How
they did it we shall see presently. It was the weakness of the
English colonies that they could not unite to work out a great
plan. If Virginia took steps to advance westward, Pennsylvania
was jealous lest lands which she desired should go to a rival
colony. France, on the other hand, had complete unity of design.
Celoron spoke in the name of the King of France and he spoke in
terms uncompromising enough. "The Ohio," said the King of France
through his agent, "belongs to me." It is a French river. The
lands bordering upon it are "my lands." The English intruders are
foreign robbers and not one of them is to be left in the western
country: "I wilt not endure the English on my land." The Indians,
dwelling in that region, are "my children."
Scattered over the vast region about the Great Lakes were a good
many French. At the lower end of Lake Ontario stood Fort
Frontenac, a menace to the colony of New York, as the dwellers in
the British post of Oswego on the opposite shore of the lake well
knew. We have already seen that the French held a fort at Niagara
guarding the route leading farther west to Lake Erie and to
regions beyond Lake Erie, by way of the Ohio or the upper lakes,
to the Mississippi.
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