The French missionaries and the French political agents had, for seventy years, laboured hard to bring these Indian tribes into close connection with France.  The missionaries had failed signally; but the presents, so lavishly bestowed, had inclined the tribes to the side of their donors, until the English traders with their cheap goods came pushing west over the Alleghenies.  They carried their goods on the backs of horses, and journeyed from village to village, selling powder, rum, calicoes, beads, and trinkets.  No less than three hundred men were engaged in these enterprises, and some of them pushed as far west as the Mississippi.

As the party of Celoron proceeded they nailed plates of tin, stamped with the arms of France, to trees; and buried plates of lead near them, with inscriptions saying that they took possession of the land in the name of Louis the Fifteenth, King of France.

Many of the villages were found to be deserted by the natives, who fled at their approach.  At some, however, they found English traders, who were warned at once to leave the country; and, by some of them, letters were sent to the governor of Pennsylvania, in which Celoron declared that he was greatly surprised to find Englishmen trespassing in the domain of France, and that his orders were precise, to leave no foreign traders within the limits of the government of Canada.

At Chiningue, called Logstown by the English, a large number of natives were gathered, most of the inhabitants of the deserted villages having sought refuge there.  The French were received with a volley of balls from the shore; but they landed without replying to the fire, and hostilities were avoided.  The French kept guard all night, and in the morning Celoron invited the chiefs to a council, when he told them he had come, by the order of the governor, to open their eyes to the designs of the English against their lands, and that they must be driven away at once.  The reply of the chiefs was humble; but they begged that the English traders, of whom there were, at that moment, ten in the town, might stay a little longer, since the goods they brought were necessary to them.

After making presents to the chiefs, the party proceeded on their way, putting up the coats of arms and burying the lead inscriptions.  At Scioto a large number of Indians were assembled, and the French were very apprehensive of an attack, which would doubtless have been disastrous to them, as the Canadians of the party were altogether unused to war.  A council was held, however, at which Celoron could obtain no satisfaction whatever, for the interests of the Indians were bound up with the English.