FOOTNOTES:
[1] Mr. Shirley was born in England, and brought up to the law. In that profession he afterward practiced for many years in the Massachusetts Bay, and in 1741 was advanced to the supreme command of that colony. Upon the conclusion of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle he was chosen as one of the British commissioners at Paris, and when the conference there broke up, he resumed his government in New England (in 1753).
[2] "The salaries allotted to the officers of the civil departments in the French colonial governments were extremely moderate, and inadequate to support their respective situations. In 1758, that of the Marquis de Vaudreuil, governor and lieutenant general of Canada, amounted to no more than £272 1s. 8d. sterling, out of which he was to clothe, maintain, and pay a guard for himself, consisting of two sergeants and twenty-five soldiers, furnishing them with firing in winter, and with other necessary articles. The pay of the whole officers of justice and police was £514 11s. sterling, and the total sum appropriated for the pay of the established officers, composing the various branches of the civil power, did not exceed £3809 8s. sterling."—Heriot's Travels in Canada, p. 98.
[3] "On the 1st January of this year England adopted the New Style, which had been long before in use among all civilized nations except Russia and Sweden. They, with England, still clung to the exploded system, for no better reason, apparently, than because it was a Pope who established the new. 'It was not, in my opinion,' writes Chesterfield, 'very honorable for England to remain in gross and avowed error, especially in such company.' The bill for the reformation of the calendar was moved by Lord Chesterfield in a very able, and seconded by Lord Macclesfield in a very learned speech, and it was successfully carried through both Houses. The bill had been framed by these two noblemen in concert with Dr. Bradley and other eminent men of science. To correct the old calendar, eleven nominal days were to be suppressed in September, 1752, so that the day following the 2d of that month should be styled the 14th. The difficulties that might result from the change, as affecting rents, leases, and bills of exchange, were likewise carefully considered and effectually prevented."—Lord Mahon's History of England, vol. iv., p. 23.
[4] "He amassed, while governor of Canada, by commerce alone, more than a million livres, besides which, he had for many years sixty thousand livres from his appointments and pensions. Yet, notwithstanding his riches, his avarice was in many instances so extreme, that he denied himself the common necessaries of life. During his last illness, he ordered the wax tapers that were burning in his room to be changed for tallow candles, observing that 'the latter would answer every purpose, and were less expensive.'"—Smith's Hist. of Canada, vol. i., p. 223.
[5] "While Britain claimed an indefinite extent to the west, France insisted on confining her to the eastern side of the Allegany Mountains, and claimed the whole country whose waters run into the Mississippi, in virtue of her right as the first discoverer of that river. The delightful region between the summit of those mountains and the Mississippi was the object for which these two powerful nations contended, and it soon became apparent that the sword alone could decide the contest."—Marshall's Life of Washington, vol. i., p. 294; Belsham, vol. ii., p. 363, 364.
"Thus France would have enjoyed, in time of peace, the whole Indian trade, and the English colonies, in time of war, must have had a frontier of 1200 miles to defend against blood-thirsty savages, conducted by French officers, and supported by regular troops. It was, in fact, to attempt the extinction of the British settlements, and yet, without such interior communication as was projected between Canada and Louisiana, the French settlements on the St. Lawrence and Mississippi could never, it was said, attain any high degree of consequence or security; the navigation of one of those rivers being at all seasons difficult, and that of the other blocked up with ice during the winter months, so as to preclude exterior support or relief. This scheme of usurpation, which is supposed to have long occupied the deliberations of the court of Versailles, was ardently embraced by M. de la Jonquière, now commander-in-chief of the French forces in North America, and by La Galissonière, a man of a bold and enterprising spirit, who had been appointed governor of New France in 1747. By their joint efforts, in addition to those of their predecessors, forts were erected along the Great Lakes, which communicate with the River St. Lawrence, and also on the Ohio and Mississippi. The vast chain was almost completed from Quebec to New Orleans, when the court of England, roused by repeated injuries, broke off the conferences relative to the limits of Nova Scotia."—Russell's Modern Europe, vol. iii., p. 273.
[6] See Appendix, [No. LXV.]
[7] "The governors of Canada, who were generally military men, had, for several preceding years, judiciously selected and fortified such situations as would give their nation most influence with the Indians, and most facilitate incursions into the northern English provinces. The command of Lake Champlain had been acquired by erecting a strong fort at Crown Point, and a connected chain of posts was maintained from Quebec up the St. Lawrence and along the Great Lakes. It was now intended to unite these posts with the Mississippi, by taking positions which should enable them to circumscribe, and at the same time annoy, the frontier settlements of the English. The execution of this plan was probably in some degree accelerated by an act of the British government. The year after the conclusion of the war with France, several very influential persons, both in England and Virginia, who associated under the name of the Ohio Company, obtained from the crown a grant for 600,000 acres of land, lying in the country which was claimed by both nations. Several opulent merchants, as well as noblemen and gentlemen, being members of this company, its objects were commercial as well as territorial; and measures were immediately taken to derive all the advantages expected from their grants in both these respects, by establishing houses for carrying on their trade with the Indians. The governor of Canada, who obtained early intelligence of this intrusion, as he deemed it, into the dominions of his Christian majesty, wrote immediately to the governors of New York and Pennsylvania, informing them that the English traders had encroached on the French territory by trading with the Indians, and warning them that, if they did not desist, he should be under the necessity of seizing them wherever they should be found. This threat having been disregarded, it was put in execution by seizing the British traders among the Twightwees,[55] and carrying them as prisoners to a fort on Lake Erie."—Marshall's Life of Washington, vol. i., p. 297.
[8] "The country taken possession of by the French troops had actually been granted as a part of the territory of Virginia to the Ohio Company, who were, in consequence, commencing its settlement."—Marshall's Life of Washington, vol. i., p. 298.