The  British,  on  the  other  hand,  asserted  a  right  to  the  en-
tire country,  on  account  of  the  discovery  of  Cabot,  as  may  be      British
seen  by  their  early  patents,  to  which  they  gave  an  extension  g^  ^^f
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.     This  title  they  had  sought       toiy.
to  strengthen.     The  chiefs  of  the  confederate  Iroquois  had  set
up  a  claim,  that  their  nations  had,  at  some  indefinite  period,
conquered  the  country  of  the  Mississippi ;  and  this  title,  such
as  it  was,  the  English  had  bought.
But  in  this  contest  for  the  right,  which  was  rather  with  the
savage  occupants  of  the  soil,  than  with  either  of  the  disputants,  Anapproach-
one  thing  was  evident ;  the  question  would  ultimately  be  settled  ^^^  contest,
between  them,  by  an  appeal  to  arms  ;  and  the   crisis  ap-
proached.
The  French  had  formed  the  vast  plan  of  a  chain  of  forts  to    chain  of
connect  their  settlements,  recently  made  at  the  mouth  of  the    forts  from
Mississippi,  with  their  earlier  colonies  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  the  St.  Law
They  had  accomplished  their   purpose  in  part,  having  for-  Mississippi*
tresses  along  the  lakes  as  far  as  the  southern  shore  of  Lake
Erie,  where  they  had  two  forts,  one  at  Presque  Isle,  and
another  on  French  creek,  twelve  miles  south.     On  the  Mis-
sissippi, and  on  the  Ohio  and  its  branches,  they  had  also  their
fortifications.  f^

A  number  of  gentlemen,  mostly  in  Virginia,  of  whom  Law-
rence Washington  was  one,  procured,  in  1750,  an  act  of  the
British  parliament,  constituting  them  "  the  Ohio  Company,"
and  granting  them  six  hundred  thousand  acres  of  land  on  or
near  the  Ohio  river.     They  caused  the  tract  to  be  surveyed,
and  opened  a  trade  with  the  Indians  in  the  vicinity.     This     1750.
