[Sidenote: International rivalry.]

"The firing of a gun in the woods of North America brought on a conflict
which drenched Europe in blood." In this rhetorical statement is suggested
the result of a great change in American conditions after 1750. For the
first time in the history of the colonies the settlements of England and
France were brought so near together as to provoke collisions in time of
peace. The attack on the French by the Virginia troops under Washington in
1754 was an evidence that France and England were ready to join in a
struggle for the possession of the interior of the continent, even though
it led to a general European war.

[Sidenote: Legal arguments.]

The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle of 1748 (Colonies, sec. 112) had not laid down
a definite line between the French and the English possessions west of the
mountains, According to the principles of international law observed at
the time of colonization, each power was entitled to the territory drained
by the rivers falling into that part of the sea-coast which it controlled.
The French, therefore, asserted a _prima facie_ title to the valleys
of the St. Lawrence and of the Mississippi (sec. 2); if there was a natural
boundary between the two powers, it was the watershed north and west of
the sources of the St. John, Penobscot, Connecticut, Hudson, Susquehanna,
Potomac, and James. On neither side had permanent settlements been
established far beyond this irregular ridge. This natural boundary had,
however, been disregarded in the early English grants. Did not the charter
of 1609 give to Virginia the territory "up into the land, from sea to sea,
west and northwest"? (Colonies, sec. 29.) Did not the Massachusetts,