THE FRENCH DRIVEN FROM AMERICA
THE SITUATION IN 1754.—The French were now in armed possession of the Ohio valley. Their chain of forts bounded the British colonies from Lake Champlain to Fort Duquesne. Unless they were dislodged, all hope of colonial expansion westward was ended. To dislodge them meant war, and the certainty of war led to a serious attempt to unite the colonies.
By order of the Lords of Trade, a convention of delegates from the colonies [1] was held at Albany to secure by treaty and presents the friendship of the Six Nations of Indians; it would not do to let those powerful tribes go over to the French in the coming war. After treating with the Indians, the convention proceeded to consider the question whether all the colonies could not be united for defense and for the protection of their interests.
[Illustration: JOIN, OR DIE.]
FRANKLIN'S PLAN OF UNION.—One of the delegates was Benjamin Franklin. In his newspaper, the Philadelphia Gazette, he had urged union, and he had put this device [2] at the top of an account of the capture of the Ohio fort (afterward Duquesne) by the French. At the convention he submitted a plan of union calling for a president general and a grand council of representatives from the colonies to meet each year. They were to make treaties with the Indians, regulate the affairs of the colonies as a whole, levy taxes, build forts, and raise armies. The convention adopted the plan, but both the colonial legislatures and the Lords of Trade in London rejected it. [3]
[Illustration: FRANKLIN, AT THE AGE OF 70.]
THE FIVE POINTS OF ATTACK.—The French held five strongholds, which shut the British out of New France and Louisiana, and threatened the English colonies.
1. Louisburg threatened New England and Nova Scotia.
2. Quebec controlled the St. Lawrence.
3. Crown Point (and later Ticonderoga), on Lake Champlain, guarded the water route to New York and threatened the Hudson valley.