(which the Indians call Tomahawks), Kettles, red and blue Planes,
Duffields, Stroudwater blankets, and some Cutlary Wares, Brass
Rings and other Trinkets." In Pennsylvania, George Croghan, the
guileful diplomat, who was emissary from the Council to the Ohio
Indians (1748), had induced "all-most all the Ingans in the
Woods" to declare against the French; and was described by
Christopher Gist as a "meer idol among his countrymen, the Irish
traders."

Against these advances of British trade and civilization, the
French for four decades had artfully struggled, projecting tours
of exploration into the vast medial valley of the continent and
constructing a chain of forts and trading-posts designed to
establish their claims to the country and to hold in check the
threatened English thrust from the east. Soon the wilderness
ambassador of empire, Celoron de Bienville, was despatched by the
far-visioned Galissoniere at Quebec to sow broadcast with
ceremonial pomp in the heart of America the seeds of empire,
grandiosely graven plates of lasting lead, in defiant yet futile
symbol of the asserted sovereignty of France. Thus threatened in
the vindication of the rights of their colonial sea-to-sea
charters, the English threw off the lethargy with which they had
failed to protect their traders, and in grants to the Ohio and
Loyal land companies began resolutely to form plans looking to
the occupation of the interior. But the French seized the English
trading-house at Venango which they converted into a fort; and
Virginia's protest, conveyed by a calm and judicious young man, a
surveyor, George Washington, availed not to prevent the French
from seizing Captain Trent's hastily erected military post at the
forks of the Ohio and constructing there a formidable work, named