[Footnote 21:  Colonial Records of Pa., V. 515, 529, 547.  At a council at Logstown (1751), the Indians said to Croghan:  “The French want to cheat us out of our country; but we will stop them, and, Brothers the English, you must help us.  We expect that you will build a strong house on the River Ohio, that in case of war we may have a place to secure our wives and children, likewise our brothers that come to trade with us.” Report of Treaty at Logstown, Ibid., V. 538.]

The question of disputed boundaries had much to do with this most impolitic inaction.  A large part of the valley of the Ohio, including the site of the proposed establishment, was claimed by both Pennsylvania and Virginia; and each feared that whatever money it might spend there would turn to the profit of the other.  This was not the only evil that sprang from uncertain ownership.  “Till the line is run between the two provinces,” says Dinwiddie, governor of Virginia, “I cannot appoint magistrates to keep the traders in good order."[22] Hence they did what they pleased, and often gave umbrage to the Indians.  Clinton, of New York, appealed to his Assembly for means to assist Pennsylvania in “securing the fidelity of the Indians on the Ohio,” and the Assembly refused.[23] “We will take care of our Indians, and they may take care of theirs:”  such was the spirit of their answer.  He wrote to the various provinces, inviting them to send commissioners to meet the tribes at Albany, “in order to defeat the designs and intrigues of the French.”  All turned a deaf ear except Massachusetts, Connecticut, and South Carolina, who sent the commissioners, but supplied them very meagrely with the indispensable presents.[24] Clinton says further:  “The Assembly of this province have not given one farthing for Indian affairs, nor for a year past have they provided for the subsistence of the garrison at Oswego, which is the key for the commerce between the colonies and the inland nations of Indians."[25]

[Footnote 22:  Dinwiddie to the Lords of Trade, 6 Oct. 1752.]

[Footnote 23:  Journals of New York Assembly, II. 283, 284. Colonial Records of Pa., V. 466.]

[Footnote 24:  Clinton to Hamilton, 18 Dec. 1750.  Clinton to Lords of Trade, 13 June, 1751; Ibid., 17 July, 1751.]

[Footnote 25:  Clinton to Bedford, 30 July, 1750.]

In the heterogeneous structure of the British colonies, their clashing interests, their internal disputes, and the misplaced economy of penny-wise and short-sighted assembly-men, lay the hope of France.  The rulers of Canada knew the vast numerical preponderance of their rivals; but with their centralized organization they felt themselves more than a match for any one English colony alone.  They hoped to wage war under the guise of peace, and to deal with the enemy in detail; and they at length perceived that the fork of the Ohio, so strangely neglected by the English, formed, together with Niagara, the key of the Great West.  Could France hold firmly these two controlling passes, she might almost boast herself mistress of the continent.