back of the Appalachian mountains, on both sides of the Ohio and between that river and the lakes, is now well known, both to the English and French, to be one of the finest in North America, for the extreme richness and fertility of the land, the healthy temperature of the air, and mildness of the climate; the plenty of hunting, fishing and fowling; the facility of trade with the Indians; and the vast convenience of inland navigation or water carriage by the lakes and great rivers, many hundreds of leagues around." "From these natural advantages," he predicts "it must undoubtedly (perhaps in less than another century,) become a populous and powerful dominion."

In favor of his project of charters and encouragement to two border colonies, as above sketched, Franklin gives so characteristic an outline of the evils to be prevented, and the benefits to be attained, that we cannot refrain from a quotation of some extent:

"The French are now making open encroachments on these territories, in defiance of our known rights; and if we longer delay to settle that country, and suffer them to possess it, these inconveniencies and mischiefs will probably follow:

1. Our people being confined to the country between the sea and the mountains, cannot much more increase in number people increasing in proportion to their room and means of subsistence.

2. The French will increase much more, by that acquired room and plenty of subsistence, and become a great people behind us.

3. Many of our debtors and loose English people, our German servants and slaves, will probably desert to them, and increase their numbers and strength, to the lessening and weakening of ours.

4. They will cut us off from all commerce and alliance with the western Indians, to the great prejudice of Britain, by preventing the sale and consumption of its manufactures.

5. They will, both in time of peace and war, (as they have always done against New England,) set the Indians on to harrass our frontiers, kill and scalp our people, and drive in the advanced settlers; and so, in preventing our obtaining more subsistence by cultivating of new lands, they discourage our marriages, and keep our people from increasing; thus (if the expression may be allowed,) killing thousands of our children before they are born.

"If two strong colonies of English were settled between the Ohio and Lake Erie, in the places hereafter to be mentioned, these advantages might be expected:

1. They would be a great security to the frontiers of our other colonies, by preventing the incursions of the French and French Indians of Canada, on the back parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas; and the frontiers of such new colonies would be much more easily defended than those of the colonies last mentioned now can be, as will appear hereafter.

2. The dreaded junction of the French settlements in Canada with those of Louisiana would be prevented.

3. In case of a war, it would be easy, from those new colonies, to annoy Louisiana, by going down the Ohio and the Mississippi; and the southern part of Canada, by sailing over the lakes, and thereby confine the French within narrow limits.

4. We could secure the friendship and trade of the Miamis or Twigtwees, (a numerous people, consisting of many tribes, inhabiting the country between the west end of Lake Erie and the south end of Lake Huron, [Michigan rather,] and

the Ohio,) who are at present dissatisfied with the French and fond of the English, and would gladly encourage and protect an infant English settlement in or near their country, as some of their chiefs have declared to the writer of this memoir. Further, by means of the Lakes, the Ohio and Mississippi, our trade might be extended through a vast country, among many numerous and distant nations, greatly to the benefit of Britain.

5. The settlement of all the intermediate lands, between the present frontiers of our colonies on one side, and the Lakes and Mississippi on the other, would be facilitated and speedily executed, to the great increase of Englishmen, English trade, and English power.

"The grants to most of the colonies, are of long narrow slips of land, extending west from the Atlantic to the South Sea. They are much too long for their breadth; the extremes are at too great distance: and therefore unfit to be continued under their present dimensions. Several of the old colonies may conveniently be limited westward by the Alleghany or Apalachian mountains, and new colonies formed. west of those mountains."

Tempting as this relic is, we will not further pursue the extract. It is certainly the prophecy of history, and perhaps no passage in the useful life of Franklin, has been more productive of service to his country, than his early labors to unite the colonies. They were the germ of the confederacy of the Revolution, and the Constitution of 1789. The foregoing project was in the alternative-only in case the Albany scheme was not adopted. Both, however, were one generation too soon. These councils were unheeded, and after 1754, the reaction in favor of the French, so extensively prevailed among the Western tribes, for the reasons already

indicated, that Braddock's defeat became the signal of a general rising against the colonies.

Our record of the subsequent occurrences of the French and English war, can only be chronological.

On the 17th of April, 1754, while a small party of Virginians were erecting a fort at the forks of the Ohio, Contrecoeur, a French officer, appeared on the Alleghany with sixty batteaux, three hundred canoes and eighteen cannon. Ensign Ward, who, in the absence of Capt. Trent and Lieut. Fraser, was in command of only forty-one men, surrendered to a force of one thousand French and Indians, and was permitted to lead his party, with their tools, to Virginia. The French erected Fort Du Quesne at once, and their communication from Lake Erie to the Ohio was complete.

The retreating company fell in with a force of one hundred and fifty men, under Col. Washington, who, instead of turning back, resolved to push boldly on, strike the Monongahela at the mouth of Redstone, (now Brownsville,) and establish a fort there. Informed by Tanacharison, a friendly Indian chief, otherwise called Half King, that a French party was seeking him, Washington advanced, a skirmish ensued, M. de Junonville, the French commandant, and ten of his men were killed, and twenty-two taken prisoners, one of whom was wounded. One of Col. Washington's men was killed, and two or three wounded. This event occurred on the 28th of May, 1754.

Washington was soon joined by the rest of his regiment (his rank was Lieut. Colonel, but he had succeeded to the command on the death of Col. Joseph Fry,) raising his force to six hundred men. He erected a stockade at Great Meadows, called Fort Necessity, and pushed on towards Fort Du Quesne. The approach of a much superior force

under M. de Villiers, brother of Junonville, obliged him to fall back to Fort Necessity. His troops were fatigued, discouraged and short of provisions; and, after a day's fighting, he agreed to give up the fort, and to retire with his arms and baggage. Having retired to Wills creek, Washington's troops assisted in the erection of Fort Cumberland, which now became the frontier post of Virginia.

We need not repeat the tale of Braddock's defeat. It occurred on the 9th of July, 1755. An expedition against Niagara also failed.

Singular as it may seem in this paper age, war was not declared between England and France until May, 1756. This year was also barren of results.

Nothing decisive until 1758. Then, among other triumphs of English arms, Fort Du Quesne was abandoned on the approach of Gen. Forbes through Pennsylvania. With the fall of this fort ceased all direct contest in the West. From that time, Canada was the scene of operations, but in 1759, Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Niagara, and at length Quebec itself, yielded to the English; and, on the 8th of September, 1760, Montreal, Detroit, and all Canada were given up by Vaudreuil, the French Governor.

Our statement that Fort Sandusky was built and occupied by the French as early as 1750-1, is now seen to be fully sustained by the journal of (both contemporary documents) as well as by the opinion of Bancroft. The exact locality of this stockade cannot be ascertained, but the probability is, on a comparison of all the references which have fallen under our notice, that the site was about three miles west of the city of Sandusky, near the village of Venice, on Sandusky Bay. The trail from Fort Du Quesne, afterwards Fort Pitt, and now Pittsburg, to

Gist, and the essay of Franklin