In 1748 Bollan in a petition to the Duke of Bedford on the French encroachments, complains that recent English maps had prejudiced the claims of Great Britain.[1225] Since Popple’s map in 1732, of which there had been a later edition, maps defining the frontiers had appeared in Keith’s Virginia (1738), in Oldmixon’s British Empire (1741) by Moll, and in Bowen’s Geography (1747).
There is in the Penna. Archives (2d series, vi. 93) a paper dated Dec., 1750, on the English pretensions from the French point of view. On the English side the claims of the French are examined in the State of the British and French Colonies in North America, London, 1755.[1226]
J. H. Perkins, in the North American Review, July, 1839, gave an excellent sketch of the English effort at occupation in the Ohio Valley from 1744 to 1774, which later appeared in his Memoir and Writings (Boston, 1852, vol. ii.) as “English discoveries in the Ohio Valley.” His sketch is of course deficient in points, where the publication of original material since made would have helped him.
The rivalry in the possession of Oswego and Niagara, beginning in 1725, is traced in the N. Y. Col. Docs. (ix. 949, 954, 958, 974), and in a convenient form an abstract of the French despatches for 1725-27 is found in Ibid., ix. 976, with a French view (p. 982) of the respective rights of the rivals.[1227]
There had been a stockade at Niagara under De Nonville’s rule, and the fort bore his name; but it was soon abandoned.[1228] The place was reoccupied in 1725-26, and the fort rebuilt of stone.[1229]
In 1731 the French first occupied permanently the valley of Lake Champlain,[1230] but not till 1737 did they begin to control its water with an armed sloop, and to build Fort St. Frederick.[1231]
Beauharnois’ activity in seeking the Indian favor is shown in his conference with the Onondagas in 1734 and in his communications with the Western tribes in 1741.[1232] The condition of the French power at this time is set forth in a Mémoire sur le Canada, ascribed to the Intendant Gilles Hocquart (1736).[1233]
In 1737 Conrad Weiser was sent to the Six Nations to get them to agree to a truce with the Cherokees and Catawbas, and to arrange for a conference between them and these tribes.[1234]
The expedition to the northwest, which resulted in Vérendrye’s discovery of the Rocky Mountains in Jan., 1743, is followed with more or less detail in several papers by recent writers.[1235]