George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

[243]

At the same time men of European origin were

chap. X.} 1756.

penetrating the interior of Tennessee from Carolina; and near the junction of the Telliquo and the Tennessee, a little band of two hundred men, three-fifths of whom were provincials, under the command of Captain Demere, were engaged in completing the New Fort Loudoun, which was to insure the command of the country. They exulted in possessing a train of artillery, consisting of twelve great guns which had been brought to the English camp,¹ ‘from such a distance as the seaport, and over such prodigious mountains.’ The Cherokees were much divided in sentiment. ‘Use all means you think proper,’ wrote Lyttleton, ‘to induce our Indians to take up the hatchet. Promise a reward to every man who shall bring in the scalp of a Frenchman or of one of the French Indians.’²

In December, the Six Nations sent a hundred and eighty delegates to meet the Nepissings, the Algonquins, the Potawatamies, and the Ottawas, at a congress at Montreal. All promised at least neutrality; the young braves wished even to join the French; and they trod the English medals under foot.

The imbecility which marked the conduct of British affairs in America, showed itself still more decidedly in the cabinet, which, though united and commanding a subservient majority, was crumbling in