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

[169]

The French ministry desired to put trust in the

chap. VII.} 1754.

solemn assurances of England. Giving discretionary power in case of a rupture, they instructed Duquesne to act only on the defensive;¹ to shun effusion of blood, and to employ Indian war-parties only when indispensable to tranquillity. Yet Canada, of which the population was but little above eighty thousand, sought security by Indian alliances. Chiefs of the Six Nations were invited to the colony,² and, on their arrival, were entreated, by a very large belt of wampum from six nations of French Indians, to break the sale of lands to the English on the Ohio. ‘Have regard,’ they cried, ‘for your offspring; for the English, whom you call your brothers, seek your ruin.’ Already the faithless Shawnees,³ the most powerful tribe on the Ohio, made war on the English, and distributed English scalps and prisoners among the nations who accepted their hatchet.

Fond of war, ‘the cruel and sanguinary’ Cumberland entered on his American career with eager ostentation. He was heroically brave and covetous of military renown, hiding regrets at failure under the aspect of indifference.⁴ Himself obedient to the king, he never forgave a transgression of ‘the minutest precept of the military rubric.’⁵ In Scotland, in 1746, his method against rebellion was ‘threatening military execution.’ ‘Our success,’ he at that time complained to Bedford, ‘has been too rapid. It would have been better for the extirpation of this ’