The maxim was, that whoever possessed the coast had a right to all the territory inland as far as the Pacific; so that the British charters only laid down the limits of the colonies from north to south, leaving them quite free from east to west.

The French, meanwhile, had their colonies to the north and south, and aimed at connecting them by the Mississippi and the St.Lawrence and the great intermediate lakes and waters lying to the westward of the British possessions.

In the year 1748, though peace was signed between the two European kingdoms, the colonial question remained unsettled, to be opened again when either party should be strong enough to urge it.

In the year 1753, it came to an issue, on the Ohio river, where the British and French settlers met.

To be sure, there existed other people besides French and British, who thought they had a title to the territory about which the children of their White Fathers were battling, namely, the native Indians and proprietors of the soil.