position on the fork of the river where Pittsburg now stands, and were anxious to secure it by a fortified station; but unfortunately the public spirit of the colonies was less intelligent than the private enterprise. The Provincial Assemblies quarrelled with their governors and with each other, and refused to vote a farthing either for building a fort or for presents to conciliate the Indians in the valley of the Ohio. [Sidenote: 1752-1753.] Then, as usual, while the colonies debated and postponed the French took prompt and decisive action. In the summer of 1752 a new Governor, Duquêsne, had arrived in Canada, who, as soon as the spring of 1753 was come, sent an expedition of fifteen hundred men through Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, where they landed on the eastern shore and built a fort of logs at Presquile, the site of the present Erie. Thence cutting a road for several leagues southward to French Creek (then called Rivière aux Bœufs), they constructed there a second fort named Fort le Bœuf, from which, when the water was high, they could launch their canoes on the creek and follow the stream downward to the Alleghany and the Ohio. The expedition was to have built a third fort at the junction of French Creek and the Alleghany, and descended the Ohio in order to intimidate the Indians, but the project was defeated by the sickliness of the troops. Garrisons were therefore left at Fort le Bœuf and Presquile, and the remainder of the force returned to Montreal, having thus secured communications between the St. Lawrence and the Ohio. [Sidenote: 1753.] [Sidenote: Dec. 11.]