There can be no doubt that, had they been able to look into the future, every Indian on the continent would have joined the French in their effort to crush the English colonies.  Had France remained master of America the Indians might, even now, be roaming free and unmolested on the lands of their forefathers.  France is not a colonizing nation.  She would have traded with the Indians, would have endeavoured to Christianize them, and would have left them their land and freedom, well satisfied with the fact that the flag of France should wave over so vast an extent of country; but on England conquering the soil, her armies of emigrants pressed west, and the red man is fast becoming extinct on the continent of which he was once the lord.

Celoron’s expedition sailed down the Ohio until it reached the mouth of the Miami, and toiled for thirteen days against its shallow current, until they reached a village of the Miami Indians, ruled over by a chief called, by the French, La Demoiselle, but whom the English, whose fast friend he was, called Old Britain.  He was the great chief of the Miami confederation.

The English traders there withdrew at the approach of the French.  The usual council was held, and Celoron urged the chief to remove from this location, which he had but newly adopted, and to take up his abode, with his band, near the French fort on the Maumee.  The chief accepted the Frenchman’s gifts, thanked him for his good advice, and promised to follow it at a more convenient time; but neither promises nor threats could induce him to stir at once.

No sooner, indeed, had the French departed, than the chief gathered the greater part of the members of the confederation on that spot; until, in less than two years after the visit of Celoron, its population had increased eightfold, and it became one of the greatest Indian towns of the west, and the centre of English trade and influence.

Celoron reached Miami, and then returned northward to Lake Erie, and thence back to Montreal, when he reported to the governor that English influence was supreme in the valley of the Ohio.

In the following year, a company was formed in Virginia for effecting a settlement in Ohio, and a party proceeded west to the village of the chief called Old Britain, by whom they were received with great friendship, and a treaty of peace was solemnly made between the English and the Indians.  While the festivities, consequent on the affair, were going on, four Ottawa Indians arrived from the French, with the French flag and gifts, but they were dismissed with an answer of defiance.  If, at this time, the colonists could have cemented their alliance with the Indians, with gifts similar to those with which the French endeavoured to purchase their friendship, a permanent peace with the Indians might have been established; but the mutual jealousies of the colonies, and the nature of the various colonial assemblies, rendered any common action impossible.  Pennsylvania was jealous of the westward advance of Virginia, and desired to thwart rather than to assist her.