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

[43] Saint Lawrence, as far as Detroit. On the southern

chap. II.} 1749.

banks of the Ohio, opposite the point of an island, and near the junction of a river, that officer buried, at the foot of a primeval red-oak, a plate of lead with the inscription, that, from the farthest ridge whence water trickled towards the Ohio, the country belonged to France; while the lilies of the Bourbons were nailed to a forest tree in token of possession.¹ ‘I am going down the river,’ said he to Indians at Logstown, ‘to scourge home our children, the Miamis and the Wyandots;’ and he forbade all trading with the English. ‘The lands are ours,’ replied the Indians, and they claimed freedom of commerce. The French emissary proceeded to the towns of the Miamis, expelled the English traders, and by letter requested Hamilton, the governor of Pennsylvania, to prevent all farther intrusion. But the Indians brooded over the plates which he buried at the mouth of every remarkable creek. ‘We know,’ thus they murmured, ‘it is done to steal our country from us;’ and they resolved to ‘go to the Onondaga council’ for protection.²

On the northeast, the well informed La Galissoniere took advantage of the gentle and unsuspecting character of the Acadians themselves, and of the doubt that existed respecting occupancy and ancient titles. In 1710, when Port Royal, now Annapolis, was vacated, the fort near the mouth of the St. John's remained to France. The English had no settlement on that river; and though they had, on appeal to their tribunals, exercised some sort of jurisdiction, it