1730-1754.] THEIK APPROACHING COLLISION. 63 



stockade forts, half buried amid the redundancy of 

 forest vegetation, until, as he approached Natchez, 

 the dwellings of the hahitans of Louisiana began 

 to ap])ear. 



The forest posts of France were not exclusively 

 of a military character. Adjacent to most of them, 

 one would have found a little cluster of Canadian 

 dwellings, w^hose tenants hved under the protection 

 of the garrison, and obeyed the arbitrary will of 

 the commandant; an authority which, however, 

 was seldom exerted in a despotic spirit. In these 

 detached settlements, there was no principle of 

 increase. The character of the people, and of 

 the government which ruled them, were alike 

 unfavorable to it. Agriculture w^as neglected for 

 the more congenial pursuits of the fur-trade, and 

 the restless, roving Canadians, scattered abroad on 

 their wdld vocation, allied themselves to Indian 

 Avomen, and filled the woods with a mongrel race 

 of bush-rangers. 



Thus far secure in the west, France next essayed 

 to gain foothold upon the sources of the Ohio ; and 

 about the year 1748, the sagacious Count Galiss- 

 onniere proposed to bring over ten thousand peas- 

 ants from France, and plant them in the valley of 

 that beautiful river, and on the borders of the lakes.^ 

 But while at Quebec, in the Castle of St. Louis, 

 soldiers and statesmen were revolving schemes like 

 this, the slowly-moving power of England bore on 

 with silent progress from the east. Already the 



J Smith, Hist. Canada, I. 208. 



