The Ohio Mingoes and the Wendats

339

29th, 1752,the Castor or Beaver Company of Quebec petitioned the Governor and Council of Canada to have a Fort erected on or near a river called by the French, La Riviere Blanche, for the support and strength of their Indian commerce, which they alleged was encroached upon by the English Traders. This was forthwith granted by the Governor and Council, and an army of six thousand men to be [raised] forthwith, and ready to march by the first of January, 1753. . . . They were to be divided into three parties, and to march as follows, the first party . . . on the first of January, 1753; . . . the second party ... to be ready on the first of March; . . . and the third party, consisting of the regulars and the rest of the militia to be ready to embark at Quebec on board of boats which were to be provided for them by the first of May.1 . . . The first party began their march on New Year's Day, 1753; the second party in March; and the remainder I saw embarked at Quebec on the first of May, on board 100 flat-bottomed boats built for the expedition. . . . The Indian Traders with whom I conversed inform me that La Riviere Blanche is 500 leagues from Quebec, and that it is in the British territories."

This was the expedition sent by Governor Duquesne in the spring of 1753 to build the French forts on the Ohio, three of which were nearly completed when Washington carried Governor Dinwiddie's letter to their commander in December of that year. These were Forts Presqu' Isle, Riviere aux Bceufs, and Venango. A fourth fort   Duquesne    was built during the next spring; and with the completion of these posts, the efforts which the French had been making for the past ten years to drive the English Traders away from the country of the White River and La Belle Riviere, were finally, for a brief period, successful.

'See deposition of J. B. Pidon, a French deserter, in Penna. Archives, ii., 124.