Wherefore to break that Practice more effectually I have placed a sufficient Guard of Soldiers on the Carrying Place to Canada and built a small Blockhouse there 3 with the remainder of the five hundred pounds before mentioned.

As to Niagara I did write to the Governor of Canada to complain of all the unwarrantable steps he has taken and among others of his erecting a Blockhouse at Niagara before the Treaty of Limits had settled who it belong to I received his answer at Albany in which he flatly denies most of the Facts I complain of.

But as to Niagara he pretends possession for above fifty years first taken by M> de la Sale. 1.

Irondequoit bay, Monroe Co. 3.

[Vol. l.J

2.

Major Abraham Schuyler.

Now Fort Edward, originally Fort Lydius, Washington Co,

;

EEX.ATINS TO OSWEGO.

J>AJ>E&S

EXTRACTS FROM FRENCH LETTERS. [

Paris Doc. VII. ]

Letter, dated 22 May 1725. M. the Marquis of Vaudreuil writes that he received advice the 8 th December that the English and the Dutch had projected an establishment at the mouth of the River Chouaguen on the borders of Lake Ontario and very near the post we have at Niagara. The news of this establishment on soil always considered as belonging to France appeared to him the more important as he felt the difficulty of preserving the post of Niagara where there is no tort, should the English once fortify Chouaguen and that in losing Niagara the Colony is lost and at the same time all the trade with the upper Country Indians, who go the more willingly to the English since they obtain goods there much cheaper and get as much brandy as they like, which we cannot absolutely dispense furnishing the upper country Indians, though with prudence, if it be desirable to prevent them carrying their furs and surrendering themselves to the English.