During forty years, commissioners of the two nations had been
trying to reach some agreement as to boundaries. Each side,
however, made impossible demands. France claimed all the lands
drained by the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes and by the
Mississippi and its tributaries a claim which, if made good,
would have carried her into the very heart of the colony of New
York and would have given her also the mastery of the Ohio and
the regions beyond. Britain claimed all the lands ever occupied
by the Iroquois Indians, who had been recognized as British
subjects by the Treaty of Utrecht. As those Indians had overrun
regions north of the St. Lawrence, the British thus would become
masters of a good part of Canada. Neither side was prepared for
reasonable compromise. The sword was to be the final arbiter.
Events moved rapidly towards war. In 1753 Duquesne, the new
Governor of Canada, sent more than a thousand men to build Fort
Le Boeuf, on upper waters flowing to the Ohio and within easy
reach of support by way of Lake Erie. In the nest year the French
were swarming in the Ohio Valley, stirring up the Indians against
the English and confident of success.
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