ing to some authorities, Post St. Vincent was erected on the Wabash. Almost coeval with this, was the military post of Presque Isle, on the site of Erie, Pennsylvania, and from thence a cordon of posts extended on the Alleghany to Pittsburgh; and from thence down the Ohio to the Wabash.

A map, published at London in 1755, gives the following list of French posts, as then existing in the west: Two on French Creek, in the vicinity of Erie, Pennsylvania; Duquesne, on the site of Pittsburgh; Miamis, on the Maumee, near the site of Toledo; Sandusky, on Sandusky Bay; St. Joseph's, on St. Joseph's River, Michigan; Ponchartrain, site of Detroit; Massillimacinac; one on Fox River, Green Bay; Crevecoeur, on the Illinois; Rockfort, or Fort St. Louis, on the Illinois; Vincennes; Cahokia; Kaskaskia, and one at each of the mouths of the Wabash, Ohio, and Missouri. Other posts, not named, were built about that time. On the Ohio, just below Portsmouth, are ruins, supposed to be those of a French fort; as they had a post there during Braddock's war.

In 1749, the French regularly explored the Ohio, and formed alliances with the Indians in Western New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The English, who claimed the whole west to the Pacific, but whose settlements were confined to the comparatively narrow strip east of the mountains, were jealous of the rapidly increasing power of the French in the west. Not content with exciting the savages to hostilities against them, they stimulated private enterprise by granting six hundred thousand acres of choice land on the Ohio, to the "Ohio Company."

By the year 1751, there were in the Illinois country, the settlements of Cahokia, five miles below the site of St. Louis; St. Philip's, forty-five miles farther down the river; St. Genevieve, a little lower still, and on the east side of the Mississippi, Fort Chartres, Kaskaskia and Prairie du Rocher. The largest of these was Kaskaskia, which at one time contained nearly three thousand-souls.

In 1748, the Ohio Company, composed mainly of wealthy Virginians, dispatched Christopher Gist to explore the country, gain the good-will of the Indians, and ascertain the plans of the French. Crossing overland to the Ohio, he proceeded down it to the Great Miami, up which he passed to the towns of the Miamies, about fifty miles north of the site of Dayton. The next year the company established a trading post in that vicinity, on Loramies Creek, the first point of English settlement in the western country; it was soon after broken up by the French.

In the year 1753, Dinwiddie, Governor of Virginia, sent George Washington, then twenty-one years of age, as commissioner, to remonstrate with the French commandant who was at Fort le Boeuf, near the site of Erie, Pennsylvania, against encroachments of the French. The English claimed the country by virtue of her first royal charters; the French by the stronger title of discovery and possession. The result of the mission proving unsatisfactory, the English, although it was a time of peace, raised a force to

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expel the invaders from the Ohio and its tributaries. A detachment under Lieut. Ward erected a fort on the site of Pittsburgh; but it was surrendered shortly after, in April, 1754, to a superior force of French and Indians under Contrecœur, and its garrison peaceably permitted to retire to the frontier post of Cumberland. Contrecœur then erected a strong fortification at "the fork," under the name of Fort Duquesne.

Measures were now taken by both nations for the struggle that was to ensue. On the 28th of May, a strong detachment of Virginia troops, under Washington, surprised a small body of French from Fort Duquesne, killed its commander, M. Jumonville, and ten men, and took nearly all the rest prisoners. He then fell back and erected Fort Necessity, near the site of Uniontown. In July he was attacked by a large body of French and Indians, commanded by M. Villiers, and after a gallant resistance, compelled to capitulate with permission to retire unmolested, and under the express stipulation that farther settlements or forts should not be founded by the English, west of the mountains, for one year.

On the 9th of July, 1755, Gen. Braddock was defeated within ten miles of Fort Duquesne. His army, composed mainly of veteran English troops, passed into an ambuscade formed by a far inferior body of French and Indians, who, lying concealed in two deep ravines, each side of his line of march, poured in upon the compact body of their enemy vollies of musketry, with almost perfect safety to themselves. The Virginia provincials, under Washington, by their knowledge of border warfare and cool bravery, alone saved the army from complete ruin. Braddock was himself mortally wounded by a provincial named Fausett. A brother of the latter had disobeyed the silly orders of the general, that the troops should not take positions behind the trees, when Braddock rode up and struck him down. Fausett, who saw the whole transaction, immediately drew up his rifle and shot him through the lungs; partly from revenge, and partly as a measure of salvation to the army which was being sacrificed to his headstrong obstinacy and inexperience.

The result of this battle gave the French and Indians a complete ascendancy on the Ohio, and put a check to the operations of the English, west of the mountains, for two or three years. In July, 1758, Gen. Forbes, with seven thousand men, left Carlisle, Penn., for the west. A corps in advance, principally of Highland Scotch, under Major Grant, were on the 13th of September defeated in the vicinity of Fort Duquesne, on the site of Pittsburgh. A short time after, the French and Indians, under Col. Boquet, made an unsuccessful attack upon the advanced guard.

In November, the commandant of Fort Duquesne, unable to cope with the superior force approaching under Forbes, abandoned the fortress, and descended to New Orleans. On his route, he erected Fort Massac, so called in honor of M. Massac, who superintended its construction. It vas upon the Ohio, within forty

miles of its mouth-and within the limits of Illinois. Forbes repaired Fort Duquesne, and changed its name to Fort Pitt, in honor of the English Prime Minister.

The English were now for the first time in possession of the upper Ohio. In the spring, they established several posts in that region, prominent among which was Fort Burd, or Redstone Old Fort, on the site of Brownsville.

Owing to the treachery of Gov. Lyttleton, in 1760, by which, twenty-two Cherokee chiefs on an embassy of peace were made prisoners at Fort George, on the Savannah, that nation flew to arms, and for a while desolated the frontiers of Virginia and the Carolinas. Fort Loudon, in East Tennessee, having been besieged by the Indians, the garrison capitulated on the 7th of August, and on the day afterward, while on the route to Fort George, were attacked, and the greater part massacred. In the summer of 1761, Col. Grant invaded their country, and compelled them to sue for peace. On the north the most brilliant success had attended the British arms. Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and Fort Niagara, and Quebec were taken in 1759, and the next year Montreal fell, and with it all of Canada.

By the treaty of Paris, in 1763, France gave up her claim to New France and Canada; embracing all the country east of the Mississippi, from its source to the Bayou Iberville. The remainder of her Mississippi possessions, embracing Louisiana west of the Mississippi, and the Island of Orleans, she soon after secretly ceded to Spain, which terminated the dominion of France on this continent, and her vast plans for empire.

At this period Lower Louisiana had become of considerable importance. The explorations of La Salle in the Lower Mississippi country, were renewed in 1697, by Lemoine D'Iberville, a brave French naval officer. Sailing with two vessels, he entered the Mississippi in March 1698, by the Bayou Iberville. He built forts on the Bay of Biloxi, and at Mobile, both of which were deserted for the Island of Dauphine, which for years was the headquarters of the colony. He also erected Fort Balise, at the mouth of the river, and fixed on the site of Fort Rosalie; which latter became the scene of a bloody Indian war.

After his death, in 1706, Louisiana was but little more than a wilderness, and a vain search for gold, and trading in furs, rather than the substantial pursuits of agriculture, allured the colonists; and much time was lost in journeys of discovery, and in collecting furs among distant tribes. Of the occupied lands, Biloxi was a barren sand, and the soil of the Isle of Dauphine poor. Bienville, the brother and successor of D'Iberville, was at the fort on the Delta of the Mississippi, where he and his soldiers were liable to inundations, and held joint possession with mosquitoes, frogs, snakes and alligators.

In 1712, Antoine de Crozat, an East India merchant, of vast ealth, purchased a grant of the entire country, with the exclusive

right of commerce for sixteen years. But in 1717, the speculation having resulted in his ruin, and to the injury of the colonists, he surrendered his privileges. Soon after, a number of other adventurers, under the name of the Mississippi Company, obtained from the French government a charter, which gave them all the rights of sovereignty, except the bare title, including a complete monopoly of the trade, and the mines. Their expectations were chiefly from the mines; and on the strength of a former traveler, Nicholas Perrot, having discovered a copper mine in the valley of St. Peters, the directors of the company assigned to the soil of Louisiana, silver and gold; and to the mud of the Mississippi, diamonds and pearls. The notorious Law, who then resided at Paris, was the secret agent of the company. To form its capital, its shares were sold at five hundred livres each; and such was the speculating mania of the times, that in a short time more than a hundred mil lions were realized. Although this proved ruinous to individuals, yet the colony was greatly benefited by the consequent emigration, and agriculture and commerce flourished.

In 1719, Renault, an agent of the Mississippi Company, left France with about two hundred miners and emigrants, to carry out the mining schemes of the company. He bought five hundred slaves at St. Domingo, to work the mines, which he conveyed to Illinois in 1720. He established himself a few miles above Kaskasia, and founded there the village of St. Philips. Extravagant expectations existed in France, of his probable success in obtaining gold and silver. He sent out exploring parties in various sections of Illinois and Missouri. His explorations extended to the banks of the Ohio and Kentucky rivers, and even to the Cumberland valley in Tennessee, where at French Lick," on the site of Nashville, the French established a trading post. Although Renault was woefully disappointed in not discovering extensive mines of gold or silver, yet he made various discoveries of lead; among which were the mines north of Potosi, and those on the St. Francois. He eventually turned his whole attention to the smelting of lead, of which he made considerable quantities, and shipped to France. He remained in the country until 1744. Nothing of consequence was again done in mining, until after the American Revolution.

In 1718, Bienville laid out the town of New Orleans, on the plan of Rochefort, France. Some four years after, the bankruptcy - of Law threw the colony into the greatest confusion, and occasioned wide-spread ruin in France, where speculation had been carried to an extreme unknown before.

The expenditures for Louisiana, were consequently stopped, but the colony had now gained strength to struggle for herself. Louisiana was then divided into nine cantons, of which Arkansas and Illinois formed each one.

About this time, the colony had considerable difficulty with the Indian tribes, and were involved in wars with the Chickasaws and the Natchez. This latter named tribe were finally completely con.

quered. The remnant of them dispersed among other Indians, so that, that once powerful people, as a distinct race, was entirely lost. Their name alone survives, as that of a flourishing city. Tradition related singular stories of the Natchez. It was believed that they emigrated from Mexico, and were kindred to the Incas of Peru. The Natchez alone, of all the Indian tribes, had a consecrated temple, where a perpetual fire was maintained by appointed guardians. Near the temple, on an artificial mound, stood the dwelling of their chief-called the Great Sun; who was supposed to be descended from that luminary, and all around were grouped the dwellings of the tribe. His power was absolute; the dignity was hereditary, and transmitted exclusively through the female line; and the race of nobles was so distinct, that usage had moulded language into the forms of reverence.

In 1732, the Mississippi Company relinquished their charter to the king, after holding possession fourteen years. At this period, Louisiana had five thousand whites, and twenty-five hundred blacks. Agriculture was improving in all the nine cantons, particularly in Illinois, which was considered the granary of the colony. Louisiana continued to advance until the war broke out with England in 1775, which resulted in the overthrow of French dominion.

Immediately after the peace of 1763, all the old French forts in the west, as far as Green Bay, were repaired and garrisoned with British troops. Agents and surveyors too, were making examinations of the finest lands east and northeast of the Ohio. Judging from the past, the Indians were satisfied that the British intended to possess the whole country. The celebrated Ottowa chief, Pontiac, burning with hatred against the English, in that year formed a general league with the western tribes, and by the middle of May all the western posts had fallen-or were closely besieged by the Indians, and the whole frontier, for almost a thousand miles, suffered from the merciless fury of savage warfare. Treaties of peace. were made with the different tribes of Indians, in the year following, at Niagara, by Sir William Johnson; at Detroit or vicinity by General Bradstreet, and, in what is now Coshocton county, Ohio, by Col. Boquet; at the German Flats, on the Mohawk, with the Six Nations and their confederates. By these treaties, extensive tracts were ceded by the Indians in New York and Pennsylvania, and south of Lake Erie.

Peace having been concluded, the excitable frontier population Small settlements were formed on began to cross the mountains. the main routes, extending north toward Fort Pitt, and south to the head waters of the Holston and Clinch, in the vicinity of Southwestern Virginia. In 1766, a town was laid out in the vicinity of Fort Pitt. Military land warrants had been issued in great numbers, and a perfect mania for western land had taken possession of the people of the middle colonies. The treaty made by Sir William ohnson, at Fort Stanwix, on the site of Utica, New York, in