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

[90] never should make a treaty in the basin of the

chap. IV.} 1751.

Ohio; they sent troops to prevent the intended congress of red men;¹ and they resolved to ruin the English interest in the remoter West, and take vengeance on the Miamis.

Yet Louis the Fifteenth disclaimed hostile intentions; to the British minister at Paris he himself expressed personally his concern that any cause of offence had arisen, and affirmed his determined purpose of peace. The minister of foreign relations, De Puysieux, who, on the part of France, was responsible for the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, a man of honor, though not of ability, was equally disinclined to disturb the public tranquillity. But Saint-Contest, who, in September, 1751, succeeded him, though a feeble statesman and fond of peace, yet aimed at a federative maritime system against England;² and Rouille, the minister of the marine department, loved war and prepared for it. Spain wisely kept aloof. ‘By antipathy,’ said the Marquis of Ensenada, the considerate minister of Ferdinand the Sixth, ‘and from interest also, the French and English will be enemies, for they are rivals for universal commerce;’ and he urged on his sovereign seasonable preparations, that he might, by neutrality, recover Gibraltar, and become the arbiter of the civilized world.³

Every thing seemed to portend a conflict between England and France along their respective frontiers in America. To be prepared for it, Clinton's advisers