The Clash in the Ohio Valley.-The second of these wars had hardly closed,however,before the English colonists themselves began to be seriously alarmed about the rapidly expanding French dominion in the West.Marquette and Jo-liet,who opened the Lake region,and La Salle,who in 1682had gone down the Mississippi to the Gulf,had been followed by the builders of forts.In 1718,the French founded New Orleans,thus taking pos-session of the gateway to the Mississippi as well as the St.Lawrence.A few years later they built Fort Niagara;in 1731they oc-cupied Crown Point;in 1749they formally an-nounced their dominionBraddock's Retreat over all the territory drained by the Ohio River.Having asserted this lofty claim,they set out to make it good by constructing in the years 1752-1754Fort Le B?uf near Lake Erie,Fort Venango on the upper waters of the Allegheny,and Fort Duquesne at the junction of the streams forming the Ohio.Though they were warned by George Washington,in the name of the governor of Virginia,to keep out of territory "so notoriously known to be property of the crown of Great Britain,"the French showed no signs of relinquishing their pretensions.
The Final Phase-the French and Indian War.-Thus it happened that the shot which opened the Seven Years'War,known in America as the French and Indian War,was fired in the wilds of Pennsylvania.There began the conflict that spread to Europe and even Asia and finally involved England and Prussia,on the one side,and France,Austria,Spain,and minor powers on the other.On American soil,the defeat of Braddock in 1755and Wolfe's exploit in capturing Quebec four years later were the dramatic features.On the continent of Europe,England subsidized Prussian arms to hold France at bay.In India,on the banks of the Ganges,as on the banks of the St.Lawrence,British arms were trium-phant.Well could the historian write:"Conquests equaling in rapidity and far surpassing in magnitude those of Cortes and Pizarro had been achieved in the East."Well could the merchants of London declare that under the administra-tion of William Pitt,the imperial genius of this world-wide conflict,commerce had been "united with and made to flourish by war."
From the point of view of the British empire,the results of the war were momentous.By the peace of 1763,Canada and the territory east of the Mississippi,except New Orleans,passed under the British flag.The remainder of the Louisiana territory was transferred to Spain and French imperial ambitions on the American continent were laid to rest.In exchange for Havana,which the British had seized during the war,Spain ceded to King George the colony of Florida.Not without warrant did Macaulay write in after years that Pitt "was the first Englishman of his time;and he had made England the first country in the world."
The Effects of Warfare on the Colonies
The various wars with the French and the Indians,trivial in detail as they seem to-day,had a profound influence on colonial life and on the destiny of America.Circumstances beyond the control of popular assemblies,jealous of their individual powers,compelled co?peration among them,grudging and stingy no doubt,but still co?peration.The American people,more eager to be busy in their fields or at their trades,were simply forced to raise and support armies,to learn the arts of warfare,and to practice,if in a small theater,the science of statecraft.These forces,all cumulative,drove the colonists,so tenaciously provincial in their habits,in the direction of nationalism.
The New England Confederation.-It was in their efforts to deal with the problems presented by the Indian and French menace that the Americans took the first steps toward union.Though there were many common ties among the settlers of New England,it required a deadly fear of the Indians to produce in 1643the New England Confederation,composed of Massachusetts,Plymouth,Connecticut,and New Haven.The colonies so united were bound together in "a firm and perpetual league of friendship and amity for offense and defense,mu-tual service and succor,upon all just occasions."They made provision for dis-tributing the burdens of wars among the members and provided for a congress of commissioners from each colony to determine upon common policies.For some twenty years the Confederation was active and it continued to hold meet-ings until after the extinction of the Indian peril on the immediate border.
Virginia,no less than Massachusetts,was aware of the importance of intercolonial co?peration.In the middle of the seventeenth century,the Old Dominion began treaties of commerce and amity with New York and the colonies of New England.In 1684delegates from Virginia met at Albany with the agents of New York and Massachusetts to discuss problems of mutualdefense.A few years later the Old Dominion co?perated loyally with the Carolinas in defending their borders against Indian forays.