CONFERENCE WITH THE INDIANS.

These hostilities were followed by divers skirmishes between the people of the two nations, which were fought with various success. At length the governors of the English settlements received orders from England to form a political confederacy for their mutual defence; and the governor of New York was directed to confer with the chiefs of the Six Nations, with a view to detach them from the French interest by dint of promises and presents of value, sent over for that purpose. A congress was accordingly appointed at Albany, to which place the governor of New York repaired, accompanied by commissioners from all the other British settlements; but a very small number of Indians arrived, and even these seemed to be indifferent to the advances and exhortations that were made by the English orator. The truth is, the French had artfully weaned them from their attachment to the subjects of Great Britain. Nevertheless, they accepted the presents, renewed their treaties with the king of England, and even demanded his assistance in driving the French from the posts and possessions they had usurped within the Indian territories. It was in consequence of the measures here taken, that colonel Washington was detached from Virginia with four hundred men, and occupied a post on the banks of the river Ohio, where he threw up some works, and erected a kind of occasional fort, in hopes of being able to defend himself in that situation, until he should be joined by a reinforcement from New York, which, how ever, did not arrive.