A half-century of conflict. France and England in North America. Part ...

1746.] PROVINCIAL DISPUTES. 217sent from Montreal against the English borderbetween the twenty-ninth of March, 1746, and thetwenty-first of June in the same year. They numberthirty-five distinct bands, nearly all composed ofmission Indians living in or near the settledparts ofCanada, — Abenakis, Iroquois of the Lake of TwoMountains and of Sault St. Louis (Caughnawaga),Algonquins of the Ottawa, and others, in partiesrarely of more than thirty, and often of no more thansix, yet enough for waylaying travellers or killingwomen in kitchens or cow-sheds, and solitary laborersin the fields. This record is accompanied by a listof wild Western Indians who came down to Montrealin the summer of 1746 to share in these "militarymovements."^No part of the country suffered more than thewestern borders of Massachusetts and New Hampshire,and here were seen too plainly the evils of theprevailing want of concert among the British colonies.Massachusetts claimed extensive tractspresent northern boundary, and in thenorth of herbelief that herclaim would hold good, had built a small woodenfort, called Fort Dummer, on the Connecticut, forthe protection of settlers. New Hampshire disputedthe title, and the question, being referred to theCrown, was decided in her favor. On this, Massachusettswithdrew the garrison of Fort Dummer and1 Extrait sur les differents Mouvements Militaires qui se sont failsa Montreal a ['occasion de la Guerre, 1746, 1746. There is a translationin N. Y. Col. Docs.