ON CAPE BEETOK 227 



Canada she was forti^uate at having at the head of affairs in that country men 

 of cool judgment, admirable sagacity and national ambition like La G-alissonnière, 

 Duquesne and Montcalm. The bravest of them all, Montcalm, was destined by relentless 

 fate to eiface forever by his death on the battlefield those plans of supremacy in America 

 which the men who preceded him in New France had conceived and inscribed on the 

 early page of Canadian history. Ill-supported as La Galissonnière and Duquesne were 

 by the king and his ministers, engaged in a colossal and losing struggle in Europe, and 

 more ready to listen to the blandishments of mistresses like the false, worthless Pompa- 

 dour, than to the claims for aid of the struggling colonists in America, they carried out 

 their design of establishing France in America with great skill and energy, despite the 

 relatively feeble means at their command. "We have already seen how much had been 

 achieved before the first fall of Louisbourg in establishing forts and means of communi- 

 cation between the distant possessions of Canada aud Louisiana, and confining the Eng- 

 lish colonists between the Alleghanies and the sea. If we take up a maj) of the continent 

 as it appeared seven years after the restoration of Cape Breton to France, we see clearly 

 outlined her ambitious designs in the construction of forts and posts at particular points, 

 chosen with great discretion, on the great lakes, in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, and 

 at the entrance of the Grulf of St. Lawrence. Conscious of the mistake that was made in 

 restoring Acadie, they now claimed that its limits did not extend beyond the isthmus of 

 Chignecto, and proceeded to construct the forts of G-aspereau and Beauséjour on that neck 

 of land, and also one on the St. John river, so that they might control the land aud sea 

 approaches to Cape Breton from the St. Lawrence, where Quebec, enthroned on her 

 picturesque heights, aud Montreal, at the confluence of the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence, 

 held the keys to Canada. The approaches by the way of Lake Champlain and the Riche- 

 lieu were defended by the fort of St. John, at the northern extremity of the lake, and by 

 the more formidable works known as Fort Frederick or Crown Point— to give the better 

 known English name — at the narrows towards the south. The latter was the most advanced 

 post of the French until they built Fort Ticonderoga or Carillon on a high, rocky pro- 

 montory at the head of Lake Sacrament, afterwards called Lake George by G-eneral 

 Johnson — a sheet of water always famed for its picturesque charms. At the foot of this 

 lake, associated with so many memorable episodes in American history. General Johnson, 

 in 1*755, erected Fort "William Henry, abovit fourteen miles from Fort Edward or Lyman, 

 at the great carrying place on the upper waters of the Hudson. Eeturuing to the St. 

 Lawrence and the lakes, we find Fort P'rontenac. already mentioned, at the eastern end of 

 Lake Ontario, where the old sleepy city of Kingston now stands. At the other extremity 

 of this lake was Niagara, the most important key to the west. At Dftroit, Mackinaw 

 and the Sault the French continued to hold possession of the great lakes. Their commu- 

 nications, then, between the head of Lake Superior and Quebec were perfect, but between 

 the great valleys of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, over which they claimed 

 exclusive rights, there was another valley which became of great importance in the 

 execution of their scheme of continental dominion. This was the valley of the Ohio, 

 into which the adventurous men of Pennsylvania and Virginia were already slowly feel- 

 ing their way in the years succeeding the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Virginia had received 

 from the Iroquois a deed which gave it, as its rulers believed, a sound title to the Great 

 "West, and a company was already formed to occupy Ohio. It was in this valley that we 



