7. All the most active and vigorous spirits in the colony took to the woods and escaped the control of the king's officials. We hear sometimes of farms abandoned, wives and children deserted, and the greater part of the young men of a district turned into bushrangers and forest outlaws. They joined the Indians, trapped the beaver, trafficked with the natives for beaver-skins, and lived the wild life of semi-savages. This was the natural result of their not enjoying reasonable liberty in their own homes.
8. Such slow progress did New France make, notwithstanding King Louis's tender care, that on his death, in 1715, the whole colony was in the depths of poverty and numbered only 25,000 souls, whereas the English colonists in America were at that date ten times as numerous, and lived in the midst of plenty. The former depended on Government aid, the latter on themselves.
1. The treaty of Utrecht (1713) left Britain at the commencement of a long period of peace and prosperity. During that quiet period we have little that is interesting to tell. Britain was quietly growing in wealth and power, and her colonies in population and importance. By the census of 1754 it appeared that the British colonists, occupying a strip of territory about 200 miles in width along the Atlantic coasts, numbered upwards of a million souls; whereas at that date, the whole white population under the French flag in North America did not exceed 80,000.
2. Though the French settlers were so few, France laid claim to all America from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains, and from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson Bay. They claimed it by right of discovery and partial occupation. It was her explorers who first made their way down the Mississippi, her missionaries who first visited the Indian tribes of the interior, her traders who first opened a market with the natives. But the French had hardly occupied any part of that vast region south of the Great Lakes. It is true they had founded Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi and partly colonized Louisiana; but between the delta of that river and the St. Lawrence there was still a vast wilderness, the home of the bison and beaver, where the Indian trapped and hunted, with here and there a French trading post or mission station.
3. "French America," says the historian of Canada, "had two heads,—one among the snows of Canada, and one among the cane-breaks of Louisiana; one communicating with the world through the gulf of St. Lawrence, and the other through the Gulf of Mexico. These vital points were feebly connected by a chain of military posts, circling through the wilderness nearly three thousand miles. Midway between Canada and Louisiana lay the valley of the Ohio. If the English should seize it, they would sever the chain of posts and cut French America asunder." And this they seemed now (1754) on the point of doing.
4. The Governor of Canada at that time was a man of bold spirit and clear insight. He saw that the British traders were crossing the Alleghanies into the valley of the Ohio, poaching on the domains which the French claimed as their own, ruining the French fur trade, and making friends of the natives by underselling the French traders. He felt that, cost what it might, France must link Canada to Louisiana by a chain of forts strong enough to keep back the British colonists and coop them up in their old domains. The king's ministers in France were of the same mind, and ordered the governor to "send force enough to drive off the English from the Ohio, and cure them of all wish to return." The governor accordingly set to work to build forts at commanding points along the Ohio. The most important was Fort Duquesne at the forks of the Ohio, where now stands Pittsburg, with its clanging forges and flaming furnaces.
5. A young officer, who later in life became famous, George Washington, was sent with a small colonial force to expel the French, if possible, from this fort before they had time to gain a firm footing. He found however, his small force unequal to the task. Washington's failure had the effect of throwing the Indians of the Ohio into the arms of the French, for of course their one desire was to be on the winning side. And when, next year, the smouldering war burst into flame, nearly all the western tribes drew their scalping-knives for France.
6. It must be remembered that in all the fighting in America between the British and the French, the native Indians took an active share. Armed with their favourite weapon, the tomahawk, they were at close quarters dangerous foes. Their fierce aspect in full war-paint—for the warriors daubed their naked bodies with glaring colours—and their wild war-whoops were well calculated to inspire soldiers straight from England or France with considerable dread. From first to last the various tribes were always ready to join one side or the other, taking a fiendish delight in shedding blood and in crowing over their fallen foes. And both English and French were equally ready to bid for their support, and to fight side by side with them, whilst abhorring their barbarities. Some tribes were always ready to throw in their lot with the side that seemed the stronger, whilst others were permanently attached either to the English or the French.
7. The English were fortunate in having secured from the first the loyal support of the Iroquois Indians, known as the "Five Nations," the most formidable savages on the continent. But they were sorely tempted to join the French whenever they felt aggrieved at the way they were treated by the English colonists. They evidently found it difficult, at times, to choose between the two peoples. "We don't know what you Christians, English and French intend," said one of their orators, "We are so hemmed in by you both that we have hardly a hunting-place left. In a little while, if we find a bear in a tree, there will immediately appear an owner of the land to claim the property. We are so perplexed between the two that we hardly know what to think or say."