PAPERS RELATING TO OSWEGO.

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sooner hear of our conquests, than they will submit to, & trade altogether with us, The Five Nations will no longer be divided by French Intrigues, but will be absolutely at our Devotion, and the Trade& Influence of our Enemy will be confined to the Cold Country of Canada , which will scarce beworth keeping, and to the Hanks of the River Messasippi, Nay, no sooner will the Five Nations seeus masters on the Lake , than they will assist us to take the two Forts of Frontenac, & Niagra, forthey are now complaisant to the French only through Fear, knowing them to be a treacherous & en-terprising people. It was I presume to think, a very great Oversight, to suffer the French to buildthose two Forts, & I am persuaded if it had been strongly & rightly represented by the Governorsof this & the other Provinces a stop would have been put to it. Those Forts being built on theLands of the Five Nations (whose native and conquered countries encompass the Lake on the shorewhereon they are built) who by the 15 th Article of the Treaty of Utrecht are explicitly acknowledgedto be subject to the dominion of Great Britain , I am sensible that by the same article it is stipulatedthat bothjthe English & French , shall have a free Intercourse for Trade with all the Indians & theIndians with them, let them enjoy it, (when we are Masters of the Lake) in the like manner thatours is now carried on, viz 1 By Canoes and small rowing Boats , but I am pretty sure that when theDrench yoke is taken off their necks, the Indians will no longer trade with them, for the English Manufactures are much better, and they prefer them to French goods, but supposing that they shouldstill trade with them, it will be in a much smaller proportion than they now do, & besides they can-not then march in any numbers to disturb our Provinces, or the Indians, now & of old dependingon them. An Event of the highest importance, nor Cgn Canada supply Messasippi, or MessasippiCanada, with forces or merchandize in time of need: Before the French begun to build the Fort atNiagra, which is about 20 years ago, they cajoled some few of the young fellows of the Five Nations ,to give them permission to build a trading House there, but so soon as it reached the ears of theSachims or Rulers of those Nations, they resented it, acquainted the Governor of this Province, thatthe French had begun to build, & offered to join any force he should send to demolish the works,and to drive the French from thence, but this was unhappily neglected: incouraged by their successthere, they did, about twelve years ago, erect another Fort , and much stronger (on the Lands like-wise of the Five Nations) at a place called the Crown Point, about 160 miles from Albany betweenthat & Canada . In that part of the Country, where the Senecas chiefly dwell, & where I proposeour Vessells should be built, & the Regiment quartered, the Climate is temperate, & the lands ex-ceeding Fertile, so that in three years time from their going thither, provisions of all kinds (sufficientfor the Regiment & Vessells) may be raised, Except only Beef, which will require a year or two more,in the mean time cattle may be drove thither from the County of Albany , with as much ease as theyare now to the Garrison at Oswego, & no sooner will the Regiment march towards it, than farmerswill go thither under their cover to settle in that Country, being sure both of protection, & of amarket for what they raise, The Five Nations being acknowledged by the Treaty of Utrecht to besubject to the Dominion of Great Britain, & the Lake lying in their Country, it being surrounded bytheir Lands, I humbly submit it, whether we have not a Right, even before a Rupture to assume theDominion thereof, and to destroy the Forts the French have built in the Country of those Cantons,especially if we have their concurrence, of which & of their assistance too, I make no doubt, whenthey see the Regiment among them.

When we have thus vindicated our Right & established our Dominion on the Lake , the Regimentmay then be employed in the reduction of the Fort at the Crown Point, wherein, if there be need,we may I believe have assistance from the Provinces of Massachusetts Bay and New Hampshire , whohave settlements not far from thence, and who claim the lands adjoining to it, & one of them eventhat whereon the Fort is built.