ians and the
English lasted seven years, from 1754 to 1761. During that time there
were many terrible battles, and thousands of soldiers were killed, and
there was much suffering and slaughter among the people, and burning of
houses, and destruction of property, and horrors of all sorts.

It is called the French and Indian War, because there were many Indians
on the side of the French. There were some on the side of the English,
also. Indians are very savage and cruel in their way of fighting, as you
already know. I shall have to tell you one instance of their love of
bloodshed. One of the English forts, called Fort William Henry, which
stood at the southern end of Lake George, had to surrender to the
French, and its soldiers were obliged to march out and give up their
guns.

There were a great many Indians with the French, and while the prisoners
stood outside the fort, without a gun in their hands, the savage men
attacked them and began to kill them with knives and tomahawks. The
French had promised to protect them, but they stood by and did nothing
to stop this terrible slaughter, and many of the helpless soldiers were
murdered. Others were carried off by the Indians as prisoners. It was
the most dreadful event of the whole cruel war.

I must now ask you to look on a map of the State of New York, if you
have any. There you will find the Hudson River, and follow it up north
from the city of New York, past Albany, the capital of the state, until
it ends in a region of mountains. Near its upper waters is a long,
narrow lake named Lake George, which is full of beautiful islands. North
of that is a much larger lake named Lake Champlain, which reaches up
nearly to Canada.

The British had forts on the Hudson River and Lake George and the French
on Lake Champlain, and also between the two lakes, where stood the
strong Fort Ticonderoga. It was around these forts and along these
lakes that most of the fighting took place. For a long time the French
had the best of it. The British lost many battles and were driven back.
But they had the most soldiers, and in the end they began to defeat the
French and drive them back, and Canada became the seat of war. But let
me tell you the story of the Acadians.

Acadia was a country which had been settled by the French a long, long
time before, away back in 1604, before there was an English settlement
in America. Captain John Smith, you know, came to America in 1607, three
years afte