dots, and Iroquois, or Indians of the
Five Nations, who had migrated thither from their original territories
in the colony of New York. Further west, on the banks of the Miami, the
Wabash, and other streams, was a confederacy of the Miami and their
kindred tribes. Still further west, in the country of the Illinois,
near the Mississippi, the French had a strong stone fort called Fort
Chartres, which formed one of the chief links of the chain of posts
that connected Quebec with New Orleans.

The French missionaries and the French political agents had, for
seventy years, laboured hard to bring these Indian tribes into close
connection with France. The missionaries had failed signally; but the
presents, so lavishly bestowed, had inclined the tribes to the side of
their donors, until the English traders with their cheap goods came
pushing west over the Alleghenies. They carried their goods on the
backs of horses, and journeyed from village to village, selling powder,
rum, calicoes, beads, and trinkets. No less than three hundred men were
engaged in these enterprises, and some of them pushed as far west as
the Mississippi.

As the party of Celoron proceeded they nailed plates of tin, stamped
with the arms of France, to trees; and buried plates of lead near them,
with inscriptions saying that they took possession of the land in the
name of Louis the Fifteenth, King of France.

Many of the villages were found to be deserted by the natives, who fled
at their approach. At some, however, they found English traders, who
were warned at once to leave the country; and, by some of them, letters
were sent to the governor of Pennsylvania, in which Celoron declared
that he was greatly surprised to find Englishmen trespassing in the
domain of France, and that his orders were precise, to leave no foreign
traders within the limits of the government of Canada.

At Chiningue, called Logstown by the English, a large number of natives
were gathered, most of the inhabitants of the deserted villages having
sought refuge there. The French were received with a volley of balls
from the shore; but they landed without replying to the fire, and
hostilities were avoided. The French kept guard all night, and in the
morning Celoron invited the chiefs to a council, when he told them he
had come, by the order of the governor, to open their eyes to the
designs of the English against their lands, and that they must be
driven away at once. The reply of the