!

South America. Like the Peruvians, they worshiped the sun, from whom, also, their great chief claimed to be descended. In the great wigwam dedicated to their god, an undying fire was kept burning. Beside their principal chief, the "Great Sun," object of their highest reverence, there was a race of inferior chiefs or "suns," quite distinct from the common people. The hierarchical system was complete; but the small number of the Natchez did not allow of any of those striking results of combined labor, extorted by religious reverence, so remarkable among the Mexicans and Peruvians. The Natchez hardly differed in externals from the other tribes about them.

Alarmed at the encroachments of the French at Fort Rosalie, by whom their very village was demanded as a site for plantations, the Natchez presently began to grow hostile-a feeling stimulated by the Chickasaws, who dwelt northwardly up the east bank of the Mississippi, toward the mouth of the Ohio, and whose country extended eastward to the lands of the Cherokees.

Thus encouraged, the Natchez fell unexpectedly on the French settlement at Fort Rosalie, massacred the men to the number of two hundred, and made the women and children prisoners. (Nov. 1729.) The negro slaves were not harmed, and they presently joined the Indians. The settlers in the vicinity of New Orleans amounted, by this time, to near six thousand. But a third of that number were slaves, and dread of insurrection added to the terrors of Indian war.

While the people of New Orleans mustered their forces and fortified the city, Le Sueur, with a body of seven hundred Choctaw warriors, surprised the Natchez feasting over their victory, and liberated a part of the prisoners. Forces which presently arrived from New Orleans completed the success. Some of the discomfited Natchez fled to the Chickasaws, others crossed the Mississippi. But they were pursued, and only a few made good their escape. The great chief and four hundred others, prisoners in the hands of the French, were sent to St. Domingo and sold as slaves. (Jan. Feb. 1730.)

The English government, anxious to confirm their influence over the Cherokees, sent Sir Alexander Cumming to Carolina, specially authorized to renew the treaties with that

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powerful confederacy. Cumming held several councils in the Cherokee country; and seven of the principal chiefs were persuaded to accompany him to England on a visit to their great father," the king. These chiefs signed a treaty with the Board of Trade, by which they promised the return of all runaway slaves, and were made to acknowledge themselves the subjects of Great Britain. Hence, in the subsequent controversy with the French, a pretense on the part of Great Britain, as in the case of the Six Nations, to sovereignty all over the Cherokee territory.

While these events transpired at the south, the Canadian authorities excited apprehensions, by sending a party from Montreal up Lake Champlain, to occupy Crown Point, within a hundred miles of Albany. The Assembly of New York resolved that "this encroachment, if not prevented," would prove of "the most pernicious consequence to this and other colonies;" and they sent notice to Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, and applied to England for aid. Massachusetts entered warmly into their feelings. The Board of Trade supported their complaints; but the judicious policy of Walpole was peace. The experience of the last two wars, which had saddled England, to so little purpose, with a debt of two hundred and fifty millions of dollars, was not yet forgotten, and in spite of the remonstrances of New York and New England, the French were allowed quietly to occupy the shores of a lake, which, more than a century previous, they had been the first to explore.

Only at this single point, did the French yet approach the settlements of the English. There was a short and easy communication from Lake Erie with the upper waters of the Ohio; but no attempt was made by the French to occupy those waters, of which, indeed, they seem as yet to have known but little. The communication between Canada and Louisiana was carried on by the distant routes of Green Bay and the Wisconsin, Lake Michigan and the Illinois, and, presently, by the Maumee and the Wabash, which latter river was regarded by the French as the main stream, to which the Ohio was but a tributary. Low down the Wabash the post of St. Vincent's was presently established. Blue Ridge bounded as yet the back settlements of Pennsylvania and Virginia. Unknown mountains and unthreaded

The

forests separated, for a few years longer, the rival claimants of a continent.

Yet already the communication between Canada and Louisiana was exposed to obstructions. English traders from Carolina, penetrating through the country of the Cherokees, reached the distant Chickasaws, by whom, as enemies of the French, they were kindly received. These traders, in their turn, stimulated the hostility of the Chickasaws, whose canoes, filled with warriors, attacked the French boats navigating backward and forward from the Illinois to New Orleans. The Chickasaws even attempted, in conjunction with the English traders, to detach the tribes of the northwest from the French interest.

Puritan courage and enterprise seem to have been everywhere sufficient for the heading and counterbalancing all that corpse-like submission and fanaticism of the Jesuit could achieve. Protestantism had managed to make good friends in advance, as we have seen, of the Cherokees and Chickasaws, and opposed this alliance as a barrier upon the south nearly equal, in efficiency, to that of the Iroquois on the north. But hear further the narrative of the historian, upon whose careful labors the biographer of "Sam" has found that no one at this day can so far improve upon. He continues:

The Mississippi Company, utterly disappointed in its expectations of profit, and alarmed at the expense of the war with the Natchez, resigned Louisiana to the crown, and the Canadian Bienville, who had shared the fatigues and anxieties of the first settlement, was again commissioned as royal Governor; but the system of administration remained in most respects as before. The hostility of the Chickasaws seeming to threaten, in the south-west, an obstacle to the French dominion similar to that which the Iroquois had formerly presented to the north, it was resolved to attempt the conquest of that haughty nation, by a simultaneous attack from opposite directions.

Proceeding from New Orleans to Mobile with a fleet of sixty boats and canoes, Bienville ascended the Tombigbee to a fort or trading-house, lately established, two hundred and fifty miles up that river. There he was joined by twelve hundred Choctaws. The combined force having paddled up

the Tombigbee to the head of navigation, marched from the landing now known as Cotton Gin Port against a stronghold of the Chickasaws, situated about twenty miles west of it. Aware, however, of the approach of their enemies, and encouraged by some English traders, the Chickasaws repulsed the attack, and compelled the French and their allies to an inglorious retreat.

D'Artaguette, who simultaneously descended from the Illinois with fifty Frenchmen and a thousand Indians, had been still more unlucky. Not hearing anything of the other expedition, he too had ventured a separate attack on a more northerly fort of the Chickasaws, in which he fell, severely wounded. His forces were repulsed and hotly pursued. Himself and several others, taken prisoners, were burned at the stake. In consequence, no doubt, of the expense of this war, the "card money" system which prevailed in Canada was introduced in Louisiana also.

Three years after, the whole strength of New France was again exerted for the conquest of the Chickasaws. At a post established within their country, at that bluff on the Mississippi now the site of the city of Memphis, twelve hundred French soldiers were assembled, with twice as many Indians and negroes. But the ranks were soon thinned by sickness, and the French were glad to purchase peace by withdrawing their forces, leaving the Chickasaws still independent and indomitable.

The process for vacating the charter of Carolina had been delayed by the privilege of peerage, enjoyed by several of the proprietaries. To bring this to a conclusion, it was proposed to buy the province, and the bargain for that purpose was presently confirmed by act of Parliament. Seven of the eight proprietaries relinquished to the crown all their interest for the sum of £17,500, to which were added £5000 more for arrears of quit-rents, claimed to the amount of £9000. Lord Carteret, the eighth proprietor, surrendered his rights of jurisdiction, but chose to retain his interest in the soil, his share of which, in the territory north of the Savannah, was specially set off to him next to the Virginia line, which had been lately run, and marked as far westward as the Blue Ridge.

Louisburg, on which the French had spent much money, was by far the strongest fort north of the Gulf of Mexico. But the prisoners of Canso, carried thither, and afterward dismissed on parole, reported the garrison to be weak, and the works out of repair. So long as the French held this fortress, it was sure to be a source of annoyance to New England, but to wait for British aid to capture it would be tedious and uncertain, public attention in Great Britain being much engrossed by a threatened invasion. Under these circumstances, Shirley proposed to the General Court of Massachusetts the bold enterprise of a colonial expedition, of which Louisburg should be the object. After six days' deliberation and two additional messages from the governor, this proposal was adopted by a majority of one vote. A circular letter,

asking aid and co-operation, was sent to all the colonies as far south as Pennsylvania. In answer to this application, urged by a special messenger from Massachusetts, the Pennsylvania Assembly, still engaged in a warm controversy with Governor Thomas, voted £4000 of their currency to purchase provisions. The New Jersey Assembly, engaged, like that of Pennsylvania, in a violent quarrel with their governor, had refused to organize the militia or to vote supplies, unless Morris would first consent to all their measures, including a new

issue of paper money. They furnished, however, £2000 toward the Louisburg expedition, but declined to raise any men. The New York Assembly, after a long debate, voted £3000 of their currency; but this seemed to Clinton a niggardly grant, and he sent, beside, a quantity of provisions purchased by private subscription, and ten eighteen-pounders from the King's magazine. Connecticut voted five hundred men, led by Roger Wolcott, afterward governor, and appointed, by stipulation of the Connecticut Assembly, second in command of the expedition. Rhode Island and New Hampshire each raised a regiment of three hundred men; but the Rhode Island troops did not arrive till after Louisburg was taken. The chief burden of the enterprise, as was to be expected, fell on Massachusetts. In seven weeks an army of three thousand two hundred and fifty men was enlisted, transports were pressed, and bills of credit were profusely issued to pay the expense. Ten armed vessels were provided by Massachusetts, and one by each of the other New England