brain, and "thus basely," in the words of Parkman, "perished the
champion of a ruined race." Claimed by Saint-Ange, the body was
borne across the river and buried with military honors near the
new Fort St. Louis. The site of Pontiac's grave was soon
forgotten, and today the people of a great city trample over and
about it without heed.



Chapter II. "A Lair Of Wild Beasts"

Benjamin Franklin, who was in London in 1760 as agent of the
Pennsylvania Assembly, gave the British ministers some wholesome
advice on the terms of the peace that should be made with France.
The St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes regions, he said, must be
retained by England at all costs. Moreover, the Mississippi
Valley must be taken, in order to provide for the growing
populations of the seaboard colonies suitable lands in the
interior, and so keep them engaged in agriculture. Otherwise
these populations would turn to manufacturing, and the industries
of the mother country would suffer.

The treaty of peace, three years later, brought the settlement
which Franklin suggested. The vast American back country, with
its inviting rivers and lakes, its shaded hills, and its sunny
prairies, became English territory. The English people had,
however, only the vaguest notion of the extent, appearance, and
resources of their new possession. Even the officials who drew
the treaty were as ignorant of the country as of middle Africa.
Prior to the outbreak of the war no widely known English writer