to hinder its being Surprized, and that

have posted some Souldiers in it, but that which gave me

the first thought of it, was the fortified and

much larger house which the French have built at

Niagara, upon the lands of the Five Nations, as it appears even by the Confession of M. de Longueuil, in his letter to me of the 16 th of August 1726, for he pretends that the Five Nations it

If that Post was not

by an unanimous consent.

had agreed to

upon their Land, but upon Land that belongs

incontestably to the French, I believe, Sir, that you would be very far from asking their consent to

do what you had a mind to do there. It has been always the same case with all the posts you mention and which besides had been abandoned many years before the Treaty of Utrecht, except Fort Frontenac only, which is on the other side of the Lake.

It is certain that the French never built any of them but by the permission

of the Five Nations, and always on pretence that they Avere only to be houses for the conveniency of

Trade with them and without ever pretending to claim the Property of those places And you seem, Sir, to allow almost as much yourself for you say, That His Most Christian Majesty had ordered :

Forts and other Establishments to be built in different places, &c, without any opposition. has been built without opposition can never be looked on as a conquest, as