uld be found, if they did
not immediately desist from that illicit practice. No regard being paid
to this intimation, he next year caused three British traders to be
arrested. Their effects were confiscated, and they themselves conveyed
to Quebec, from whence they were sent prisoners to Rochelle in France,
and there detained in confinement. In this situation they presented a
remonstrance to the earl of Albemarle, at that time English ambassador
in Paris, and he claiming them as British subjects, they were set at
liberty. Although, in answer to his lordship's memorial, the court
of Versailles promised to transmit orders to the French governors in
America, to use all their endeavours for preventing any disputes that
might have a tendency to alter the good correspondence established
between the two nations; in all probability the directions given
were seemingly the very reverse of these professions, for the French
commanders, partisans, and agents in America, took every step their
busy genius could suggest, to strengthen their own power, and weaken the
influence of the English, by embroiling them with the Indian nations.
This task they found the more easy, as the natives had taken offence
against the English, when they understood that their lands were given
away without their knowledge, and that there was a design to build forts
in their country without their consent and concurrence. Indeed, the
person whom the new company employed to survey the banks of the Ohio,
concealed his design so carefully, and behaved in other respects in such
a dark mysterious manner, as could not fail to arouse the jealousy of a
people naturally inquisitive, and very much addicted to suspicion. How
the company proposed to settle this acquisition in despite of the
native possessors, it is not easy to conceive, and it is still more
unaccountable that they should have neglected the natives, whose consent
and assistance they might have procured at a very small expense. Instead
of acting such a fair, open, and honourable part, they sent a Mr. Gist
to make a clandestine survey of the country, as far as the falls of the
river Ohio; and, as we have observed above, his conduct alarmed both
the French and Indians. The erection of this company was equally
disagreeable to the separate traders of Virginia and Pennsylvania, who
saw themselves on the eve of being deprived of a valuable branch of
traffic, by the exclusive charter of a monopoly; and therefore they