& Influence of our Enemy will be confined to the Cold Country of Canada, which will scarce be worth keeping, and to the Banks of the River Messasippi, Nay, no sooner will the Five Nations see us masters on the Lake, than they will assist us to take the two Forts of Frontenac, & Niagra, for they are now complaisant to the French only through Fear, knowing them to be a treacherous & enterprising people.

It was I

presume to think, a very great Oversight, to suffer the French to build

those two Forts, & I am persuaded if it had been strongly & rightly represented by the Governors

of this &. the other Provinces a stop would have been put to

it.

Those Forts being built on the

Lands of the Five Nations (whose native and conquered countries encompass the Lake on the shore

whereon they are built) who by the 15 th Article of the Treaty of Utrecht are explicitly acknowledged to be subject to the dominion of Great Britain, I am sensible that by the same article it is stipulated that both the English & French, shall have a free Intercourse for Trade with all the Indians & the

(when we are Masters of the Lake) in the like manner that ours is now carried on, viz By Canoes and small rowing Boats, but I am pretty sure that when the French 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 should Indians with them, let them enjoy