ted advice had been
received, that the French had then at least a thousand men at their fort
at Frontenac, upon the same lake; and, what was still worse, the new
forts were not yet near completed; but left to be finished by the hard
labour of colonel Mercer and his little garrrison, with the addition
of this melancholy circumstance, that, if besieged by the enemy in
the winter, it would not be possible for his friends to come to his
assistance. Thus ended this year's unfortunate campaign, during which
the French, with the assistance of their Indian allies, continued their
murders, scalping, captivating, and laying waste the western frontiers
of Virginia and Pennsylvania, during the whole winter.

The ministers of the two warring powers were very busily employed this
year at most of the courts of Europe; but their transactions were kept
extremely secret. The French endeavoured to inspire the Spaniards with
a jealousy of the strength of the English by sea, especially in America;
and the Spanish court seemed inclined to accept of the office of
mediator; but Mr. Wall, who was perfectly well acquainted with the state
of affairs between England and France, seconded the representations of
the British ministry, which demonstrated, that, however willing Great
Britain might be to accept of the mediation of Spain, she could not
agree to any suspension of arms in America, which France insisted on
as a preliminary condition, without hazarding the whole of her interest
there; and that the captures which had been made by the English were the
necessary consequences of the encroachments and injustice of the French,
particularly in that country. Upon this remonstrance, all further talk
of the mediation of Spain was dropped, and the ministry of Versailles
had recourse to the princes of Germany; amongst whom the elector of
Cologn was soon brought over to their party, so as to consent to their
forming magazines in his territories in Westphalia. This was a plain
indication of their design against Hanover, which they soon after made
his Britannic majesty, who was then at Hanover, an offer of sparing, if
he would agree to certain conditions of neutrality for that
electorate, which he rejected with disdain. Then the count d'Aubeterre,
envoy-extraordinary from France at the court of Vienna, proposed a
secret negotiation with the ministers of the empress-queen. The secret
articles of the treaty of Petersburgh, between the two empresses, had
stipu