96 COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES. [1700-1755. 



forest. The erection of this fort, better known 

 among the English as Crown Point, was a piece of 

 daring encroachment which justly kindled resent- 

 ment in the northern colonies. But it was not here 

 that the immediate occasion of a final rupture was 

 to arise. By an article of the treaty of Utrecht, 

 confirmed by that of Aix la Chapelle, Acadia had 

 been ceded to England ; but scarcely was the latter 

 treaty signed, when debates sprang up touching 

 the limits of the ceded province. Commissioners 

 were named on either side to adjust the disputed 

 boundary ; but the claims of the rival powers proved 

 utterly irreconcilable, and all negotiation was 

 fruitless.^ Meantime, the French and English 

 forces in Acadia began to assume a belligerent 

 attitude, and indulge their ill blood in mutual ag- 

 gression and reprisal.^ But while this game was 

 played on the coasts of the Atlantic, interests of 

 far greater ;noment were at stake in the west. 



The people of the middle colonies, placed by 

 their local position beyond reach of the French, 

 had heard with great composure of the sufferings 

 of their New England brethren, and felt little con- 

 cern at a danger so doubtful and remote. There 

 were those among them, however, who with greater 

 foresight had been quick to perceive the ambitious 

 projects of the rival nation ; and, as early as 1716, 

 Spotswood, governor of Virginia, had urged the 

 expediency of securing the valley of the Ohio by 



1 Garaeau, Book VIII. Chap. III. 



2 Holmes, Annals, II. 183. M€inoire contenant Le Precis des Fails, 

 Pieces Justijicatives, Part I. 



