NOTE.—For the substance of the above chapter, see
KINGSFORD'S History of Canada, vol. iii;
PARKMAN'S A Half Century of Conflict;
Sir J. BOURINOT'S Cape Breton (referred to [above], note); and
Louisbourg in 1745, the anonymous Lettre d'un habitant de Louisbourg, edited and translated by Professor WRONG, (Toronto, 1897).
CHAPTER VIII
THE PRELUDE TO THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR
The fifteen years from the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 to the Peace of Paris in 1763 include the most stirring and picturesque times in the history of Canada. They were masculine years, when, in all parts of the world, great men did great things. They were the years when Montcalm and Wolfe fought and died on the St. Lawrence; when Robert Clive mastered India; when Chatham redeemed England from littleness; and when Frederick of Prussia became known for all time as Frederick the Great, by standing grimly foursquare against the continent of Europe in the Seven Years' War.
| The southern colonies drawn into the struggle with France. |
The Seven Years' War only began in 1756; but before that date, before war between France and England had formally been proclaimed, French and English were fighting hard in North America. We have the same sphere of war as before, and in large measure the same plans of campaign, trouble and conflict in and on the borders of Acadia, siege and capture of Louisbourg, attack up the St. Lawrence against Quebec—at last a successful attack, and prolonged fighting along the line of Lakes George and Champlain. The Five Nation Indians played their part in the war, though a more subordinate part than in earlier times; the cantons most within range of the English remaining under English influence and being more adroitly managed than in earlier days, while the westernmost tribes, the Senecas, inclined to the French side. But a new feature came into the struggle, the result of the inevitable advance of white men on either side in the course of years. The English colonies to the south of New York began to take a more active part than formerly in the conflict with France. The Virginians appeared on the scene, and among the Virginians was prominent the name of George Washington. The great French scheme of holding the rivers of North America and their basins implied that the English colonies should not cross the Alleghany mountains. Great schemes never allow for the ordinary every day work of nature and man. It was certain that, as the English multiplied, they would go further and further afield; and in due time, from Pennsylvania and from Virginia, English traders and backwoodsmen made their way into the valley of the Ohio.
| The Ohio. Celeron de Bienville. |
The Ohio, which La Salle first made known to the world, is, as has been pointed out, the connecting link on the inner line of the North American waterways—starting from the confines of the St. Lawrence basin near the shores of Lake Erie, and reaching the Mississippi comparatively low down in its course. The outer line is much more extensive, continuing along the great lakes until from Lake Michigan the Mississippi is reached by the Wisconsin or the Illinois. Along this outer line the French had hitherto worked. It took them more directly to the far West; and, passing along it, they only skirted instead of traversing the region where the Iroquois were in strength; but, had they allowed the English to lay firm hold of the Ohio valley, Canada and Louisiana would have been severed, and down the Ohio would have come a challenge to French sovereignty over the West. Thus it was that, in the year 1749, the year after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed, the Governor of Canada, the Marquis de la Galissonière, sent one of his officers, Celeron de Bienville, to register the claims of France to the Ohio river and the lands which it watered and drained.