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

68 THE CHAIN OF POSTS. [1731-1750.determined more or less with a view to that traffic.Hence they had no slight commercial value. In someof them the Crown itself carried on trade throughagents who usually secured a lion's share of theprofits. Othei-s were farmed out to merchants at afixed sum.In others, again, the commanding officerwas permitted to trade on condition of maintainingthe post, paying the soldiers, and supporting a missionary;while in one case, at least, he was subjectedto similar obligations, though not permitted to tradehimself, but only to sell trading licenses to merchants.These methods of keeping up forts and garrisons wereof course open to prodigious abuses, and roused endlessjealousies and rivalries.France had now occupied the valley ofthe Mississippi,and joined with loose and uncertain links hertwo colonies of Canada and Louisiana. But thestrength of her hold on these regions of unkemptsavagery bore no proportion to the vastness of herclaims or the growing power of the rivals who weresoon to contest tliem.^1 On the claim of France that all North America, except theSpanish colonies of Mexico and Florida, belonged to her, seeAppendix A.