57: _Ibid._, 115.]

[Footnote 158: Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, II., 425-6. He was
prominently engaged in other battles; see Wis. Hist. Colls., VII.,
123-187.]

[Footnote 159: Wis. Hist. Colls., V., 117.]

[Footnote 160: Neill, in _Mag. West. Hist._, VII., 17, and Minn. Hist.
Colls., V., 434-436. For other examples see Wis. Hist. Colls., V.,
113-118; Minn. Hist. Colls., V., 430-1.]

THE ENGLISH AND THE NORTHWEST. INFLUENCE OF THE INDIAN TRADE ON
DIPLOMACY.

In the meantime what was the attitude of the English toward the
Northwest? In 1720 Governor Spotswood of Virginia wrote:[161] "The
danger which threatens these, his Maj'ty's Plantations, from this new
Settlement is also very considerable, for by the communication which the
French may maintain between Canada and Mississippi by the conveniency of
the Lakes, they do in a manner surround all the British Plantations.
They have it in their power by these Lakes and the many Rivers running
into them and into the Mississippi to engross all the Trade of the
Indian Nations w'ch are now supplied from hence."

Cadwallader Colden, Surveyor-General of New York, says in 1724: "New
France (as the French now claim) extends from the mouth of the
Mississippi to the mouth of the River St. Lawrence, by which the French
plainly shew their intention of enclosing the British Settlements and
cutting us off from all Commerce with the numerous Nations of Indians
that are everywhere settled over the vast continent of North
America."[162] As time passed, as population increased, and as the
reports of the traders extolled the fertility of the country, both the
English and the French, but particularly the Americans, began to
consider it from the standpoint of colonization as well as from that of
the fur trade.[163] The Ohio Company had both settlement and the fur
trade in mind,[164] and the French Governor, Galissoniere, at the same
period urged that France ought to plant a colony in the Ohio
region.[165] After the conquest of New France by England there was still
the question whether she should keep Canada and the Northwest.[166]
Franklin, urging her to do so, offered as one argument the value of the
fur trade, intrinsically and as a means of holding the Indians in check.
Discussing the question whether the interior regions of America would
ever be accessible to English settlement and so to English manufactures,
he pointed out the vastness of our river and lake system, and the fact