KING GEORGE'S WAR.—Such was the state of affairs when in 1744 Great Britain and France again went to war. As George II was then king of Great Britain, the colonists called the strife King George's War. The French now rushed down on Nova Scotia and attacked Annapolis. It seemed as if the whole of Nova Scotia would be conquered; but instead the people of New England sent out a fleet and army and captured Louisburg. [11]
[Illustration: PLAN OF LOUISBURG, 1745.]
When peace was made (1748), after two years more of fighting, Great
Britain gave Louisburg back to France.
THE FRENCH IN THE OHIO VALLEY.—The war ended and no territory lost, the French at once laid plans to shut the British out of the Ohio valley, which France claimed because the Ohio River and its tributaries flowed into the Mississippi. In 1749, therefore, a party of Frenchmen under Céloron (sa-lo-rawng') were sent to take formal possession of that region. [12]
[Illustration: ONE OF THE LEAD PLATES BURIED BY CÉLORON. In the possession of the Virginia Historical Society.]
THE BURIED PLATES.—Paddling up the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario, these men carried their canoes around Niagara Falls, coasted along Lake Erie to a place near Chautauqua Lake, and going overland to the lake went down its outlet to the Allegheny River. There the men were drawn up, the French king was proclaimed owner of all the region drained by the Ohio, and a lead plate was buried at the foot of a tree. The inscription on the plate declared that the Ohio and all the streams that entered it and the land on both sides of them belonged to France.
The party then passed down the Allegheny to the Ohio, and down the Ohio to the Miami, burying plates from time to time. [13]
THE FRENCH FORTS.—Formal possession having been taken, the next step of the French was to build a log fort at Presque Isle (on Lake Erie where the city of Erie now is), and also Forts Le Boeuf and Venango, on a branch of the Allegheny.
THE OHIO COMPANY.—But the English colonists likewise claimed the Mississippi valley, by virtue of the old "sea to sea" grants, and the same year that Céloron came down the Allegheny, they also prepared to take possession of the Ohio valley in a much more serious way. The French were burying plates and about to build forts; the English were about to plant towns and make settlements.
Already in Pennsylvania and Virginia population was pushing rapidly westward. Already English traders crossed the mountains and with their goods packed on horses followed the trails down the Ohio valley, going from village to village of the Indians and exchanging their wares for furs.