morials of the "renewal of
the possession of the Ohio and all its affluents" originally
established by arms and treaties, particularly those of Ryswick,
Utrecht, and Aix-la-Chapelle. Under the instructions of Governor
Duquesne, who possessed all the sagacity of La Galissonniere, forts
were established at Presqu'ile (Erie) and on French Creek, a tributary
of the Alleghany. Virginians saw with dismay the entrance {224} of the
French into a region on which they were now casting a longing eye.
Their government had secured from the Iroquois a doubtful deed which
gave them, as they urged, a title to the Great West, and a company was
even formed to occupy the Ohio. In 1754 the English commenced the
construction of a fort at the forks of the Ohio, but it was easily
captured by Contrecoeur, who completed and renamed it in honour of the
Governor of Canada, Duquesne. Washington, who now first appears in
American history, was defeated by Chevalier de Villiers at Fort
Necessity, a mere intrenchment at Great Meadows, and the French held
entire possession of the Ohio valley, where no English trader or
pioneer dared show himself. By 1755 the French dominion was complete
from the Ohio to the Illinois, and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of
Mexico, so far as a slender line of communication by means of widely
separated posts and settlements could make it so. On the St. Joseph,
the Maumee, the Wabash, and the Illinois, there were small forts. Fort
Chartres in the Illinois country was the only post of any thorough
construction. At Cahokia, opposite the modern city of St. Louis, and
at Kaskaskia, at the junction of the river of that name with the
Mississippi, there were small and relatively prosperous French
villages. In Louisiana the French had the towns of Mobile, Biloxi, New
Orleans, and a few other settlements, where the African blacks far
outnumbered the whites. That colony had had many difficulties to
surmount before it could be considered established. Wars with the
Natchez and Chickasaws {225} had been constant. Crozat's experiment
had been followed by the establishment of the Mississippi or Western
Company, which was to develop gold mines, that never existed except in
the imaginations of its reckless promoter, John Law, a Scotchman. When
the Mississippi bubble burst, and so many thousands were ruined in
France, Louisiana still continued under the control of the company,
which was eventually obliged to give up its charter