"The
English," he says, "had sent it to meet us, well knowing that this was
the best way to cause disorder among my new recruits and make them
desert me. The Indian in charge of the canoe, who had the look of a
great rascal, offered some to me first, and then to my Canadians and
Indians. I gave out that it was very probably poisoned, and immediately
embarked again."
He encamped on the fourteenth at Sodus Bay, and strongly advises the
planting of a French fort there. "Nevertheless," he adds, "it would be
still better to destroy Oswego, and on no account let the English build
it again." On the sixteenth he came in sight of this dreaded post.
Several times on the way he had met fleets of canoes going thither
or returning, in spite of the rival attractions of Toronto and Niagara.
No English establishment on the continent was of such ill omen to the
French. It not only robbed them of the fur-trade, by which they lived,
but threatened them with military and political, no less than commercial,
ruin. They were in constant dread lest ships of war should be built
here, strong enough to command Lake Ontario, thus separating Canada from
Louisiana, and cutting New France asunder. To meet this danger, they
soon after built at Fort Frontenac a large three-masted vessel, mounted
with heavy cannon; thus, as usual, forestalling their rivals by
promptness of action.[37] The ground on which Oswego stood was claimed
by the Province of New York, which alone had control of it; but through
the purblind apathy of the Assembly, and their incessant quarrels with
the Governor, it was commonly left to take care of itself.
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