encroaching, but to act towards them at the same time “with the greatest politeness."[51] This last injunction was scarcely fulfilled in a correspondence which he had with Clinton, governor of New York, who had written to complain of the new post at the Niagara portage as an invasion of English territory, and also of the arrest of four English traders in the country of the Miamis.  Niagara, like Oswego, was in the country of the Five Nations, whom the treaty of Utrecht declared “subject to the dominion of Great Britain."[52] This declaration, preposterous in itself, was binding on France, whose plenipotentiaries had signed the treaty.  The treaty also provided that the subjects of the two Crowns “shall enjoy full liberty of going and coming on account of trade,” and Clinton therefore demanded that La Jonquiere should disavow the arrest of the four traders and punish its authors.  The French Governor replied with great asperity, spurned the claim that the Five Nations were British subjects, and justified the arrest.[53] He presently went further.  Rewards were offered by his officers for the scalps of Croghan and of another trader named Lowry.[54] When this reached the ears of William Johnson, on the Mohawk, he wrote to Clinton in evident anxiety for his own scalp:  “If the French go on so, there is no man can be safe in his own house; for I can at any time get an Indian to kill any man for a small matter.  Their going on in that manner is worse than open war.”

[Footnote 47:  Le Ministre a la Galissoniere, 14 Mai, 1749.]

[Footnote 48:  Memoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760.  The charges made here and elsewhere are denied, somewhat faintly, by a descendant of La Jonquiere in his elaborate Notice biographique of his ancestor.]

[Footnote 49:  Le Ministre a La Jonquiere, Mai, 1749.  The instructions given to La Jonquiere before leaving France also urge the necessity of destroying Oswego.]

[Footnote 50:  Ordres du Roy et Depeches des Ministres; a MM. de la Jonquiere et Bigot, 15 Avril, 1750.  See Appendix A. for original.]

[Footnote 51:  Ordres du Roy et Depeches des Ministres, 1750.]

[Footnote 52:  Chalmers, Collection of Treaties, I. 382.]

[Footnote 53:  La Jonquiere a Clinton, 10 Aout, 1751.]

[Footnote 54:  Deposition of Morris Turner and Ralph Kilgore, in Colonial Records of Pa., V. 482.  The deponents had been prisoners at Detroit.]

The French on their side made counter-accusations.  The captive traders were examined on oath before La Jonquiere, and one of them, John Patton, is reported to have said that Croghan had instigated Indians to kill Frenchmen.[55] French officials declared that other English traders were guilty of the same practices; and there is very little doubt that the charge was true.

[Footnote 55:  Precis des Faits, avec leurs Pieces justificatives, 100.]