indians.

For years there had been occasional troubles between the New England
States and the French, the latter employing the Indians in harassing
the border; but, until the middle of the eighteenth century, there had
been nothing like a general trouble. In 1749 the Marquis of
Galissoniere was governor general of Canada. The treaty of Aix la
Chapelle had been signed; but this had done nothing to settle the vexed
question of the boundaries between the English and French colonies.
Meanwhile, the English traders from Pennsylvania and Virginia were
poaching on the domain which France claimed as hers, ruining the French
fur trade, and making friends with the Indian allies of Canada. Worse
still, farmers were pushing westward and settling in the valley of the
Ohio.

In order to drive these back, to impress the natives with the power of
France, and to bring them back to their allegiance, the governor of
Canada, in the summer of 1749, sent Celoron de Bienville. He had with
him fourteen officers, twenty French soldiers, a hundred and eighty
Canadians, and a band of Indians. They embarked in twenty-three
birch-bark canoes, and, pushing up the Saint Lawrence, reached Lake
Ontario, stopping for a time at the French fort of Frontenac, and
avoiding the rival English port of Oswego on the southern shore, where
a trade in beaver skins, disastrous to French interests, was being
carried on, for the English traders sold their goods at vastly lower
prices than those which the French had charged.

On the 6th of July the party reached Niagara, where there was a small
French fort, and thence, carrying their canoes round the cataract,
launched them upon Lake Erie. Landing again on the southern shore of
the lake, they carried their canoes nine miles through the forest to
Chautauqua Lake, and then dropped down the stream running out of it
until they reached the Ohio. The fertile country here was inhabited by
the Delawares, Shawanoes, Wyan