62 FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN AMERICA. [1730-1754. 



Years passed on. In spite of a vicious plan of 

 government, in spite of the bursting of the memora- 

 ble Mississippi bubble, the new colony grew in wealth 

 and strength. And now it remained for France to 

 unite the two extremities of her broad American do- 

 main, to extend forts and settlements across the fertile 

 solitudes between the valley of the St. Lawrence and 

 the mouth of the Mississippi, and intrench herself 

 among the forests which lie west of the Allegha- 

 nies, before the swelling tide of British colonization 

 could overflow those mountain barriers. At the 

 middle of the eighteenth century, her great project 

 was ftist advancing towards completion. The lakes 

 and streams, the thoroughfares of the wilderness, 

 were seized and guarded by a series of posts dis- 

 tributed with admirable skill. A fort on the strait 

 of Niagara commanded the great enti'ance to the 

 whole interior country. Another at Detroit con- 

 trolled the passage from Lake Erie to the north. 

 Another at St. Mary's debarred all hostile access to 

 Lake Superior. Another at Michillimackinac 

 secured the mouth of Lake Michigan. A post at 

 Green Bay, and one at St. Joseph, guarded the 

 two routes to the Mississippi, by way of the rivers 

 Wisconsin and Illinois ; while two posts on the 

 Wabash, and one on the Maumee, made France 

 the mistress of the great trading highway from 

 Lake Erie to the Ohio. At Kaskaskia, Cahokia, 

 and elsewhere in the Illinois, little French settle- 

 ments had sprung up ; and as the canoe of the 

 voyager descended the Mississippi, he saw% at rare 

 intervals, along its swampy margin, a few small 



