nglish fort at
Oswego had been built at the southeast corner of Lake Ontario to catch
the fur trade of the northern tribes coming down the lakes to New
France, and to hold the Iroquois' friendship. Also, as French traders
pass up the lake to Fort Frontenac (Kingston) and Niagara with their
national flag flying from the prow of canoe and flatboat, chance
bullets from the {222} English fort ricochet across the advancing
prows, and soldiers on the galleries inside Fort Oswego take bets on
whether they can hit the French flag. Prompt as a gamester, New France
checkmates this move. Peter Schuyler has been settling English farmers
round Lake Champlain. At Crown Point, long known as Scalp Point, where
the lake narrows and portage runs across to Lake George and the Mohawk
land, the French in 1731 erect a strong fort. As for the English
traders at Fort Oswego catching the tribes from the north, New France
counterchecks that by sending Portneuf in April of 1749, only a year
after the peace, to the Toronto portage where the Indians come from the
Upper Lakes by way of Lake Simcoe. What is now known as Toronto is
named Rouille, after a French minister; and as if this were not
checkmate enough to the English advancing westward, the Sulpician
priest from Montreal, Abbe Picquet, zealously builds a fort straight
north of Oswego, on the south side of the St. Lawrence, to keep the
Iroquois loyal to France. Picquet calls his fort "Presentation." His
enemies call it "Picquet's Folly." It is known to-day as Ogdensburg.
Look at the map. France's frontier line is guarded by forts that stand
like sentinels at the gateways of all waters leading to the
interior,--Ogdensburg, Kingston, Toronto, Niagara, Detroit,
Michilimackinac, and La Verendrye's string of forts far west as the
Rockies. New York's frontier line is guarded by one fort
only,--Oswego. Here too, as in Acadia, the peace is a farce.

[Illustration: FORT PRESENTATION]

But it was in the valley of the Ohio where the greatest struggle over
boundaries took place. One year after the peace, Celoron de Bienville
is sent in July, 1749, to take possession of the {223} Ohio for France.
France claims right to this region by virtue of La Salle's explorations
sixty years previously, and of all those French bushrangers who have
roved the wilds from the Great Lakes to Louisiana. Small token did
France take of La Salle's exploits while he lived, but great store do
her statesmen set by